The Great Globe Project

On persistence and hope.

Back in about 2006, when I served as the director of the Arizona state energy office I got a tour of a custom built home in north Scottsdale.

Not just any home.

It was so far ahead of its time that we’re still not seeing many of its advancements in other homes, 20 years later.

It was nestled into the side of a small hill, oriented in such a way that it used the thermal mass of the bedrock to regulate its temperature year-round. It’s roof was covered with desert soil and plants that shielded the structure from the sun and purified rain water that ran off the home.

Its solar panels created hydrogen through electrolysis. That hydrogen was used to power the home when the sun was not in the sky and fueled the gas stove for cooking.

But more interestingly, the hydrogen fuel cells heated or cooled water, which ran through tubes in the floors and ceilings to control the temperature of each room. There was no forced air heating and cooling, as with all other homes. The rooms just were the temperature that you wanted —all from the sun’s energy.

This technology is something so many more of us could have had in our homes by now, were it not for resistance from the fossil fuel industries, their lackeys in the media and change-resistant home builders.

But this article is not about that resistance.

I want to tell you about perseverance; a lifetime of it.

Commitment to an idea.

Bryan Beaulieu, an engineer, the designer and the owner of that home, was more than just ahead of his time in eco home building. He has been working on an inspiring idea for almost 35 years, which he hopes will change people’s perspectives around the world: The Great Globe project.

I’ve been inspired by Bryan’s vision and commitment since I first learned of his project. The optimistic part of me that believes our current political malaise will be followed by an era of reform and human awakening. In that hopeful era, I see a role for the Globe.

Back in 1993, Bryan was asked by the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology to help get children interested in science and technology. He proposed building a 50 foot tall model of Earth. 11,000 students were bussed to campus from around the state to assemble the globe with parts they made in their classrooms. In 4 hours they had completed the largest globe in the world.

Inspired by his success, he’s been pushing forward with an idea so audacious that it could only be completed on a grand scale.

Bryan wants to build a 420 ft Great Globe here in Arizona, which will be open to the public as a permanent attraction. But more than just being Arizona’s version of the world’s largest ball of twine, this will be an IRL classroom for students all over the world.

The globe is designed to be covered by 10 million triangular tiles, made from recycled plastic, and detailed enough to allow you to see incredible details on the planet. Bryan has already begun distributing 3D printers and materials for students to study, report on and print all of these tiles.

Imagine a student being assigned to study a tile depicting a piece of land in the Himalayas. Each triangular tile is about 4 inches on a side and represents 15 square miles of earth’s surface. Their job is to study and report on that land, its culture, ecology, geography, or whatever. They then 3D print the topographically accurate tile and send it to be attached to the Globe here in Arizona. Each student’s report on that tile will be stored in the Great Globe’s database.

You can watch the full promo video here.

You can see how a project like this connects students to the rest of the world in a tangible way that social media or virtual images can’t.

I’ve watched for almost 20 years as Bryan has continued to push this idea despite multiple setbacks. I’ve seen him approach the European Union to build it in the Old Country. I’ve seen him approach a tribe here in Arizona. He told me how a housing developer was also pitching the Globe as part of a central Arizona planned community.

In each of these cases, something stalled out.

That is not abnormal for a project of this magnitude. What I find amazing, as a person who has had my own ups and downs in my career, is that he keeps going.

He’s working on his next proposal to locate the Great Globe somewhere here in Arizona. He just doesn’t stop.

I don’t know that I can say that I’ve met a person in my life who has been so singularly focused on one task, such a grand vision. There is certainly room to debate some aspects of the project. We should with any such endeavor. Yet my attention is continually drawn back to his dogged and admirable persistence.

So, I bring you all of this as a simple reminder —both to you and to myself. We are up against so much today. So much hate. So much misinformation. Decades of careful and malicious planning that has brought us to the brink of autocracy, which we must somehow unwind.

I look at a project like Bryan’s and remember that it is possible to have such a singular focus on repairing and improving our American experiment and our human condition. Under the best of circumstances, it will take decades. Generations.

Bryan sees a better world, and he does not quit.

Neither will I.

Let’s be inspired by the Great Globe.