Blog Introduction – who am i and what am i doing? (November 2020)

Hi. I am a now 35 year old student entering my final year of an MSc in Sustainability and my background is in physics having a BSc in Physics. In physics i would class myself as a theoretical physicist concerned with the underlying physical and mathematical theory of the universe and i am attempting to bring this approach to sustainability. I like the broadest of research and the most fundamentals of knowledge in a subject in order to understand and describe it as fully and completely as possible. Specialisation in a field is not my preferred type of research so i am hoping to study the bigger picture of sustainability which is such a transdisciplinary approach combining philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, politics and environmental science which could be described under the umbrella of the emerging field of global systems science.

Essentially, i would like to determine a plan of action or at least identify some novel approaches of fixing our global systems to avoid further destruction and prevent as much human suffering as possible and even save humanity from extinction. So the content i upload is often work from my degree and thus constrained by word limits and the brief set, but i do also upload academically unsubmitted content.

I am now (November 2020) beginning the process of forming my 16,000 word dissertation research idea, proposal and question where i would like to talk as broadly as possible, covering a large swathe of global systems science topics. Ideally this would form as close to a comprehensive strategy to transform our existing civilization into a sustainable, resilient and adaptive global system to deal with the challenges of climate change and the inherent dangers we pose to ourselves by our actions on this planet. This is a big stretch within such a small word limit and gaining the approval of my lecturers and future supervisor to examine these topics as broadly as i would like, but also for the thesis to be deemed a viable research document, will be a bar i set very high for myself.

Ultimately i know it’s not possible to provide a detailed global strategy within such a dissertation and it would be more fitting of a PhD degree to aim for such great feats. This is why i am considering a global ethics PhD for 2022 as many of these strategies are difficult to manage without ethical considerations and is in part why climate change and transforming civilization are deemed “wicked problems” because of the great deal of subjectivity and philosophical concerns within them. But i still work on such problems outside of my masters degree and do hope to arrive at more detailed, useful solutions before i finish the MSc and/or PhD (should i be clever enough to achieve enrolment on such a study programme).

I am aware of the desperate need for solutions to be provided soon as this emergency is appearing to require a crisis management approach if we are looking at an accelerated or abrupt climate change timeline. Also, i prefer a certain degree of anonymity but i do have a twitter page and may provide a personal email address for correspondence if anyone has any questions or input.

My twitter is: https://twitter.com/Planetarian215

Thanks for reading and hope this research journey is fruitful and others benefit from or enjoy reading my posts. 🙂

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