2009 STATE OF THE WORLD FORUM
Saving Civilization:
An Integral Approach to Climate Change and the Global Commons
November 12 - 14, 2009
Washington, D.C. Hilton Washington
Conference Pricing
Full fee: $999
Non-profit: $499
Youth/Student/Retired: $399
Daily rate: $250
Includes all plenary speakers and workshops, plus all keynote lunches, dinners and receptions.
Click here for more information:
http://www.worldforum.org/state-2009.htmConference Overview
The election of Barack Obama ushers in a new era in human affairs. We can now deal with issues long ignored and suppressed and implement policies and priorities that can deal with the critical challenges confronting the world, the most urgent and acute of which are the recent global financial meltdown and dealing with the escalating effects of global warming. While our economic woes seem more immediate, the effects of global warming are in fact more dangerous.
The Obama presidency and the next phase of world history ultimately will be defined by our collective response to global warming. Nothing is more clear, nothing more urgent, nothing more demanding of visionary leadership and fundamental human change. Indeed, it is in dealing decisively with global warming that the solutions to the current economic challenges will emerge. A clean green industrial policy and a focused campaign to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy within the next ten years, something that Al Gore has called for and a challenge to which President elect Obama has committed his presidency, will be the solution to putting our economic and political institutions in order and on the path to sustainability.
The opportunity Obama represents is framed by the reality that we are no longer approaching a chaos point in human affairs. We have entered the chaos point. The world has entered an era in which crisis and creativity, turbulence and resilience have come into dynamic proximity and new responses must be fashioned to ensure human survival. As we look ahead we can expect an accelerating stream of crises, emanating seemingly out of nowhere, like the financial meltdown just did, and reverberating throughout the global system with unpredictable, destabilizing and cascading effects. Crises will only increase in frequency and intensity until human civilization either succumbs in paralysis or human creativity designs and implements a higher level vision of the future that will usher in a new era in human affairs.
What will be unique and innovative about the 2009 State of the World Forum is that it will employ an integral framework to identify those initiatives that President Obama and the international community can initiate to establish an effective and globally geostrategic response to climate change. Complex global challenges like climate change contain complexity at multiple levels and require a synthesis of different domains of human knowing and action for the solution to actually produce lasting results. The nature of this complexity makes single domain solutions counterproductive and single perspectives unfeasible. It calls for an integrating framework to even begin to make sense of the full-scope of the systemic problem-set. Since climate change effects everything, multiple levels and perspectives must be brought together to solve the problem.
For the most part, governments, international agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, and companies all pursue solutions using partial data and partial perspectives. The net result is a fragmented set of responses that have no organizing ethos or consolidated strategy. Any battleeld commander knows this is the surest way to lose a battle. Confronting a challenge as large and complex as climate change, with stakes perhaps higher than any humanity has ever faced, requires an integrating framework to even begin the discussion of how to mount an appropriate response to this problem. Complex problems are either solved or perpetuated depending on how we approach their solutions.
The event will be structured to account for the process by which an integral solution set can be developed. It will also provide concrete examples of why any solution framework that promotes partial and factionalized approaches contributes more to the problem than the solution. This insight is crucial to the capability of effective leadership and speaks to the liberating power of the integral framework, which when used correctly is capable of allowing everyone to walk away a winner. When multiple perspectives are seen as integral to the solution, diverse perspectives emerge not as threats to one another but as essential to the solution itself.
The event will thus be designed to be more than a compilation of expert talking heads, or simply a sharing of different points of view, which characterizes most conferences. It will be explicitly designed to provide an integral framework, an integral analysis of global warming, and an integral perspective on viable solutions. The goal of the conference will be to open up avenues of personal awareness and political action that can both comprehensively understand the multidimensionality of the crises confronting us and provide solutions that can be durable and practical because they take into consideration the complexities we face.
The 2009 State of the World Forum is being developed in partnership with Earth Policy Institute, Integral Life and Olmstead Productions, and in collaboration with the Asian Foresight Institute, Club of Budapest, Caroline Myss Institute, Friends of the Earth, Gaiasoft, Hague Center for Global Governance, Global Urban Development, Jean Houston Foundation, M-CAM, Presidential Climate Action Project, Wisdom University, and a range of organizations and individuals.
The 09 Forum will have four central 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 changes in rainfall patterns, 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 will solve our economic crisis. 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. At the heart of the Forum will be 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 Kennedys 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 election of Barack Obama. 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. Sociologist Paul Ray pioneered the initial studies of this group and is currently completing a new one, the findings of which will be released this July. 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 Universitys 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.
At the heart of the Forum will be the launch of a Global Solutions Wiki that will enable people the world over to share ideas, compare experiences, and come together on line to build solutions to the challenges we all face within an integral framework. The Global Solutions Wiki would attempt for global problem solving what Wikipedia has done for information. Relying exclusively on careful moderators and people wanting to participate, Wikipedia has gathered information from multiple sources and constructed an encyclopedia that rivals Encylcopedia Britannica in both scope and accuracy and has done so at a fraction of the cost. Similarly, our Global Solutions Wiki would invite experts, lay people, and interested parties from all over the world to begin to self select and self organize around critical crisis areas such as global warming, poverty, deforestation, water scarcity, etc. to build solutions and tackle common problems.
In this spirit, the 09 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.
The 2009 State of the World Forum will be comprised of plenary sessions, workshops, networking, opportunities for dialogue, and will provide a structure for individuals, non profits and green companies to show their materials and breakthrough technologies. The proceedings will be streamed live on the Internet. The Forum is being produced by Michael Olmstead and his production company e2k.
The strategic intent of this endeavor is to discern an integral analysis of global warming, suggest integral solutions that can deal effectively with its deleterious effects, and build a global coalition that will endure over time and expand as it refines the values it seeks to embed in society as we shape our common future.
FORUM SPEAKERS, INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTORS, AND EXPERT PARTICIPANTS
Ray Anderson, Founder and CEO, Interface Inc.
http://www.interfaceglobal.com/
Bill Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project; Project Director and Senior Consultant, National Leadership Summits for a Sustainable America; and former Director, Department of Energy, Central Regional Office.
http://www.natcapsolutions.org/staff_becker.htm
Barrett C. Brown, Co-Director, Integral Sustainability Center, organizational consultant, author, and specialist in leadership development for global environmental and social sustainability.
http://integrallife.com/contributors/barrett-brown
Lester Brown, Founder, Earth Policy Institute, World Watch Institute, author of numerous books, including Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
http://www.earth-policy.org/About/Lester_bio.htm
Brian Castelli, Executive Vice President for Programs and Development, Alliance to Save Energy.
http://www.ase.org/content/article/detail/2267
Michael Cox, Chair, Executive Committee, California Student Sustainability Coalition.
http://www.sustainabilitycoalition.org/
Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Chair, Integral Theory Department, John F. Kennedy University; Executive Editor, Journal of Integral Theory and Practice; co-author, Integral Ecology.
http://www.integralinstitute.org
Morel Fourman, Founder, Gaiasoft; author Managing in the New Economy - Performance Management Habits; and The Book of Personal and Global Transformation.
http://www.mindofmany.com
Vasilis M. Fthenakis, Senior Scientist, Head, National Photovoltaic Environmental Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Director, Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Earth and Environmental Engineering Department, Columbia University
http://www.bnl.gov/pv/
Richard Hames, Distinguished University Professor, Founding Director, Asian Foresight Institute, Dhurakij Pundit University
Bangkok,Thailand
http://www.richardhames.com
Marilyn Hamilton, Founder, Integral City Meshworks Inc.; author, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligence for the Human Hive.
http://www.integralcity.com
James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Adjunct Professor, Department of Earth and Earth Sciences Division, Columbia University.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html
Johannes Heimrath, Executive Director, Club of Budapest.
http://www.johannesheimrath.de/
Jean Houston, mythologist, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, long regarded as one of the principal founders of the human potential movement; author of 19 published books, including The Possible Human, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, The Passion of Isis and Osiris, and Jump Time.
http://www.jeanhouston.org/meetjean.cfm
Ross Jackson, Founder and Chairman, Gaia Trust, a Danish foundation which since 1987 has supported over 300 sustainability products in over 40 countries, especially in the ecovillage movement. He is also a major shareholder in the Urtekram International, the largest organic wholesaler in Scandinavia.
Jurriaan Kamp, President, Editor-in-Chief, Ode Magazine
http://www.odemagazine.com/p2/Jurriaan%20Kamp
Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer/Group Manager, Thermal Systems Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
http://www.nrel.gov/
Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder/artist of the International Cheemah and Mari Monument Projects, which are dedicated to environmental sustainability, cultural diversity and societal transformation.
http://www.ospreyoriellelake.com
Ervin Laszlo, President, The Club of Budapest; Founder and University Chancellor, The Institute at GlobalShift University.
http://www.clubofbudapest.org/
Pierre-Yves Longaretti, Theoretical astrophysicist, Astrophysics Laboratory of Grenoble, France.
http://www-laog.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr/~pyl/
Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; focuses on transforming the hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and several other sectors toward advanced resource productivity. He has authored or co-authored twenty-nine books and hundreds of papers, and consulted for scores of industries and governments worldwide.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid56.php
Hunter Lovins, President and Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions. She is currently a founding Professor of Business at Presidio School of Management, one of the first accredited programs offering an MBA in Sustainable Management.
http://www.hunterlovins.com
David Martin, Executive Chairman, MCAM, Fellow, Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia.
http://www.m-cam.com/ceo
Peter Merry, Founding partner of Engage! InterAct; Chair of the Board of the Center for Human Emergence; author, Evolutionary Leadership.
http://www.engage.nu/interact
Caroline Myss, Author of five New York Times bestselling books, including Sacred Contracts, The Interior Castle, The Anatomy of the Spirit; founder, Caroline Myss Education Institute.
http://www.myss.com/
Karen O'Brien, Chair, Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project Professor, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
http://www.iss.uio.no/instituttet/ansatte/karenob.xml
Mary Otto-Chang, Consultant, UNICEF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Children and Climate Change; UN Secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2003-2007); UN Development Program, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (2000-2003).
UNICEF | UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean
Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2007); Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Director, Tata Energy Research Institute; author of over twenty books and numerous articles on ecology, climate change and technology.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/bios/pachauri.htm
Sandra Postel, Director, Global Water Policy Project and Center for the Environment at Mount Holyoke College.
http://www.globalwaterpolicy.org/biography.html
James Quilligan, Economic development policy advisor and writer for many international politicians and leaders, including Pierre Trudeau, Franois Mitterand, Jimmy Carter, Edward Heath, Julius Nyerere, Olof Palme, Willy Brandt, Tony Blair, and His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal.
http://www.global-negotiations.org
Sally Ranney, CEO, StillWater Preservation LLC.
http://www.stillwaterpreservation.com/sranney.html
Paul Ray, Sociologist; Director, Institute of the Emerging Wisdom Culture, Wisdom University; author, The Cultural Creatives.
http://www.wisdomuniversity.org/cultural-creatives.htm
Jerome Ringo, Chairman, Apollo Alliance; Associate Research Scholar Yale University; former Chairman, World Wildlife Fund.
http://www.jeromeringo.com/
Rustum Roy, Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State Emeritus; Professor of Science Technology and Society Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University
http://www.rustumroy.com/
Herman Scheer, President, EUROSOLAR - The European Association for Renewable Energy, General Chairman World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), Member of the German Bundestag, Publicist and Editor.
http://www.hermannscheer.de/en/
Robb Smith, CEO, Integral Institute; CEO, Integral Life.
http://integrallife.com/contributors/robb-smith
Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche; Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
http://www.cosmosandpsyche.com/AboutTheAuthor.php
Marc Weiss, Founder and CEO of Global Urban Development.
http://www.globalurban.org
Herman Wijffels, Member, Office of the Executive Director, World Bank, representing Armenia, Bosnia and Herzengovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine; former Chairman of Rabobank; Chairman, Economic and Social Council of the Netherlands.
http://www.clubofbudapest.org/p-amb-wijffels.php
Ken Wilber, Author of 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, he is the most widely translated academic writer in the United States. Ken is the internationally acknowledged originator of Integral Theory and founder of Integral Life.
http://www.kenwilber.com
Michael Zimmerman, Director, Center for Humanities and the Arts, and Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder; co-author, Integral Ecology.
http://www.colorado.edu/ArtsSciences/CHA/profiles/zimmerman.html
Ken Zweibel, former Program Leader for the Thin Film Photovoltaic Partnership Program, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and is often credited with the success of thin film photovoltaics in the U.S. Zweibel also cofounded a thin film CdTe PV start-up, PrimeStar Solar and became the founding Director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University. He has written two books on photovoltaics and co-authored a Scientific American article (January 2008) on solar energy as a solution to climate change.
http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Zweibel.htm
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