In the Middle Ages, philosophers, the scientists of the era, explored the planetary elements and conducted experiments that proposed to transform dross into gold. It makes for fascinating reading, particularly the similarities of systems and methods of observation, speculation, theory, experiment, and discovery, the scientific process as it is known today.

As we pursue 21st century solutions to contemporary problems, we are conducting such experiments, proposing ideas, and speculating how we can use our knowledge and transform negatives into positives, without further exacerbating or extending our past mistakes into the future.

One such challenge is the matter of excess carbon…

To execute transformative response to the challenges of the 21st century we are going to need a new style of leadership across the full spectrum of action — from governance to corporate consciousness to manufacturing to engineering and design to research and education to new moral standards and consequent behavior by individual change agents at all levels of society.

Throughout this BLUEprint series we have shared many of the new financial tools required to realize change in forms that no longer exclude, deny equity, or foment economic disruption, poverty, and injustice. Economists have put forward macro-economic theories and best practices…

Change requires agents of change. Passage from one form­, state, style, or place to another, requires a period of transformation. Discussing the need for a global paradigm shift in response to climate and associated consequence on land and sea requires an audience, a potential community for action, a social/political response to a challenge, a need, a transition movement.

Struggling to find a response to the question “What will it take?” to move community forward at scale in time is a quandary shared by me and many others who view our circumstance as critical and demanding of a massive collective response…

By Maria Popova

This essay is adapted from BrainPickings.org: Figuring.

In June of 1952, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service received a letter of resignation from its most famous marine biologist. On the line requesting the reason for resignation, she had stated plainly: “To devote my time to writing.” But she was also leaving for the freedom to use her public voice as an instrument of change, awakening the world’s ecological conscience with her bold open letters holding the government accountable for its exploitation of nature.

Fifteen years earlier, at age twenty-nine, Rachel Carson (May 27, 1907–April 14, 1964) had gotten her…

Imagine First Nature, the planet at its origin, a swirling mix of forces that resolve into land and sea, a planet uninhabited, a wildness of fluid change and evolutionary being that exists for millennia, irrelevant units of time, itself a construct not yet defined, known, measured. We speak of earth as a blue marble, a colored clarity with tints or flecks of color that extrude from the core as bits of volcano mounts, as glacial mass emerging, drifting, shifting, to form something mass-like called land, even if there was then no one to see or name it. This is First…

When we talk about ocean resilience, we are talking essentially about capacity to heal and sustain ocean systems over time when interrupted by natural events such as extreme weather, flooding, and earthquakes that have throughout history damaged coastal areas and habitats, but have been able to recover through natural processes of restoration and sustainability. The challenge, as we have discussed so often is the intrusion of human activities such as nearshore development, agricultural run-off, industrial pollution, filling and dredging and port construction — all of which disturb the natural order of things and make significant, detrimental changes to the environment…

Annapolis, MD — Coral reefs are in crisis. Corals are an ancient life form and, because of the reefs that they build, the survival of countless other organisms is predicated on healthy coral ecosystems. But coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate. The world has lost more than half of its reefs over the past 40 years. The remainder could be lost by the end of the century if reef conservation efforts don’t score some swift victories. To conserve anything, first you need to know where it is, and how much you have left. …

Every year we celebrate World Oceans Day in June, a date designated by the United Nations to recognize our relationship with the ocean through so many different ways of global connection. Around the world, myriad organizations with ocean interests host events to highlight the value of ocean resources. There are maritime festivals and beach clean-ups, school projects and environmental presentations, digital events and celebrations the world over. What was once a bright idea is now an international event that for one brief moment focuses some part of ephemeral world interest on the ocean and its benefit for all mankind.

Every…