 9 May 2007 @ 16:26, by Heiner Benking
A SYMPOSION AND CO-LABORATORY to look back 30+ years with some movers at that time and grapple with the challenges of Humanity and Earth. We assembeled with Walter J. Bogan [link] to revisit Stockholm, The Club of Romes formative years, and critical tresholds for the environmental movement the last 35 years, and bring together old and new thinkers and movers.
We held a virtual [link], dynamic, multi-locational side-event in New York last week, organized in the context of Global Groups at this years UNITED NATIONS CSD-15. [link]
A notable synchronicity was the May 10 press release of H.E. Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland reviewing her 20 years of "grappling" in the context of the International Commission she established for the UN at that time. Do you remember "Our Common Future" ? [link]
We held a side-event" on May 8, a Roundtable [link] or Symposion (as Aleco Christakis calls it) - a gathering and dialogue in the delegates' meeting lounge, then around beer-tables in the evening, and additionally virtually globally on the web, using our teleconferencing TC "room": [link] We acknowledge that not all participants desiring to meet can be assembled in one place or one time, but this mixed approach helped bring people together for very fruitful dialogues
The idea and our objective was to LOOK BACK at least 40 YEARS - and to start creating a solid base for A WISE LOOK FORWARD toward alternative positive futures, and grappling with the dilemma of many crisises still ahead. See for example these examples from UN Climate Summit in 1995. [link] - [link] http://benking.de/Global-Change/governance.htm
We have been hosting a variety of Round Tables. These have been convened during and in view of the CSD process in progress (March 30 - May 11). If you look at the headlines in OUTREACH ISSUES of the Stakeholders Forum (SF) & Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN), you will find that the resources reveal many topics of interest, like: [link] "Selling out Future Generations" --- "Reckless State of Denial" --- "Disunity and Discontent" --- "Least Common Denominator" --- finally: "Tragic Comedy - A Shameful Ending for the Energy Cycle".
IF YOU COMPARE THIS CURRENT "STATE OF THE WORLD" WITH THE CCP's OF THE **ORIGINAL** PROSPECTUS of THE CLUB OF ROME [link] (Predicament of Mankind & World Problematique), then you wll probably count among the many people wondering what is missing, or what went so badly wrong over decades. [link]
The German State Secretary for the Environment Michael Mueller, targeted exactly this issue when requesting in recent elaborations about the IPCC report, that solutions to tackle the CLIMATE CRISIS must:
1. require another kind of thinking,
2. overcome turf battles and disciplinary thinking, and
3. must be based on thinking which includes time or change as an extra dimension or category.
See more at [link]
The Roundtables brought together old and new friends in expansive awareness of the historical dialogue. They made concrete what was already there, but left fragmented or lost in certain silos or turfs. We met with Walter Bogan [link], Deborah Stern, Peter Jones [link] On behalf of Aleco Christakis [link]), Peter had produced a schema for a new, useful dialogic design for 21st Century Agoras - which we considered a valuable possibility for application in structuring also "other" kinds of meetings and gathering - in particular, to help us structure issues *after* agreeing on triggering questions" (more about this later, and under these links [link] This concept of "Generative Dialog", I saw close to Francisco Gutierrez was considered worth to look into..., Frans Verhagen, Nancy Roof*, ..., Rob Wheeler, Nadia McLaren * Richard Jordan, Mary Evelyn Tucker*, Robert Pollard, John McConnell*, maybe Ernst Weizaecker *, , .. .... all assembling to revisit the past, analyse the critical disjunctions and thresholds, and jointly look into what needs to be done to go beyond the current stalemate and dithering, in view of the crisis ahead. (* = still to be contacted.)
The "Action Items& Materials to include for Lasting Joint Action" will be added later with the appropriate links and backgrounds of the old and new players involved. Presently we only have a few resources available in electronic format, but you can expect a fully fledged "Survivagora" in the next few days. (Aleco and Peter suggest we use the wiki called: A Symposion in Crisis Times [link]
Every considered/invited mover and shaker will provide 4 or 5 "bullet points to remember and start action" Here links from such an earlier exercise:
[link] http://www.cafeweltgeist.org/open-forum/OsoDocu/index.html Please see also: [link] http://symposion.wetpaint.com, where we will collect the follow-up activities.
You find the original snapshots from the first two "assemblies" below:
Pls understand: this is "work in progress!" and we are just about to collect the "Action Items" and compare them deeper but with the same "ontology" as proposed by Jantsch/Ozbekhan long ago: [link] - [link] - [link]
 
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