The Urgency of Climate Change

The 2010 State of the World Forum is focused on how we can solve the crisis of  Climate Change.  In this spirit, the Forum will revolve around the following themes:

1. Our lack of action on global warming is now threatening human civilization itself.

James Hansen, Chief Scientist for NASA, has stated in an article in Science magazine that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen details six irreversible tipping points, including massive sea level rises and dramatic increases in extreme weather events, that we will soon pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by the recent melt of Arctic and Antarctic ice, may already be behind us.

Add to this the statement of Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."  He said this in December 2007.

Nothing is more urgent than a mass mobilization of people and ideas that can compel our governments and international institutions to confront head on the challenge of global warming and the reformation of politics this implies.  Working with Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the seminal book Plan B 3.0, we are inviting a range of scientists, policy analysts and systems thinkers to focus attention on the single overriding fact of our time:  human civilization is now at stake and decisive action must be taken.

2. Action on global warming can greatly aid our long-term economic well-being.

There is an intimate connection between the collapse of our financial markets and global warming. We are no longer experiencing occasional crises in an otherwise healthy system. We are now in the midst of a series of cascading crises of the system itself. Communism collapsed because it was not economically realistic. Now unregulated free market capitalism is collapsing because it is not being ecologically realistic. Business as usual, founded on a mantra of unrestricted growth and development, is no longer sustainable.

As we look ahead, we can expect an accelerating stream of crises, emanating seemingly out of nowhere, like last year's financial meltdown, and reverberating around the world with unpredictable, destabilizing and cascading effects. Crises will only hit harder and be tougher to overcome until human civilization either declines into ruin or human ingenuity creates a higher level vision of the future that will usher in a new era in human affairs.

A clean green industrial policy will simultaneously alleviate the most urgent threat to humankind and generate an economic boom built upon developing a green collar economy and an energy policy based on renewables. The 09 Forum will highlight discussions on how this can be accomplished within ten years.  Barack Obama has committed his presidency to eliminating U.S. dependence on foreign oil within ten years. Al Gore has called for sourcing all our electricity from renewable energy within ten years.  This is not only true for the United States. Every country in the world could equally usefully begin a ten year commitment to transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables. This can and should be done not out of fear or under duress but in the spirit of John Kennedy’s call to put a man on the moon in ten years.  It could be done then. It can be done now.  What is needed is visionary leadership and political will.

3. Visionary leadership is now possible with the emergence of progressives as a critical mass in politics.  

While our politicians dither, political will is reaching critical mass with the emergence of a new cultural group emerging in the United States, Europe, Japan and around the world that understands the gravity of the multiple crises confronting the planet and which holds values consistent with positive visions of the future. Progressives now constitute the largest single value group in the United States and are largely responsible for the election of Barack Obama. 

It is remarkable that just as global warming threatens the world, a new consciousness is emerging with the appreciation, values, skills and technologies that can shape a future sustainable and resilient enough to meet that threat. The implications of this emerging wave of change are as profound as the threat of global warming is imminent.

Sociologist Paul Ray pioneered the initial studies of this group and is currently completing the analysis of a new 2008 study, the findings of which will be profiled at the Forum. He has coined the term Cultural Creatives to describe the people comprising this new culture. The conference will feature studies from France, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Sri Lanka indicating that this emerging culture is in fact becoming a global phenomenon.  Related studies will be featured showing that a high percentage of the new Millennium Generation (young people aged 15-25) shares these values, suggesting that this phenomenon is not only global and cross cultural but also cross generational.  A political analysis of this data shows that 53% of the American public now embraces progressive values and that 70%-80% of the over-all public is aware of and supports decisive action on global warming.

The study in the United States is being conducted under the aegis of Wisdom University’s Institute for the Emerging Wisdom Culture, directed by Dr. Ray, which is also developing the global network of similar studies around the world. 

4. We are not in a crisis without solutions. We are in a crisis because we are not implementing solutions already here.

Complementing the emergence of new values around the world is the emergence of the enabling technologies that can solve our global crises. The Forum will profile the visionaries and activists developing cutting edge solutions, both technical and social.  The people selected will be those who can frame our current crises within the context of their solvability. The emphasis will be on the “bright green” and “Veridian design” environmental approach to dealing with global problems and will focus on integral thinking and systems analysis. The goal is to link the emerging population that understands the need for urgent and constructive change with the innovators of the enabling technologies that can implement that change. The purpose is to catalyze people, solutions and resources into a movement of global activism.

In this spirit, the 2010 Forum will highlight and network the technical and social aspects of the solutions we need to implement at a global level. A double helix of solutions -- one technical and one social, both emphasizing innovation – will be profiled, designed to enable people the world over to share ideas, compare experiences, and come together to build solutions to the challenges we all face. 

The urgency of our time and the imminence of the crises that could undermine human civilization itself make decisive and constructive action imperative. The data on the Cultural Creatives supports the hope that a new critical mass of people and ideas is emerging that can turn the tide.  Leaders who speak with authenticity about the future rather than moving cautiously to the center can galvanize enormous support among people who have been waiting for years for someone to speak to the values they really care about.