Letter to Jessica, our current and leaving Network Coordinator (National Board) of Climate Chance

Dear Jessica, my dearest partner:

Been facilitating a series of discussions since the 350 Rally, from Antarctica Sharing, Film Screening, Network Briefing, Media to Vision-Building and lunch buffet, as well as representing India at the Climate Simulation (all within this past month!). We now have about 30 membership and 20 volunteer applications.

There is a lot to be learned during this process.  Especially from the feedback that “Serena is the president,” or “do not argue, but negotiate!” or “Can you initiate the meeting for me?”

3 of my personal purposes -all failed.

1- to make sure we have space for inquiry and dialogue (rather than argument or negotiation)

2 - to make sure there is no identifiable leader or person in charge, and

3- to make sure people feel powerful to initiate their own meetings.

Then i looked back and see how I try to do all these things and by making sure these things happen, I am already trying to control or manage them assuming that they would not have made a better choice otherwise.

So I took sometime to read through some of the books about conversations which lead to the paradigm shift: I wish to share with you  the notes from Peter Block,  Community: The Structure of Belonging - which i finished reading in 2 days (feel free to borrow the book). The book is highly recommended by my trainers and facilitators of Interactive Institution for Social Change and provides practical guides for how we act as “leaders”:

Conversations which create a community of accountability and belonging:
1-    Intimate and authentic relatedness is experienced
2-   World is shifted through invitation rather than mandate
3-   The focus is on the communal possibility
4-    There is a shift in ownership of this place,
5-.    Diversity of thinking and dissent are given space
6-    Commitments are made without barter
7-    The gifts of each person and our community are acknowledged and valued.

Click above links for examples

He also mentioned examples of Conversation which traps us in the same place:
1-    Telling the history of how we got here  - we did that!
2-    Giving explanations and opinions - we did that!
3-    Blaming and complaining - we did that!
4-    Making reports and descriptions - I tried to make people do that. You stopped me.
5-    Carefully defining terms and conditions- I did that!
6-    Retelling your story again and again- I did that!
7-    Seeking quick action -We are always tempted to do that!

I will put up the notes for each of these elements in separate posts later.

All the best, thank you for being here, always!

Love, and grateful,

In joy,

S

Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector - high recommanded!

If you are interested in the future of social change, I highly recommend that you read it.

It is not possible in the allotted space I have here to capture everything the report highlights as propositions for us to consider.  But I will flag a few things that were deeply resonant and interesting:

• Going forward, the driving question will be “what do we want to accomplish?”, with corporate form (whether nonprofit, for-profit, hybrid, network) following from this goal.  Younger generations are less tied to particular organizational forms (and the rush to form 501(c)3s).  They are most interested in tapping the best tools that help get the job done, including social media.  Sector-agnosticism is in!
• Increasingly, the communication emanating from organizations and initiatives will need to be continuous, personalized, and come from multiple sources.  Anything that smacks of being overly “marketed,” or trumpeted only by an expert/celebrity, will not be well received.  Authenticity is in!
• A new kind of ROI is on the rise, thanks in part to collaborative tools such as Twitter – not Return on Investment, but Return on Insight.  Listening and learning are in!
• Navigating the convergence of all five trends will mean that organizations need to abandon overtly and overly hierarchical structures and become much more collaboration and network-savvy.
• Furthermore, we are all being called upon to become futurists of sorts who acknowledge that with the existing rates of change, what is so today will not necessarily be so tomorrow.  It behooves us to tune into our surroundings and take careful note of the shifts and to adapt!

There is much more to say, and I will leave it to you now.  What do you think?  What do you see as the future of the social sector and our work?

Serena

Re-blog from http://interactioninstitute.org/blog/2009/11/12/were-all-futurists-now/#more-1669

The Apparent Dilemma of World Leader’s or The Burning Building - Roger Burton

Among world leaders there is no longer an actual debate about climate change. It is clear that the CO2 molecule traps heat. It is clear that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at anytime in the past 50,000 years and the gross amount and rate of emissions are both growing. World leaders also recognize that we, humankind, are, if not the cause, at least a major contributor to this condition.

This is all well known and socialized. None of this is actually a debate among leaders. World leaders are now in a negotiation about it. In that negotiation it is strategic to assume certain positions, some of which are even counter to factual conditions. This is true for many corporate leaders in multi-nationals as well. They know we need to do something about climate change, but strategically, cannot say so publicly. Or conversely, they say something about this publicly and strategically, but are not engaged in really meaningful activity about it.

Consider the actual nature of the negotiation. It is simple. Who will bear the cost of the changes we must make? Who will own and reap the benefits of the solutions we must create? If this seems crazy to you, you are not crazy. Imagine it this way. There is a diverse set of people in a burning building. They all are know the building is burning, but it seems to be burning slowly. They can see the smoke. Occasionally a wall collapses on some of the people, but they are not yet be consumed by the flame itself in any way they collectively notice. In some parts of the house people are more vulnerable and effected than others. I am sure the analogy is clear.

Now imagine that the people in the house are more concerned with who will benefit from putting out the fire than they are about actually putting out the fire. Many of the residents are doing things in their own rooms that they feel might help slow the fire, but the building as a whole is burning! They are arguing about whose fault this is. People in the building are increasingly upset at their situation which is more and more unstable. They are saying, ‘I will not promise to help put out the fire until you promise.’ Before they do anything serious together to put out the fire they want to know who will buy and sell the fire extinguishers. They want to know who will pay for the fire department. They are arguing about this even as the paint begins to peel from the walls. Many of them are simply trying to protect their own room in the burning building.

This analogy is not complete since it does not include that the building is not simply burning, but is being actively burned up by the very way that people are living in the building. This complicates things since it means that they not only have to put out the fire, but also fundamentally change the way they are living. Many of them do not want to do this. Many of them feel this is impossible. They can only imagine living in a way that requires burning the building. They may believe that they can simply burn some other part of the building in order to continue living in the way to which they have become accustomed. Or they may believe that someone else is burning the building, but it is not them and therefore they do not have to address the issue. They may believe that some way they trade with other people in the building will put out the fire, or that someone will invent a miraculous new fire extinguisher, never realizing that even their way of trading with one another and inventing things is itself involved in burning the building. All the while no one is doing much more than attempting to protect their own room and strategically position themselves to insure that, even though this is obviously futile given that the entire building is burning. No one is doing much more than strategically positioning themselves for the hypothetical case of putting out the fire. Many of the people in the building are far more concerned with their profit or loss, than with actually doiwe ng anything about the increasingly obvious fire that threatens all the residents of the building.

We were talking about world leaders, weren’t we? In talking about the inaction and strategic positioning of world leaders, there is something else we must consider. There is another reason they are not effectively in action. There is another reason they are paralyzed. They are paralyzed by fear. “Fear,” you say, “but what could these very powerful world leaders be afraid of?” In short, if you are reading this, they are afraid of you. They realize the degree of change that is needed and they know how difficult this will be. They are simply afraid that you will protest the degree of change required. They will not get re-elected. You will create social unrest. Yes, you. They are afraid that you will not want, or be able to give up the very things that are causing the fire in the day to day way you live your life and in the dreams you have about your future. They cannot imagine living in a way that is satisfying without burning down the building. They do not believe you can imagine that. They believe that it is their duty to protect the room you live in, even though the entire building is burning. They are afraid of each and all of you. They are also afraid of the powerful institutions that profit from participation in producing the lifestyle you live or are learning to live that is actively burning down the building.

We must have some compassion for these world leaders. They are stuck. They are afraid that if they act to put out the fire they will create suffering and social unrest. They are afraid they will sacrifice the possibility of a full and meaningful future if they act to put out the fire, because they, like you, have not and cannot imagine a way of living that does not require burning down the building. They are also afraid of the consequences of not acting to put out the fire. They are navigating a very difficult passage, with fear of you on the one side and fear for you on the other. The history of humankind shows that they are right to be afraid. We must, together, reach a new moment and possibility of history. What is your compassionate message to these trapped leaders? What would you tell them? How would you demonstrate the sincerity of your message? Threatening them will do little good. They are already threatened on every front.

Where will you cooperate and collaborate about your message to them? Where will you cease to live and enact the burning of the building even in your day to day lives? If you realized you were not separate from all the other people in the building, what would you do differently? If you realized you were not separate from the building itself, what might you differently? How would you respond to such a realization in your day to day, moment to moment living together?

The point here is that some ‘they’ is not burning down the external building. True, the institutions of power and profit are failing to put out the fire. We, all of us together, are burning down the building, which is not in any way actually separate from us, in each moment of our lives. We must first and foremost resolve to stop and make that resolution real in the details of our lives together. Only in the enactment and moment of this collective cessation will we then be able to begin to see the way to a full and abundant future together.

Roger S. Burton

SoL China Advisor

10/15/2009

Us - 350 October 24th- caught on CNN TV!

My friend texted me and said she saw this!

GO to: http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/international/2009/10/29/bs.350.org.global.environment.cnn if you cannot see it.

Serena

Industrial Era Assumptions

From Roger Burton

The industrial era can be understood as:

• A particular distortion of the ‘western canon’ enacted and amplified over the past several centuries.  This can be understood as a subject-object world view or paradigm and all the implications of that.

As a paradigm it can be considered to have several basic qualities:

• A fundamental separative activity and enactment of objectification;

1. Objectification of the planet
2. Objectification of one another
3. Objectification of the self

• Extraction of the then apparent resources and value

• For the sake of consumption where consumption has become conflated with the notion of happiness or reduction of suffering  (consumer-ego)

• In order to maximize and consolidate profit in a reinforcing dynamic with the above.

There are some other components and historical considerations, but this is the heart of it. All of this would be consistent and make sense in a scarcity based world of competition.  The increased ability to manipulate objects, and indeed one another as objects, makes perfect sense as a useful survival advantage in that sort of world.  Our modern economics are based on these assumptions of scarcity and competition (as well as being abstracted from a conscious
relationship to the biosphere). 

We, all of us, in so far as we are in any way associated or self-identifying with and participating in this system of objectification and separative activity, have some form of these choices available to us, personally and collectively.  This last case of transition is difficult.

For example, because there is increased volatility in the system it is likely to look like ‘economic stimulus’ is working, when in fact it is only contributing to the volatility and creating ‘recovery bubbles.’  If one is looking at those bubbles there is no reason to change anything.  In fact it will seem like it is necessary to do more of what we are already doing since it will appear to be working.  Hence, you get the sort of insane thinking that has us attempt to stimulate consumption in order to
address the current condition.

Of course, these “bubbles” also provide a very real opportunity if we can remain awake.  The case of transition is also difficult because these institutions, which represent not only a ‘moral’ obligation to maximize and consolidate profit, but power as well, are deeply identified with the historic paradigm of the industrial era, its precedent and underlying structure.

In so far as we are identified with such institutions change then looks and feels like a threat to our survival.  This is a confusion between literal and metaphorical survival.  Our enactment of and investment in these institutions represents a literal threat to our human survival as a whole, both in what we are doing and not doing to keep them in existence.  To the extent  that we are self-identified with such institutions change represents a metaphorical threat to our survival as ‘consumer ego’s.’  Finally the case for transition is difficult because in so far as we are self identified with the ‘way of life’ produced by the industrial era, all of our change models and ways of considering transition are embedded within the historic paradigm and so likely to
amplify the conditions we currently experience as problems.

This is true not only for the entire system, but for its components and the individuals and communities enacting it on a moment to moment basis.  This means at least two things.

• The dynamics, ‘theories’ and habits of change itself are a product of the same system that  generated and is expressed by the industrial era.  Of course this means that efforts to  change are likely to reinforce the system.  This is the kind of thing that leads people considering climate change to consider carpeting the poles with insulation or surrounding the earth with reflective mirrors, but has many much more immediate expressions in the moment as well.

• To the extent we ourselves are identified with this system we are identified with a systemof objectification.  The product of objectification is enslavement - of the planet, each ther and ourselves.  Indeed much of the public dialogue bears a striking resemblance to that of the slave owners in the US before and during the US Civil War.

Excerpt from letter to Institute for Ethical Matrix of Human Habitat. Ethical Matrix

Diary of our Coversation with Roger Burton

A series of conversations which led to the birth of Climate Chance and an entire new experience with life and the infinite possibilities reality offers.

(documented by Serena)

Summery
On June 20th, Roger flew to Hong Kong in the midnight to meet members of HKCCC for a day before he had to catch a flight later at night. There was no agenda, no plan as to what we are supposed to talk about.  As soon as we arrived at the Long Zhou Island, Jessica and Willis tried to book a room for us to stay overnight. When we arrived, sat around the table by the sea and embarked on an unusual conversation, following by experiments with our lives (followed up with Skype Phone Conference Calls). There are four documented conversations all together.

Roger Burton?
As a side-note, Roger Burton is the “designer” for the BP Antarctica Expedition in which I took part. Roger Burton is a collaborative change agent and management consultant (a system thinker, philosopher) for many of the world’s corporations -Shell, BMW, BP etc. (Including help giving birth to BP Renewable).

During the Antarctica Expedition, his designing involved deconstructs design by dismantling any “structure” or “agenda.” In so doing, he gave us the “choice” to decide on our own agenda and the opportunity to really examine our own mental models as people fruitless tried to impose structures onto others. It was an experimental experience in a sense that nobody tried to put knowledge into each other’s vault; it was for you to discover what lies to be learned. As we feel the burden of the choice, we also feel how each of us can only be responsible for our own action.  There, as we tried to navigate through the lack of structure, the empty space around us emerged this realization from within.

1st meeting – Hong Kong – June 20th

Participant: Roger, Kartiyeka (Founder and Director of IYCN-Indian Youth Climate Network), Jessica Yuan (President of HKCCC) Mart van de Ven, Peter Chapman, Willis So, Adeel, Serena (members of HKCCC)

• Part I – Looking at the whole system

Roger started by speaking of a story of cow shit. How an NGO who dealt with the middle logistic ended up taking up the debt created from unsustainable producer and buyer of the cow shit, when both were sustainable in appearance. He then drew analogy to our own group’s dynamic – the emotional pain Jessica felt as she had to run around bargain for the room, while the room turned out to be horrific, nobody showed signs of appreciation for her effort.  Jessica was silent since then.

I think Roger’s point is that the issue of sustainability involves looking at the bigger system, while at the same time, it comes down to a level of detail as small as someone’s pain within a small group of people (as result of our omission?) We as a system, was responsible to Jessica’s “pain.” By discovering it, addressing it, naming it explicitly, we at least would not just assume it. By drawing parallel from our group interaction and a case, each of us became the microcosm of a system. The notion that we embody the system, especially the very system we seeks to change is very profound personally as it would seem that I no longer has the “authority” to tell others to follow me.

• Part II – Warning – mastering the Art of Persuasion

This part is best to be set out in the format of a dialogue:

R: what are the solutions we are promoting for climate change?
Adeel (A): …. We need to change people’s mindset.
R: what is mindset?
A: A belief of incentive to do something…

R:  It seems to assume one has it is a set of value system. that I have a better set of values than you. How would you feel if I come to tell you that you need to change your mindset because I have better values than you?

A: I will feel OK because I would only analyze what you say and learn from you. R: I disagree. I think people will not be willing to accept whatever you propose.  If idenxzxtity is a buddle of value I identify ourselves with, then I would more likely retract and defense my view because it is threatening of my identity. In fact, as I was speaking of all these, this may be happening now.

A: But I still see that I will not retract, rather, I will analyze it and try to accept your point of view and learn from that….

R: are you feeling I am actually intentionally saying something to change what you think? (repeated)
…
Later on, we examined deeper this formula that we tend to apply – that “we” need to change “their” mindset.

R:  Who are “we” when we have the notion that we need to change somebody’s mindset? But everything is always changing..

From my point of view, it would seem that the opposite effect (to their intended result) is created when either of them try to persuade a point, and are made firmer in their own belief as a result.
Adeel comment– I assume people will analzyse information like I do – in an ideal dialogue – people will be open-minded, but in real world – these assumptions may not be true.

• Part III –Dialogues- Roger’s mental model

Dialogue is the guts of mental model – sadly I have a model of dialogue
I have re-read Plato and talk about it
David Bone a physician – He suggested that there are structures underlies our way of perceiving reality which can be discovered by dialogue.

4 phases to conversation

1. Polite Talk

• no possibility for differences to arise,
• culturally based machinery ( we are wired)
• allow us to survive and be useful

2. Sustainable Differences

• how does difference arise? It is our interpretation of our experience of reality
• Most people would go into a loop from politeness to sustainable level of differences then back to politeness when difference become too much.

3. Inquiry

• Genuinely curious (not strategically curious)

• Recognizes your point of view →Suspend it

• Place oneself in the other person’s reality

• Aware of my own pair of sunglasses

4. Dialogue

• Involve recognition of multiple views of reality

• This is when vision can happen, emergence, forms an arise

• To me, dialogue is an active experience of participating in something much larger than you are, not separate, but exists because of your exercise

• Dialogue reaches the implicit order, the deeper structure

• In a dialogue, when you hear someone else saying what you were saying →it is beautiful

• Reveal some kind of system →this is when actions happens

• There is no aim, no goal

• When we want to manipulate things to get things done, we cannot wait →we are already listening, but the question is, what are you listening to

There are four qualities to a genuine dialogue
i.    Suspension  →name the mental model which is acting on you
ii.    Respect
iii.    Voice – ability to express
iv.    Listening
All of these are ways for you to manage your intention

Part IV – Fear based Action vs Love-based Action

Mart- but it would seem that we have to make a choice.  we have to prioritise to come to have dialogue, to make sure we can learn most. We could have used this opportunity to do anything else rather then coming to this island.
R:
You seem to be making 4 assumptions:
1- scarcity of time + prioriality   (the model is based on 1 day-according to mart)
2- Need to have coping mechanism
3- need to made value based choices
Te assumption is that there is something to get out of life.
But what if there is nothing to get out of life?
Time is a concept of mortality which is a very ego-based concept
We begin to hear assertions we make as if they are true
Imagine for a moment, you live in a world just as real, but life is fully abundant, there is no scarcity.
We live in a world where “scarcity of time” is so real that it is herasy to say it is only an assumption
Lots of time →boredom →fear of?
Imagine what if all the problems in this world are solved ? then what do we do ? we start creating problems (Mart)
Recognize the obligation to act and have no expectation of return
Maybe a reality we participate in that is prior to time.

Q of fear as source of action → can it be a defense against our own impermanence?
It only lasts as long as fear is there.
Fear based action is useful particularly when you have a tiger
-    it is like opium, wired into us
-    but it is useful as long as there is a tiger
-    can it be we are addicted to this, and we assume there is a tiger in order to “solve the problem”?
-    are there any alternative source of action? Love?

Mart – love is suspension of the fear state and before meaning is made

<Recommended reading -
<Pedagogy of the oppressed- Paul Freire>

Part V - Bridge

Now the question is that of a bridge
Start with assumption of loveliness,
What is the emerging world we are living →bridge the current reality when you keep the direction in mind.
Feel the tension between the fear based action and love

M – identity our act with physical body?
R – what if our nature of state is prior to distinction? We are just part of things we actively participate

If the proposition – we know how to be happy anytime –is correct
Then it implies that we are “making” unhappiness

Happiness is…
1-    Freedom from material ambition
2-    Freedom from internal ambition
a.    i.e. to have experience
i.    American men who  have mid-life crisis tend to have young girls to reclaim experience of youth once they realized that they have spent their youth all on acquiring materials (money) which had not worked for the – not happy
b.    to not to have ambition
c.    to be free
3-    Responsible for what we know
Nowadays, we seem to assume that if we have things, we will be happy.
But where is happiness?  The value in things →missing
If you have a system, you try to change it without questioning its assumption, you amplify it.

Now, think of a problem, and feel it.  (the sensation)
Now, think of something you are committed to. Feel it.
Now, hold them at the same time
– funny? uncertain? laugh – one way to release the tension
We can develop the capacity to be committed to your vision (everyone working towards rebuilding a healthy climate) and at the same time, stay intact with the reality in your conscious state. (one alternative to our “coping mechanism”?)

There is no desirability of happiness
What is livelihood for creativity ? Should we get compensation for creativity?
Is it how it should be?
Suspend my own belief – internalize it and make it your own
Nature of practice – failure in it.

Conclusion

Thus, I think, the entire conversation was really about this— If you have a system, you try to change it without questioning its assumption, you may even amplify it.  And to question its assumption, we may need to examine our own mental model, model of change, interaction and decision-making, which may well be a product of the very institutions we tried to change. This is hugely relevant to our work as the climate change coalition as we try to create a climate for change to pursuit our vision of a sustainable world.
The proposed model is to not to ask people to do what we think they should do (which falls closer to the model of manipulation), but rather to engage people in dialogue by accepting their values and views as their experience of reality, to respect their difference in view and listen genuinely without intending to change their view.

The Experiment we started just before Roger left

Think of a problem you have now.

Would would it make possible if it is solved?

Keep asking yourself

Would would it make possible if it is solved?

Then, when it comes to the picture at the end. Hold on to it.

During the next two week: follow these three rules

1- Try your best to solve the problem

2- Do nothing

3- Pay attention to the image at the end.

e.g. Willis said her problem was that her parents won’t give her the freedom to go travel around the world herself.

If they allow it, she will be able to go to Antarctica etc. and make many friends.

If she make many friends she will….if..she will die a happy old woman.

An article with good collection of evidence of climate change

Serena

UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Programme, gives an update as of September 1999 on the state of the world’s environment.
Referring to the relationship of human actions to the Earth’s environment, the United Nations report begins with these words:
“The present course is unsustainable and postponing action is no longer an option”
It is clear just from this report that there is a huge environmental problem looming ahead for the Earth. Go to www.unep.ch/earthw/geo2000.htm for the full report.
The President of the United States
President Clinton has been trying to get the American public to heed the dangers just ahead in our future — but to little avail. Here are a couple of examples.
In his address to the United Nations Environmental Conference on June 26, 1997, Clinton states:

“The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the global climate. Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at their highest levels in more than 200,000 years and climbing sharply. If the trend does not change, scientists expect the seas to rise two feet or more over the next century. In America, that means 9,000 square miles of Florida, Louisiana and other coastal areas will be flooded; in Asia, 17 percent of Bangladesh, land on which six million people now live, will be lost; island chains such as the Maldives will disappear from the map unless we reverse the predictions. Climate changes will disrupt agriculture, cause severe droughts and floods and the spread of infectious diseases.”
You can read the whole speech at http://www.ecomall.com/activism/presun.htm.

President Clinton, in his Earth Day speech on April 15, 2000, in the Sequoia National Forest, stated:

“…the greatest environmental challenge of the new century [is] climate change and global warming. The 1990s were the hottest decade on record. Scientists say that the temperature rise is at least partly due to human activity, and that if unchecked, climate change will result in more storms and floods, more economic disruptions, more permanent flooding of coastal areas, perhaps the entire flooding of island nations, and more threats to unique habitats such as the one in which we are today.”

You can read the whole speech at http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/urires/12R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/4/18/8.text.1

Time Magazine
As an example of news that simply gets lost in the mounds of “more important” news, read this article entitled “Greenland’s Thinning Ice Signals Global Warming.” (http://news.excite.com/news/r/000721/14/science-greenland-ice-dc).

Time’s EarthDay Special
On April 22, 2000, Time magazine published a special edition called EarthDay 2000. This issue is perhaps the most comprehensive statement on the environment ever made to the public. And yet when we tried to link with this issue on Time’s website, we had some interesting experiences. In a nutshell, that edition of Time magazine seems to have literally disappeared (see Who Doesn’t Want Us To Know the Truth?)
Fortunately, we obtained a copy of this magazine before it faded away. We will choose just one of its articles for purposes of this discussion.
The article, written by Eugene Linden, is called “Condition Critical.” In it, Linden asks the question, “What will it take for us to get serious about saving our environment?” The article gives an exclusive look at a soon-to-be-published U.N. assessment of Earth’s ecosystems, showing that they are “strained to the limit” and giving the Earth a “critical priority.”
This U.N. assessment was derived from the launching of the most ambitious study of global ecosystems ever undertaken. “In September,” Linden writes, “at a special millennial session of the U.N., four of its agencies and partners — the World Bank, the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. Environment Program and the World Resources Institute — will present the first results of this project, a Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems. The findings of the $4 million study, called PAGE for short, will be published in the 2000-01 edition of the World Resources Report titled People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life.”

The article continues: “PAGE starkly concludes that our planet’s capacity is beginning to diminish, threatening our economic well being and ultimately our survival.

It’s not possible to go through the report’s maps, charts, graphs and case studies without wondering, `How did we let things get to this point?’ The joint editorial announcing the findings of PAGE … confirm their `commitment to making the viability of the world’s ecosystems a critical development priority for the 21st century.’”

So How Much Time DO We Have?
The earth’s scientists, in their warning, said that the time we have left could be as short as one decade, and that decade is almost at an end. Yet despite the efforts — in some cases organized and heroic — of governments and science to reverse the downtrend, it continues. This final quote is from the 1997 Annual Report of the Australian Marine Conservation Society:

“As scientific understanding of the Great Barrier Reef has improved, it has become increasingly clear that the coastal wetlands along the Great Barrier Reef coastline act as filters that extract a very substantial proportion of the pollutants from human activities on the land. Consequently, the loss of those wetlands represents a threat not just to the fish and wildlife that they support, but also to the health of the Great Barrier Reef system. AMCS has had a lot of success in protecting threatened wetlands sites over the years, but chronic incremental loss has continued. [emphasis ours —ed.]

There Are Two Possible Solutions
There are two ways to approach the possible healing of the Earth’s environment. One is the left brained, logical, scientific approach. This, of course, is the very way of thinking that got us into this critical problem in the first place. However, we still will not rule out the possibility that science can come up with an answer that could heal the Earth. But if the 1,700 members of the Union of Concerned Scientists are correct, we have very little time to find this magic answer. And while we hope that science — in essence the world’s greatest religion — will succeed, its priests are themselves extremely doubtful.
So while Ma’at Research intends to build an encyclopedia of possible environmental answers within our database, including scientific and psychotronic approaches, we feel that the greatest hope now lies elsewhere.

The purpose of this article was simply to awaken you to the knowledge that the Earth is dying. We have devoted the remainder of this magazine to the possibility that our Mother Earth can be healed in a way that lie beyond physical action.
If we are right, the ultimate link to nature is not in our brain at all, but deep within the human heart.

In keeping with the Summit’s theme of seeking world peace, Mr. Goenka stressed in his speech that peace in the world cannot be achieved unless there is peace within individuals. “There cannot be peace in the world when people have anger and hatred in their hearts. Only with love and compassion in the heart is world peace attainable.”

The Group Effect and Facilitative Leadership

Here is my take on the question I posted in the previous post - What is our core value? I know we are trying to solve the climate crisis, but I also know that even if that is solved, i will not stop doing what i am doing, because my vision of the world would still be drastly different.

I realised that what drives me to work for HKCCC is this empowering experience of collaborative decision-making.

Throughout the history of HKCCC - there is one consistent feature— facilitative leadership.  The leaders in our organisation facilitate rather than dominante or control.

Why is this feature represented the most important value I think this organisaiton tries to communicate?

• I believe climate change is one of the global crisis (like environmental pollution, finantical crisis etc) which is symptomatic of a deeper structural problem.
• The cause of  the current inaction to address human-induced climate change is not that we are inherently too selfish or greedy.
• But that we feel powerless to make a difference as an individual.

I would love to elaborate further through discussions. But before that:

Here, I wish to share these articles:

The Group Effect

I keep returning to the cover article of the New York Times Magazine of a few weeks ago entitled “Why Isn’t the Brain Green?” Other than being a fascinating piece on what might prevent people from getting into a more environmentally sustainable mindset (and therefore sustained sustainable behavior), it makes a very strong case for collaboration as a smart (and potentially species saving) decision-making process.

Author Jon Gertner has spent considerable time with behavioral economists, looking at the limits of individual decision-making when it comes to long-term trade-offs. For example, researchers at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University have pointed to the shortcomings of two different ways individuals process risk: (1) an analytical approach that seems to have less tolerance for delayed benefits and (2) an emotional approach that is restricted by one’s lack of experience with certain phenomena (such as rising sea levels). Both approaches disincline individuals from making choices that have short-term costs (reduced consumption, paying a carbon tax) but may ultimately be better for the planet. Hence, say some decision scientists, the tragedy of the commons - the overgrazing of land, the depletion of fisheries, the amassing of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Just when Gertner is ready to say, “We’re screwed,” he points to other research that suggests that an answer to our individual failings on the front of risk assessment may lie in our associational tendencies and community-based intelligence. For instance, Michel Handgraaf has conducted studies in Amsterdam that show that when people make decisions as a group, their conversations gravitate more to considerations of “we” and delayed benefits. Similarly, anthropologist Ben Orlove at UC-Davis has studied farmers in Uganda and observed that when they listened to rainy season radio broadcasts in groups, rather than as individuals, they engaged in discussions that led to consensus decisions that made better use of forecasts - collectively altering planting dates or using more drought resistant seeds.

In other words, it may behoove us all to collaborate more, and with a twist. Evidence suggests that it is best to begin thinking through decisions in groups, rather than weighing them as individuals and then coming together. This just might get us more quickly to the “group effect,” to a collective identity and ability to think and act long-term. As Jon Gertner puts it, “What if the information for decisions, especially environmental ones, is first considered in a group setting before members take it up individually?”

What if? Why not? How to? What say you?

Facilitative Leadership in the Age of Connectivity

We deliver a powerful (by all accounts) leadership development program at IISC(Interactice Institute for Social Changes)  called Facilitative Leadership. It is our flagship training program because it directly speaks to the mindset, heartset and skillset needed to lead in the Age of Connectivity. Facilitative Leadership starts, ironically, with the notion that we must radically change our perception and thinking about leaders and leadership, itself. Originally based in a Newtonian, mechanistic understanding of how the world works, our ideas about leadership have evolved over the last fifty years. We’ve gone from a heroic, command and control approach to a more participative, collaborative approach that involved teams, less hierarchy, and a much higher level of engagement and input, to now — a time when our understanding of the world is informed by quantum physics and complexity theory…a world described by Tom Freidman as flat, where all of knowledge, not to mention finances, has been connected and democratized. We are defining and understanding leadership at a time when our systems breakdowns and global crisis demands that we create a future that is so radically different from the past

Several thought leaders with whom we are familiar have themselves been struggling with this concept: Peter Senge in his new book The Necessary Revolution introduces us to the idea of the animateur, the French word for people who seek to create systemic change. He says that an animateur is someone who brings to life a new way of thinking, seeing or interacting that creates focus and energy.” And, in Peter Block’s new book, Community - The Structure of Belonging, he renames leaders as “social architects” defined by their ability to set intention, convene, value relatedness and present choices. The animateur and the social architect seem to be getting us closer to the kind of leadership we need for these times.

As we embrace leadership as being first and foremost about shared responsibility, as a leveraging and unleashing of much needed collective intelligence and commitment; we see in fact that the central task of leadership today is to create the conditions for others to flourish and to thrive, to step into their own power. We see that the roles that leaders play in these times are more aptly described as catalysts, champions, connectors. We see that these leaders are strategic, collaborative, and flexible and they are most often rooted in real authenticity, service and love.

We are daunted in our sector by the demographic reality of baby boomer leaders exiting in the next five to ten years, leaving a massive leadership gap. Or, now, because of their disappearing 403(b)’s, postponing retirement and causing another set problems. I am wondering if this conversation – while important and real – may also be taking us off course or at least maybe taking up too much of our time.

My belief, particularly in these most troubled times, is that we are being called to boldly invest in and develop networked, boundary-crossing social architects….multi-cultural, multi-generational social architects. We need to build their capacity in collaboration, design, facilitation, network building and the uses of new social media in service of real change. It is our collective capacity that will lead us into a future that is so very different from the past.