Global Journal of Science Frontier Research, H: Environment & Earth Science, Volume 22 Issue 5

address climate change? What happens if we change North Atlantic oceans currents? What happens because of all the extinctions? I clump interrelated substantive and process challenges we face into three sets below, about people, social concerns, and environmental matters. a) People First are problems with how we construct our sense of self and meaning that prefigures or limits our understanding of the world and problems. We typically do so conventionally. We know that there is great variability among people’s attentiveness, observations, and judgments across individuals and cultures. We know that people vary fundamentally in existential psychodynamics, personality and value commitments, and education and experience. Third are problems about the social and political organization and institutions within and among societies. Fundamentally, social matters are about the basic educational and moral commitments that individuals, groups, and societies aspire to. This includes matters of population size, growth, and consumption. Questions arise, such as: What is the relationship among human rights, democracy, and constitutionalism? Ignatia (2001) suggests that human rights standards will be compromised in the future by gulfs between universalistic declarations and national interests in our crises ridden world. The human “capacity to come closer to realizing aims is widely questioned, especially prospects outside of our now highly organized communities of human rights activists,” notes Gutman (1994., pp. vii-viii). Today the “human dignity” revolution is far from complete. c) Environmental Matters Environmental problems are an outward manifestation of standpoint considerations and social and political problems. Today, humankind is divided into many parochial ideologies and cultures each with its own goals and modes of living. These are organized often as nation states to smaller, more localized kinship and tribal groups at varying spatial scales and degrees of control. Each shows a different life script for individuals and it’s collectives. Some have a long history, transmitted intergenerationally through oral history and traditional knowledge systems. Others have a long history of formal constitutions, bodies of law, and public and advanced institutions, especially governance and educational ones. Critical here is the problem of social and political fragmentation. Also, there are questions about the use of science, and even the validity of science itself in some social circles. 21 Take these few environmental problems. First is about climate change and consequences to the human enterprise. Unless we rapidly address this problem, some observers think that collapse of civilization is the most likely outcome. The Earth’s poles are warming at The ongoing Covid 19 case and the anti-science and anti- vax contingent well illustrates problems. two to three times the rate of the rest of the world, Second is about the extinction crisis. It also poses existential threats to civilization. B iodiversity is declining worldwide, wreaking havoc on ecosystems. Third is about changes in the Atlantic ocean that may be heading for collapse due to climate change. The consequences of a collapse of eh current would be far- reaching. Currently there is a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which transports warm, salty water from the tropics to northern Europe and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. 22 Finally, there is the problem of the overall, human environmental footprint on Planet Earth. The 1 Global Journal of Science Frontier Research Volume XXII Issue V Year 2022 3 ( H ) Version I © 2022 Global Journals An Inquiry into “Convention”as a Problem and what we Might do About it? b) Social Concerns Second are problems about our goals. Much has been written on the overriding goal of humankind, ranging from secular (physical) to religious (metaphysical) texts. The goal is really about the meaning of life, human dignity, and human rights, at least in western nations. 18 Global goals are there in critical international documents of the “judicial revolution” of human dignity and rights, now underway since 1945 (post WW II). The choice before us is between systems of public and civic order that promote a commonwealth of human dignity in liberal democracies or garrison police states as totalitarian regimes. Our goal is about really how we understand our relationship to each other, nature, and all non- human life. Currently, there is disagreement on goals across humankind, (e.g., contrast ISIS - K in Afghanistan vs. social democracy in Sweden). I collapse these immensely complex matters into a short review below. 19 These include the Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the revised Geneva conventions of 1946, and the international convention of asylum of 1951.Goals address whether morality and values (e.g., respect, well- being, rectitude) are universal. 20 Individual, social, and political dynamics are typically based on deeply felt images of self, identity, authenticity, status, role, and power. Different forms of convention exist everywhere, as a kind of localized “uniformity” of perspective and it shapes how we see problems. This uniformity can lead to fragmented, divergent, and limited perspectives. Further, it can lead to divisive rancor and violent conflict as people act on how they see the world differently. 15 Importantly, it leads to dysfunction in problem recognition and solving. Yet, “noise” exists in our lives and it affects our judgments, sometimes bringing convention into question. 16 Whether individuals possess “democratic character” or not makes a difference in how they understand the noise, and their interactions and collective outcomes. 17