Ervin Laszlo's Blog (6)

On May 20th and 21st the Club of Budapest presented two Prizes at the Cannes film Festival: a WorldShift Ethic Prize, to the Australian film, Soldiers of Peace, and a Special WorldShift Award to the Austrian film, Let's Make Money.

A photo with Australian producer Steve Killelea is already posted, and the full press release will follow.

Franklin Roosevelt said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He was right about fearing fear - fear is deadly. But not quite right about not having anything else to fear. There is another thing that's just as deadly: it's complacency.



Fear paralyzes, or makes you do unreflective, irrational things. Complacency makes you do nothing - it will work out anyway, or somebody else will take care of it.



How to be aware enough of the threats that face us to wake up and… Continue

We live in a curious world, and have a curious attitude toward the world. The environment is degenerating, the climate is changing, but most of us are preoccupied with making money and maintaining our privileges—we keep juggling for position on the deck of the Titanic.



There is an overproduction of food in many parts of the world, but more than a thousand million go hungry; every six seconds someone dies of starvation.



Six million children a year die for lack of food,… Continue

Global warming is an indisputable fact: in recent years the average global temperature has risen significantly, and the warming is accelerating. Currently, debate centers on whether warming is due to human activity or to natural causes.



There were other warming periods in the history of the Earth; geologists speak of alternating hot and cold stable states—“hot-houses” and “ice-houses.” The best known previous hot-house occurred 55 million years ago, when between one and two terratons… Continue

Until quite recently we could paraphrase Mark Twain in saying that, the same as about the weather, everybody talks about a global crisis but nobody does anything about it. Now people are beginning to do something about it, with a new leadership in the White House and the media full of reports on economic and financial crashes and ecological threats. But big questions remain: (1) what kind of change do we really need, and (2) how much time do we have to make it?



Worldshift 2012… Continue

The principal causes of the global crisis are unsustainable conditions in society, the economy, and in the ecology.



Unsustainability in society. The contemporary world is polarized; there is a large and still growing gap between rich and poor, powerful and marginalized. The gap is expressed in economic terms, but it’s a social reality. It depresses the quality of life, and even the chances of survival of vast populations.



Unsustainability in the economy. In the six decades… Continue