COP17 – Climate meeting in Durban
Climate change is an epic challenge that will affect every nation on earth if temperatures continue to rise, natural resources continue to dwindle, and humanity is forced to adapt to degrading homelands. Science tells us this. Economics tells us this. And species that are disappearing from the planet after millennia of adaptation, tell us this.
The 194 parties and country representatives who have gathered in Durban from every corner of earth have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove themselves as leaders who are willing to confront epic challenges, and chart new pathways toward solutions. This is not a political debate any more it is a matter of survival for generations to come. Our leaders must prove that they are up to the task.
For millennia, human civilization has been flush with a succession of paradigm shifting. And yet, while we all assumed that big ideas would keep flowing hard and fast forever, in the last few years it seems that the wells of inspiration are running dry. There is a dawning realization that truly novel, creative ideas have suddenly stopped coming. Nobody knows why.
The conceptual drought couldn’t be happening at a more inopportune moment. Seven billion of us are struggling through the most severe ecological, financial, political and spiritual crisis in our history. This time the catastrophe we face doesn’t affect a single nation or region or continent … it is all the more terrifying because it is global and simultaneous. Odds are that if we can’t pull ourselves out of this decline, then we just might descend into a horrifying years of long dark age. We’ve not only run out of ideas; we’re running out of time.
Now more than ever we need the creative breakthroughs and outlier brainstorms that can shift the terrain of thought, revealing exits, opening possibilities, potentially saving us all. We need mavericks of indie media who can dismantle the virus that infects our information flows. We need a brilliant new crop of economics students who can stand up to their professors, topple the neoclassical paradigm and replace it with a new, true cost model consisting of equal parts of financial, environmental and social elements.
It may be that our abandonment of the natural world and wholesale migration into cyberspace has cut our roots and scrambled our neurons beyond repair. We may be in the midst of an irreversible mental breakdown of the human race that parallels the irreversible collapse of our planet’s ecosystems. This eco-psycho spiral may do us in. Maybe, now in Durban or maybe next week we will see the light. After all it is about time.
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agencji towarzyskiej
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Place Zabaw
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Lone Hansen
Thanks for your comments – a spelling check should not be too difficult to make.
Lone Hansen
Thanks for the nice words – this blog has been up and running for about 6 months by now.