Observations by Michael Greenman:

If we don’t find a way to engage a large portion of humanity with the concept that the climate catastrophe is the number one issue to address for all of us, and to individually take action and make plans to do so, we’ll never get beyond that to other highly desirable global communications and common purpose - i.e. - a global concept of brotherhood, community, and “one for all, all for one” - cooperation and an understanding of the oneness, and common purpose of all of humanity, not to mention, all of life.

My response:

In a way, you’re making a point about scalability. Here are your words (bolded above) rephrased into a goal statement:

Find ways to engage a large portion of humanity in global communications (platforms) 1 2 that have a common purpose (gamification) whereby they individually take action every day, document what they’re doing, curious about, and concerned with, and receive a medium of exchange (compensation) they can use to secure their basic needs.

My rationale for such a statement is that we will NOT be successful enrolling the BILLIONS of people needed to make change happen in the magnitude required IF we do not have a clear path for them to follow that leads to sheer survival, at a minimum, or social acceptance, at best. Think of the millions of people in Ethiopia who are quite literally starving to death at this very moment despite the fact that they spend every waking minute trying to figure out how to get food to no avail and imagine how receptive they would be to signing up for a program to save the planet. Think of the billions of people who spend countless hours on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter who are incentivized to do so by advertisers and corporate strategies so they buy more and allow themselves to be manipulated by emojis, group think, and the quest for recognition—how willing would they be to contribute their intelligence, expertise, and experience to address even an existential issue if they get no TANGIBLE benefit in exchange?

To ramp up participation, though, begins with scalable communication platforms. Are there other, non-commercial platforms we can use? Currently, I’m into Micro.blog. Perhaps another candidate is WikiTribune Social. Or there’s Mastodon, which I post to, as well. Are you familiar with these? Would you be willing to give one of them a try? Or do you have one you like that you would like me to join? I’m game to go with anything that moves us beyond email, Zoom, etc. that limit open participation or Facebook, Twitter, etc. that distill participation into snarky soundbites or emojis.


  1. One example of an endeavor intent on tapping the power of such platforms:

    Doyle, Linda. “How to Create a Citizen Sensor Network.” The Cynefin Co, 25 Nov. 2021, https://thecynefin.co/how-to-create-a-citizen-sensor-network/.

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  2. Doyle, Linda. “Guide to Creating a Citizen Sensor Network”. The Cynefin Centre, Nov. 2021, https://cdn.cognitive-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/29213254/Citizen-Sensor-Network-1-1.pdf. [return]