User:Information Ecologist~enwiki
Information ecologist[edit]I have defined my profession as an information ecologist since 1996, in response to a conception of information ecology as an embryonic holistic life science and operating system for sustainability and peace that emerged during the final stages of preparation for the 1996 Habitat II Conference in Istanbul. The seeds of information ecology had been planted with the June 1990 recognition of the transformed nature of information habitats in an era of microcomputers and information and communications technology and the establishment of Information Habitat: Where Information Lives [1], that was accredited as an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council in June 1995, and where I currently serve as Professor of Information Ecology. Information ecology[edit]The concept of information ecology I have been developing incorporates a holistic approach that goes significantly beyond other uses of the term in a number of significant respects, and includes: treating information, information systems and networks as life forms; a focus on information habitats and information species as core concepts, in keeping with the attention given to habitats and species in ecology; attention to the dynamics of rapid evolution of both information habitats and information species; appreciation of the key properties of information - zero mass, zero physical size and virtually zero travel time - and of the infinite dimensionality of information space, and; identification and formulation of a set of key principles that govern information. Current focus[edit]My current focus is participation in design, development, implementation and mobilization of an enabling global information ecology framework optimized for the environment, nature & properties of a free digital networked knowledge-based universe - a universe in which knowledge is the basis of wealth and where access to wealth is free from the constraints of: the law of conservation of energy; the law of conservation of mass; and three-dimensional Cartesian space and geometry. UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development[edit]Most of my current work is conducted under the auspices of the NGO Committee on Education [2] of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations - for which I serve as Chair of the Information & Communications Sub-Committee - and whose primary focus is on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014, and related International Decades. Climate Change 2.0[edit]Climate Change 2.0 [3] is an initiative intended to focus on the need and opportunities to harness the tools, resource, properties and intelligence of Web 2.0 in addressing the crisis of climate change and to facilitate the profound global transition to a sustainable development path based on a knowledge-based universe. The set of web sites for this project are mostly built on the powerful, versatile TiddlyWiki platform, supported by DataPerfect relational databases, and include a TiddlyWiki edition of the Summary for Policymakers of the Climate Change 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Community Gardens & Climate Change [4] - with a focus on composting - that is under development as a prototype for a Creative Commons curriculum. UDHR@60+: 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[edit]UDHR@60+[5] grew out of preparations for the 61st Annual DPI/NGO Conference that will commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has since evolved into an independent project that seeks to highlight the transformative opportunities for the protection and realization of human rights in a networked knowledge-based universe. Background training & experience[edit]My life's work up to that time had prepared me for the profession of information ecologist. I had been headed for a promising academic career as a mathematical sociologist with degrees in mathematics and economics at Cambridge and social relations - focusing on research design, methodology, mathematical sociology & interpersonal behavior - at Johns Hopkins. However I withdrew from academia in 1972 in the context of participation in the Vietnam Peace movement, and a concern as to the dominance of academia by a military-industrial complex. I learned much about information ecology in more than thirteen years working at the Baltimore City Jail - as librarian for eight and a half years, and the remaining five years an an administrative analyst and in the course of thirty years of experience with advocacy & activist organizations that focused on environment, peace, health & community development. Ecological dimensions[edit]The ecological dimensions of my training have grown out of a love for the natural environment and as an organic gardener - with a passion for composting that I had learned as a child, combined with an appreciation of holistic processes. My conception of information, information systems and networks as evolving life forms was inspired, in part, by A.J. Lotke's "Elements of Mathematical Biology". Since May, 1989, my attention has been focused on the work of the United Nations, beginning with preparations for the 1992 Earth Summit / UNCED, and on the vital role that information technology could play in support of broad-based participation of NGOs in the conference, and I had developed an outline proposal for an information, public participation and communications system [6] that had led to the 1990 Earth Day launch of a "Global Environmental Network" by the UNCED Secretariat. Selected web sites[edit]
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