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My Final Post: Habitat Loss Hurts us All – Let’s Start Truly Making the Connection

September 4, 2022  

After receiving more than my share of (deserved) flak, I’ve decided to shut down the blog today, but I am leaving it active as a reminder/warning. I set this blog up with the intention of helping people make connections. To make the connection between climate change and habitat loss, and to make connections with the nonhumans all around us. We share our world with animals, plants, lakes, forests, and yet we treat them like resources to be monetized. EarthBand hoped to foster meaningful connections between humans and nonhumans, show our entangled relationships, and let humans share their experiences. Now I know we’re not ready for it.

Some of the influencers who were early adopters of the EarthBand have been on the news. People are calling them experts in nonhuman connections! Unbelievable. I hold them partly responsible for the disaster at launch. Earth Score has become a competition, not a fun way to keep people engaged. We were so naive.

Deep Lake National Park has closed for now. It will take a long time for its lands to recover and welcome back the species it once protected. I’ve heard EarthBand launches around the world experienced similar overcrowding and destruction. I’m sorry for the role I played in the band’s development. I’ve asked FriendlyTech to stop selling EarthBand to prevent this type of habitat destruction from happening again but I need your help to get through. You can sign the petition here. By continuing the sale, FriendlyTech has shown its true intentions were profit all along.

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Repercussions for All of Us

August 30, 2022  

So by now you know the launch was a disaster. I don’t know where it went wrong. We (FriendlyTech’s event organizers) expected a crowd but a small crowd. The park told them capacity was 200 to 300 people maximum. You’ve seen the papers and online media. The police called to the scene said there might have been 10,000 people here.

Let me be clear, I couldn’t be happier about the interest in the device but the crowds of people here we obviously not interested in the principles of the EarthBand.

This was supposed to be an event about connecting with nature, about understanding our relationship with nonhumans. This was supposed to be about understanding how we can better share our space, not destroy the shared places we need to protect and preserve.

This was a failure on multiple levels, but I wish we had never started this project. but FriendlyTech looks to be pushing ahead with the device. The park is threatening legal action against the company. I’m not really sure about how secure my job is anymore.

What saddens me most of all is how people left trash up and down the roads, and covered the park with litter. Honestly, whatever happened to Earth Score!? I thought these people were interested in the values of the EarthBand. The trails we’ve spent years looking after are trampled and so are our wooded areas. We do not have the budget to perform a massive cleanup operation, but even if we did, the damage has already been done.

(Above) Photos I took of the incredible lineups of traffic outside the park and of some of the destruction we’re still cleaning up.

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Launch and Meeting Influencers

August 19, 2022  

I can’t believe the day is almost here. We’re ready to go live with the first release of the EarthBand! Launch parties will be happening all around the world, including right here at Deep Lake National Park! The organizers are expecting around 200 guests, maybe up to 300. We can’t accommodate much more than that to be honest, but I am so excited that many people are interested in EarthBand.

Forget my initial hesitations about the social media integration, I’ve personally met about six of the “influencers” who will be sharing the first units of the device. These people run social media channels with hundreds of thousands of followers and I can say without hesitation they’re just as enthusiastic about EarthBand as I am. They can’t wait to start using the band and sharing their experiences.

It turns out FriendlyTech actually gave a few of them early prototypes (not the one I had) and these influencers have started racking up their Earth Score! One even told me she felt like an expert in nonhuman connections! I’m not sure I’d call any of these people experts but I’m glad they’re seeing the nonhuman connections.

For my part, FriendlyTech wants me to be their “product expert” at the launch so if they get any calls from media, they want me to chat with journalists about the ideas behind the band.

I’ll report back after launch. Fingers crossed this is a success! I hope the band really does help people make meaningful connections with their surroundings — know the plants, animals, and other things they live with and are entangled with.

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Dev Update, “Earth Score” and Some Hesitations about Social Media

August 2, 2022  

So it’s been a while since my last post. I’m so excited about the Earth Band but I have to also focus on doing my job.

On the development side, FriendlyTech is working out the kinks with the software but I hear things have improved vastly since I tried the prototype. Apparently they have access to a massive database now so the “Earth Object Recognition Engine” (EORE for short…not to be confused with Eeyore) is faster to identify and tag objects when the wearer is walking around in nature. I am so excited for the potential the device has to let people get to know the world around them in ways never before possible.

One idea I have hesitations about is the social media integration. My initial thought for EarthBand was to give us reprieve from the bombardment of social media. But FriendlyTech is adamant about including some social component because they say people like sharing their experiences with their “followers.” I find the whole thing problematic because FriendlyTech wants to combine the social media sharing with a thing they’re calling your “Earth Score” (ES). Basically, the more time you spend with the device and the more things you tag, the higher your ES. Kat at FriendlyTech thinks ES rankings could be huge and has even started drawing up plans for a user conference for users with the highest ranking ES.

On paper, I guess it’s a nice way to reward people for being conscious of our surroundings and human effects on the planet, but it sounds too much like a competition to me. I guess I’ve just seen so much go wrong with social media that I’m worried people will be using the EarthBand for the wrong reasons. People should want to use the band because they’re interested in knowing more about our connections to the world around us, not because they want to have the highest EarthScore out of their friends (although, maybe the reasons don’t matter).

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First Walk with the Prototype (VIDEOS!!)

July 16, 2022  

Last week I got a call the team at FriendlyTech to let me know the first prototypes of the “EarthBand” were ready to test. It’s only been a month since we chatted at FriendlyTech headquarters — they work F A S T.

I took it for a test drive earlier today and I wanted to share some of the initial results. Steve and Kat from the hardware team met me at the park to help me get set up, sorry if you can hear them in the background. I was surprised by how loud the startup routine is, but they say this is just something in the prototype. The final production models won’t have any moving pieces.

A word of warning, some of the features aren’t finalized yet and the buzzing in your ears as the machine starts up in intense! The video sharing features don’t work yet but the team let me offload these videos. They say the design isn’t final yet but I think it looks pretty cool. I would have preferred green for the wristband but they says black and pink are always the top sellers.

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Design Meeting + Sketches!

June 14, 2022  

Talk with FriendlyTech was a massive success. We brainstormed for three hours. The last time I sat in a conference room for three hours was…well, never, so I know there were some seriously good ideas floating around that meeting.

One of the hardware developers wrote something amazing on the whiteboard so I took a photo to share…

Turn up the gain on nature! I love it!

I’m probably not supposed to talk about our ideas but nobody reads this blog anyway. We brainstormed our ideas for a “device” (that’s tech-speak for armband…almost like a watch) that would let people feel more connected to their natural surroundings by heightening their senses. The idea is still being worked out but basically, they have the technology to enhance our natural senses: sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste and combine it with a system that stops our phones from sending us notifications. In other words, using this device we can block out the artificial and focus on the natural!

We’re going to start work on a prototype immediately (sketches below. I snapped a shot from one of the designers there!). Since the development teams are feeling pressure from their bosses to compete with all the other devices out there (and make something different) I don’t think it will be long before things start to take shape.

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Connections with Humans (and Nonhumans!), and some Exciting New Opportunities!

May 26, 2022  

Last week I blogged about a presentation I was giving to visitors to the park. Turns out the visitors were a group of hardware and software developers from FriendlyTech! Can you believe it? They were at the park to participate in team building activities but were very interested in my presentation on our connections with nature.

I was speaking with a leader from their hardware group after the presentation and she said my presentation really moved her. She floated the idea a collaboration! Apparently the company was working on a health and fitness tracker (like those armbands everyone is wearing so they don’t miss a text message) but the company was having trouble differentiating their device from others on the market.

The point is FriendlyTech wants me to come and give a presentation to the entire company about making meaningful connections with nonhumans, and why we need every tool possible in the fight against the effects of climate change. They want me to come in just two weeks and then stay for a brainstorming session with their hardware team.

Even though I’ve never done any work with technology companies, we talked about somehow combining the work FriendlyTech has done on their armband with my work exploring our connections with nonhumans.

I’m so excited about the opportunity to help others understand how entangled we are with our environment!!

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Giving Presentation Today on Entanglements

May 20, 2022  

One of my favourite parts of my job is to educate visitors to the park about our natural surroundings and our entangled relationship with nature. At this park we have protected species of plants and animals, whose habitat is at risk due to climate change (human effects on the environment). Forest fires, warming temperatures, urban development, all contribute to habitat loss. Deep Lake National Park is a refuge for them. Nothing gets me more excited than seeing faces light up with wonder when I show photos of the wildlife in the park and talk about how connected we are to the wildlife here. How our decisions at home can contribute to their well being. The presentations I give tend to focus on showing the connections we share with animals and plants, and how the choices we make can have positive and negative impacts on life in our park — and everywhere on the planet.

I highlight these connections for visitors to help them understand the very real relationship between climate change and threats to biodiversity (though habit loss and land degradation). These are very complex issues needing global solutions, but my hope is the more we come to think about them and our effects on the environment in our daily lives the more likely we are to make positive and meaningful choices. Making a difference at home could be as simple as turning off a light switch, putting plastic in the recycling (or not using them at all!), or being aware of your own carbon footprint. I just want people to start thinking about their choices in terms of our connected lives with plants, animals, lakes, and our environment.

Some photos I took of our nonhuman friends at Deep Woods National Park.