Spaceship Earth’s Quartermaster’s Report Volume 4 Published
Every six months This Spaceship Earth publishes the Quartermaster’s Report (QMR).
A Quartermaster’s Report, rooted in naval and military traditions, is a detailed account prepared by the ship’s supervisor (Quartermaster) to track supplies, equipment and provisions, ensuring operational readiness and crew welfare. In the context of This Spaceship Earth (TSE), the Quartermaster’s Report continues this legacy by applying this same process to Spaceship Earth as a single entity. There are more than 100 data points in the QMR Volume 4, so you can read the current issue, as of November 2024, to learn about most issues relative to our environment and climate crisis.
What is “passively non-reversible”? The QMR opens with this astounding list. It sets the stage for the rest of the Report. Once you understand the enormity of our situation, and the infinite ways you can contribute to a solution, you can help… and you can inform your network of friends, relatives and colleagues. By educating yourself with this unique and insightful research, you can inform the actions you take, and the conversations you have.
Get your free download here, courtesy of This Spaceship Earth and Origina, our corporate supporter.
Every QMR starts off with a list of passively non-reversible dynamics on the planet. Here are a few:
- Air Quality in decline, not passively reversible
- Availability of Safe Potable Water in decline, not passively reversible
- Average Global Temperature increasing, not passively reversible
- Biodiversity and Bio-abundance in decline, not passively reversible
- Commercial Fish Stocks in decline, not passively reversible
- Extreme Weather Events increasing, not passively reversible.
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions increasing, not passively reversible
- Rates of Species Loss increasing, not passively reversible
This is how the QMR has always opened: to establish the reality of what is actually happening on Spaceship Earth. Most of the ‘not passively reversible’ are the consequences of what humans have and are doing on the planet. We at This Spaceship Earth have always maintained that we don’t need to save the planet, we need to save ourselves from ourselves. We have triggered all the problems listed above and can therefore take actions to aggressively reverse them. But we haven’t done that yet.
The goal of the Quartermaster’s Report is to state what has and is happening on Spaceship Earth. Not what we think is happening, or want to happen, but what IS. The problem is so much of the information around climate is siloed. There are groups interested in a particular species, say polar bears. There are groups focused on sustainable agriculture, composting, new forms of energy. These are all good, but they don’t present the totality of what is going on with the planet, or nature.
The history of the QMR is a short one – ten years since the first one was written. In 2015, Tim Rumage and I co-authored “This Spaceship Earth” to great success. This led to launching the global non-profit a year later. The QMR was first published published as Chapter 2 of the book.
The second time we published the QMR was in the short eBook “Now That You Know” which is available for free on the same website also courtesy of our corporate supporter Origina. What we realized when we published this version of the QMR is that the amount of change and acceleration of it was so alarming that we made the decision to publish the QMR every six months, starting in 2024. The climate crisis is accelerating so rapidly that once a year is too infrequent. We intend to research, write, and publish the QMR every six months as a service to our fellow crewmembers.
We hope you download and read this report and share it far and wide. Most people have no idea how serious our collective situation is.
“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew!” – Marshall McLuhan circa 1970
Are you crew?
This post was originally published on the Evolutionshift Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Please share with everyone, but certainly with friends who are concerned about our climate crisis.
