From Crisis to Collaboration?
I received this commentary from the Shaping Tomorrow futures network in an email today. My view is that collaboration in response to the many inter-connected crises of our time is an essential response. Crises contains both great challenge and great opportunity!
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From Crisis to Collaboration?
Sheila Moorcroft, Research Director, Shaping Tomorrow
The financial crisis, the economic crisis and now the climate crisis: the news appears to be getting worse. But could that also be the trigger for a change of attitude; a genuine recognition that we are in it together, that if we are to avoid the worst, then acting together is key. That too may be happening.
What is changing?
The news on the economic and financial fronts continues to look bad with the largest ever corporate loss resulting in the AIG bail out; Japan’s exports shrinking by 46%; the World Bank forecasting that the world economy will shrink for the first time since World War 2 – to name but three events.
The climate change news is perhaps even worse, indicating that if we are in uncharted waters on the economic front, here we may have fallen off the map altogether! The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change meeting estimated that the worst case scenarios from the previous International Panel on Climate Change report are occurring now, not in 10, 20 or 50 years time: now. Meanwhile, climate change experts apparently feel a little like Cassandra: doomed to say the truth, but not get their message across to convince the public.
But there are signs of emerging collaboration, a recognition that ‘we are in it together’. The upcoming G20 is one such turning point, recognizing as it does the arrival of a genuinely multi-polar world. It has already engendered a first: the first ever joint communique from the BRIC nations ( Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the run up to the G20 preliminary talks, on the need for international action on the economy and reform of the financial system. OPEC meanwhile has foregone a cut in oil production to boost prices, in the wider interests of supporting global economic growth. Leading Chinese industrialists have called for cooperation on climate change and a move towards a low carbon economy.
Why is this important?
There are many potential routes to the future, with a wide variety of opportunities for taking the wrong turn. The recent Foresight Network report on global recovery shows some of the possible routes to the future. Rather than a common enemy against which to unite, we may be seeing genuine recognition of a shared crisis through which to collaborate. We may be seeing the emerging signs of a new spirit of that collaboration.
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From Crisis to Collaboration?
Sheila Moorcroft, Research Director, Shaping Tomorrow
The financial crisis, the economic crisis and now the climate crisis: the news appears to be getting worse. But could that also be the trigger for a change of attitude; a genuine recognition that we are in it together, that if we are to avoid the worst, then acting together is key. That too may be happening.
What is changing?
The news on the economic and financial fronts continues to look bad with the largest ever corporate loss resulting in the AIG bail out; Japan’s exports shrinking by 46%; the World Bank forecasting that the world economy will shrink for the first time since World War 2 – to name but three events.
The climate change news is perhaps even worse, indicating that if we are in uncharted waters on the economic front, here we may have fallen off the map altogether! The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change meeting estimated that the worst case scenarios from the previous International Panel on Climate Change report are occurring now, not in 10, 20 or 50 years time: now. Meanwhile, climate change experts apparently feel a little like Cassandra: doomed to say the truth, but not get their message across to convince the public.
But there are signs of emerging collaboration, a recognition that ‘we are in it together’. The upcoming G20 is one such turning point, recognizing as it does the arrival of a genuinely multi-polar world. It has already engendered a first: the first ever joint communique from the BRIC nations ( Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the run up to the G20 preliminary talks, on the need for international action on the economy and reform of the financial system. OPEC meanwhile has foregone a cut in oil production to boost prices, in the wider interests of supporting global economic growth. Leading Chinese industrialists have called for cooperation on climate change and a move towards a low carbon economy.
Why is this important?
There are many potential routes to the future, with a wide variety of opportunities for taking the wrong turn. The recent Foresight Network report on global recovery shows some of the possible routes to the future. Rather than a common enemy against which to unite, we may be seeing genuine recognition of a shared crisis through which to collaborate. We may be seeing the emerging signs of a new spirit of that collaboration.
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Comment
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Comment by David Woolfson on April 4, 2009 at 9:44am -
Eva, I certainly agree with you about the fundamentals of collaboration. Collaborative efforts not only need to be widespread and on-going but also the values and principles which underlie any collective responses must be the 'right ones' to create the desired effect. Decisions and solutions based on the values and principles that got us in our current situation in the first place will in the longer run only be counter-productive. Values and principles that arise from our newer scientific understandings of the natural world and the nature of reality in the Universe are the keys to successful decisions and solutions.
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Comment by Eva Marie Kras on April 3, 2009 at 11:31am -
David, I certainly agree with your points related to the need for collaboration. In that effort perhaps we are missing something which could help. Are we trying to apply sustainability solutions using conventional principles of decision making ? Are we looking at the fundamental values which underpin our present process, and should we be examining those values to ensure that we are all "reading from the same page"?
© 2013 Created by David Woolfson.
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