Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info
Welcome to the NewsLog or Blog of Heiner Benking. A kaleidoscope of insights and impulses collected first in the DaZiBao (Rio) process Seeds of Change Viewsletter of the Club of Budapest since 1995, continually updated ever since. Now available for broader distribution and comments in this blog - enjoy, and come again !
27 Feb 2011 @ 15:36
Last Sunday was a special day - the celebration of 150 years Rudolfg Steiner and his Antroposophy - [link] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy
I was all ears as this year is also the celebration of 150 years Tagore [link] and to compare these 2 very special people, their focus on EDUCATION and AGRICULTURE can teach us event today a lot !
In the Konzerthaus in Berlin a very special crowd gathered - a collection of very special people you might find only inn places like Dornach, as Berlin and Dornach were very special periods in Steiner's life. Learning about the person of Steiner was very rewarding. I also learned about a congress to take place in BERLIN in October [link]
I was often remembered about a very special person, Friedemann Schwartzkopf, which I have met in California long ago when he intorduced his "Metamorphosis of the Given"
[link] The Metamorphosis of the Given (Revisioning Philosophy, Vol 20) [Paperback]
new for me were teh whereabouts of Steiner in Berlin in a new book: Rudolf Steiner in Berlin: Rudolf Steiners Impulse, Begegnungen und Wirkensstätten in Berlin 1897-1923 - Einträge in die Zukunft - [link]
Dashing now to Hannover for the CeBIT 2011 there is little time to go further here, but hopefully soon more....
28 Jan 2011 @ 11:52
Two days ago, Gunter Pauli presented "GREEN-BLUE" solutions GREEN-BLUE in Berlin, since 3 days Michael Braungart and Monika Griefahn are kicking-off the C2C Festival and for 2 days the "waste incinerators" were meeting here.
So what have we learned and achieved in the last 25 and more years about envionmental analytics, life-cycles, eco-efficiency, green-building and production,... and what does it mean for our life styles and city-design?
But also a lot of negative "progress" or process optimization presented at the: Berliner Abfallwirtschafts- und Energiekonferenz - Optimierung der Abfallverbrennung Let us not forget, Germany is one of the world-leader in burning waste, a raw model for many countries in the world (which can afford it) and definitely no sustainable solution, given the energy input and the loss of assets! Only again one appealing example of "What the eyes does not see, the heart does not crave for, but all the burden on future generations and putting in jeopardy peaceful futures.
You know that we as CGI are concerned about this and use the "Blue-Green" since long, and you find it nicely explained here with the EPEA-ACADEMY [link]
and keeping also the Energy portrait in red/yellow sunrays in mind. see (more) below: (and the Water Intelligence Blog April 18 - (later added [link])) More >
I was just about to revist 20 years GLOCAL when I see this years title of the Agriculture Minister Summit. Reporting about last years summit outcomes, specially point II: Support renewable energies and carbon storage in soils
see this Blog Jan 2010: and reporting the recommendations in Toronto, Copenhagen, Geneva (see more below in this Blog) I am happy that with this title we might be able to discuss the need to bridge, sectors, scales, terminologies,... to come to shared understanding and action. (more below) More >
15 Jan 2011 @ 11:53
Today we celebrate 10 years of the free/open Encyclopedia Wikipedia. Interesting is not only its development via Ward Cunningham's and his Wiki and pattern language breakthroughs, and later the Nupedia, but also its potentials and limitations. Specially when we remember what the original Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert looked like in the first 2 editions, and how it turned from an overall teaching and explanation "architecture" to an alphabetic wordbook, something you can use when you are already aware of what you search, how it is spelled, and have been educated already. I know this is controversial and needs more space.
Today, celebrating, there is little time to dig deeper, but you can see that this is very important to me.
Meanwhile please go on this Blog-Internetsite to: Robert Jungk & The New Encyclopedists (1978) revisited - a late eulogy, July 2008, [link] or the last entries on Problema and Dropping Knowledge: Who are we in the 21st Century?: [link] and 300 years "learned Berlin - World Knowledge": [link]
5 Jan 2011 @ 00:20
I just had a call about my BLOG on Dropping Knowledge years ago by a collegue, as we both attended the presentation of the film PROBLEMA - 'problema' from Latin problema (genitive problematis) 'problem', 'puzzle', 'enigma', 'question proposed for solution', from Ancient Greek πρόβλημα - in the Volksbühne a month ago. more (in German): [link] and/or [link]
No time now, so I refered to earlier enties in these BLOG entries from 4 years ago !!!: PART I. and PART II.
Please see also the UIA press-release I distributed before I asked questions in the opening Press Conference of he DK event, maybe see also: this document. - but who was reading then or still does carefully and deep nowadays?? More >
30 Dec 2010 @ 17:36
See also WORLD KNOWLEDGE I above: [link] desperate ! - We have celebrated in Berlin for the whole year "WeltWissen" - World Knowledge - but it looks like we have missed a person who is in the center of the picture of the "Learned Berlin" - Das gelehrte Berlin. His name? CARL RITTER CARL RITTER - [link] - he even had his 150 years celebration of his passing away, when even the kings coach was acompanying him to his grave. I know, difficult times, but you might know some of the names on the picture around him: Alexander v.H. and his brother Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Hufeland, Neander. [link] You will not be surprised to find von Humboldt and Hegel, and might know the others, but who the heck is in the center ?? and how come he is not centerpiece in this years celebration when he had similar reputation and was over decades teaching at the Humbold University, the war academy and academy of sciences? More >
17 Oct 2010 @ 10:21
it looks like we are heading towards winter. Too many people seem to be not ready to go with the clans through the winter....
I just heard in the radio taht Benoît Mandelbrot passed away last week.
Oh, how important he was to me..We visualized his Mandelbrot fractals, Julia and Mandelbrot sets, and Lorenz Attractor .... and had the computers, even the modern small supermicros like(RISK - SPS9, before APOLLO DOMAIN)as the PC was only about to get available and in no way able to manage such graphics, raster computer graphics software from the Eureopean Software Contractors (later UNIRAS) in the early 80ies...
Such mathematical vizualisation applications, beside exploration and remote sensing and even finding the Titanic, or visualizing environmental data, were alerting me and opening my eyes to the potentials of modeling and presenting the invisible and intangible, later also the virtual realities and potentials and the challengesconnected. More >
16 Oct 2010 @ 05:47
Hermann passed away yesterday, I heard it early yesterday and was deeply touched. He was so young, just a few years older, and had so much still on the agenda. Only think about EUROSOLAR in Berlin in only 6 weeks !!
I met him about 25 years ago and we had since the beginning the sme drives and saw the same urgencies, so for me - even when there was too much talk and too little communication in all these places and times - but this seems to be so these days in politainment - Herman's passing is of much concern, because Solar, same like Wind and Waves and Geothermal are still embryonic and can not stand strong against "waist" dead-end and limmited "consumption energy production and distribution schemes....
I remember vividly at a conference with Willy Brandt in Hamburg on Environment and Development, I think it was in 1987 and we discussed by Ullmann (check name / memory is fading - too bad...), from the BOELKOW Foundation and him, like talking and drinking all through the night: not only about Hydrogne and Solar. What an energy and believe, vision, mission and strength of Hermann ..... But in retrospect, what have we achieved the last 23 years? In my view: much too little and late !! (see where we were 20 years ago). Hermann, I promise, as the show must go on to speak out as lound and clear as needed to matter in Geneva in 3 weeks, it is really high time - looking with Youth towards UN COP16 Cancun in December, but alse the Global Problematique and Common Frames of References. ( - for Noel Brown UNEP-RONA these days..., looking with Youth towards UN COP16 Cancun in December.
11 Oct 2010 @ 05:48
European and International Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change with this year’s topic: “Social dimensions of environmental change and governance”.
Busy and exciting Berlin Conference this year, again Friday and Saturday until late in the night with top partipants and in a very effective conference atmosphere.
Done by young scientists 10 years ago (now having grown up and still sticking to their stake) it in unique by its stringend blind rating of invited abstracts. We called it later at the beer table "blind dates" - as this method of anonymous selection has its pros and cons... Me and my collaborators have for example did not get our two abstract "accepted" - and maybe the organizers should have a second look on the papers not fitting into the "box" of standard blind routines..... Maybe see the 2 proposals ((I will add here some remarks "on conferencing" later - meanwhile maybe check: Gov 2.0 - Stammtisch 2.0/3.0)).
but here and now I really want to go deeper and look into the TOP LEVEL invited plenary speakers and some outstanding sessions and exchanges, and what that means for the
GLOBAL YOUTH CONFEERENCE GYC in Geneva, 8-11. November, the COP 16 in CANCUN, the MDGs and the preparations for Rio +20 in 2012.
I have selected some Powerpoints and will continue here in my preparations for GYC, so please come back here and maybe to Geneva !!
later added:
Rewarding for me were the opening and closing plenary Adil Najam and Klaus Töpfer, annd the split plenary by Roberto Guimaraes but also many other top papers. But what I want to focus here is my little question from the floor, (later here also Roberto Guimaraes question/concern) AND the answers of Klaus Töpfer which I will transcribe below a.s.a.p. as I feel it needs to be on record and is relevant to what we did at the COP-15, UNFCCC in Copenhagen -(pls. see slide 20-21 first) and for Cancun Dec 2010, Rio 2012, ...
This is Heiner Benking's News Log, a private-public diary presenting events, symposia and happenings in Berlin and elsewhere - my farings, foci, issues and concerns.
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS PERSONAL BLOG an ARTISTIC and PERFORMATIVE MEDIA INTERVENTION !
The Log links to my work and interests and presents issues and special concern of maybe a very small group of "concerned, engaged generalist" - a Global Interest Group (GIG). This needs to be seen in contrast to the ubiquitous Specialized Interest Groups (SIGs), the "scientific" approach to organize subject areas and specialization and standardization and harmonization! of means, nomenclatures, and modes of thinking. My favorite stories in the WHOLENESS SEMINAR include:
BELA BANATHY: "GENESIS
OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY" and "IVAN HAVEL: Longing for Unified Knowledge" where a "specialist" runs into the founding session of the early foundations General Systems, mumbling "this is not my field" or where Ivan M. Havel expresses his search for other kinds of knowledge.
As a starter I also recommend to check my MINDPRINT site, where we add the need for HANDPRINTS and MINDPRINTS, as FOOTPRINTS are good to visualize and communicate numbers, densities or consumption per area, but are not sufficient to negotiate and "harmonize" across domains and communicate gains in different cultures, technologies, times,... in short: incompatible but relevant information and our work on dialog, peace, policy-making, and multi-modal, faceted issues and consequences.
What am I? This is a "well-packed" question for which I have not the or a single answer. Some called me an in-betweener, go-getter, facilitator, hub, marvel-hero, trim-tab, bricoleur, bricoleers??? - career designeer, .... Some even "hank" which I disliked or Story which I liked very much !!
I have no single answer as I feel we need to walk the talk and sing and dance Life ! in spectra and fields in multiple embodied spaces.
To nebulous an answer? I am sorry but I do not go for overclaims and oversimplifications, under-complex and over-simplistic approaches with clan-think mindsets about real issues in clear contexts!
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27 Feb 2011 @ 15:36
28 Jan 2011 @ 11:52
22 Jan 2011 @ 12:29
15 Jan 2011 @ 11:53
5 Jan 2011 @ 00:20
30 Dec 2010 @ 17:36
17 Oct 2010 @ 10:21
16 Oct 2010 @ 05:47
11 Oct 2010 @ 05:48