Current Issue - See Below    Archived Issues - Click Here

The Global Systems Review Issue 10  October 2009

The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.

In this Issue:

• Viva 350! – Celebrating citizen action for climate change.
• My Nobel Weekend – Reflections on the Obama Nobel Peace Prize.
• Change Power – A new initiative to apply our collective wisdom on change to global challenges.

Viva 350!
Louise Diamond

October 24 is Climate Action Day around the world – the opportunity for people from every country and all walks of life to stand for 350 – the amount of carbon dioxide parts per million (ppm) that is sustainable for life on this planet. We are currently at 390. If that causes you to gasp, good.

In spite of all the necessary available scientific knowledge about global warming and climate change, and because of obstructionism from various sectors, our global political leadership has not been able to grab hold of this situation effectively. The limited prospects for the upcoming December conference in Copenhagen, and the difficulty of getting a climate bill through the U.S. Congress, foreshadow more of the same.

When change is not led effectively from the top down, it must come from the people. What I appreciate about this 350 day is that it is not just a celebration but a loud shout out from the people to their leaders, and as well an open door to personal and grass-roots action grounded in creativity and passion.

The years wasted in denial about global warming have hampered us, but not to the point of no return. Though some scientists believe that mitigation is no longer an option – that the atmosphere is too far poisoned to be cleansed – and that adaptation is our only recourse, I believe in miracles. I especially believe in the miracle of the masses and the miracle of the living earth. When we stand in large numbers in partnership with the planet, a vital ecosystem that has its own processes for healing and renewal, much that we cannot now imagine is possible. When enough of us align around a shared vision, we generate a thought form that takes on a life of its own, and grows as we feed it with our thoughts and actions.

I have thought a lot about why it is people don’t seem to understand and act on the urgency of this situation, for it is indeed an existential threat to humanity. True, some elements of the government and the think tanks that feed ideas to it have come to think of climate change as a critical part of national security, and so it is. Rising sea levels, loss of freshwater access, droughts, and severe storms can indeed lead to population movements, resource scarcities, spread of diseases, and ultimately violent conflicts, and will surely exacerbate already fragile conditions among impoverished populations and stressed communities.

But global warming and climate change are more than a threat to national security. They are part of a much larger picture that revolves around humanity’s relationship to the natural world. There is an ecology at play here, with complex interdependencies. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, de-forestation, acidification of the oceans, biodiversity loss, pollution, resource depletion, draining of acquifers, food and water scarcity, and the lifestyles we choose – so many elements affecting one another all point to a single story: we have disturbed the natural balance of the planetary system to the point that it is losing its capacity to sustain life as we currently know it.

And we have done this in large part because of the story we have told ourselves in the West for 2,000 years. Our Judeo-Christian narrative tells us that ‘man shall have dominion over the earth and all its creatures.’ That has proven to be a recipe for exactly the disastrous situation we now find ourselves in. Until we recognize that we are part of a dynamic and complex web of life – one part only of a much bigger family of life – and acknowledge we live in a partnership relationship with the planet, we will continue down the path of our own destruction.

What’s happening on Climate Action Day is that millions worldwide are stepping up to claim their place in that partnership. And that can make all the difference. Please go to www.350.org to learn more and discover what you can do. The issue is indeed urgent, and the possibilities for what wants to be born through us are endless.

My Nobel Weekend
Louise Diamond

Recently I spent a weekend ‘with’ two Nobel Peace Laureates, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and President Barack Obama. The Dalai Lama was in town when the peace prize was announced, and I attended his talks amidst all the media buzz about Obama. I was struck, as I listened to His Holiness, by how similar their messages to the world are.

I believe Barack Obama received the award for taking courageous steps toward actualizing his campaign motto, ‘We’re all in this together.’ He has recognized the truth of our global interconnectedness as the organizing principle of how the U.S. shall be in the world, and how it shall invite the world to be with itself.

He has consistently and methodically sought to operationalize this truth by reaching out to engage and reconnect with people, nations, and elements from whom we have been separated. Among other things, he has:

• Offered to dialogue with so-called enemies;
  
• Made the empowerment of women a major thrust of his foreign policy;
  
• Revived attention to climate change and made it a priority;
  
• Re-engaged with the U.N. and paid up back dues;
  
• Declared for a nuclear-free world;
  
• Announced his intention to change the ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ policy regarding gays in the military;
  
• Made multi-lateralism a mainstay of our global presence;
  
• Set a new tone of cooperation in the international community.

The Dalai Lama has the same message, only he uses a completely different vocabulary and set of activities to deliver it. In Tibetan Buddhism, the basic ignorance that leads to human suffering is the lack of understanding of what they call ‘dependent origination.’ My simplified version of this profound concept is that everything is interconnected in an intricate web of cause and effect. Nothing and no one exists independently, separate from other people and ever-shifting conditions, to which we are always contributing with our thoughts and actions.

His Holiness uses his moral authority and his shining presence to remind us of this basic truth of our interdependence, the understanding of which leads naturally to kindness and compassion. While it is true that President Obama has not yet ‘accomplished’ peace – say in the Middle East, or Afghanistan – (and how absurd to imagine that any one person could do so), nonetheless he is using his political authority to actualize the truth of our interconnectedness in national and global affairs, as the foundational pathway to peace and security.

I once wrote a book called ‘The Courage for Peace.’ Both men demonstrate that courage in the face of strong opposition. The Dalai Lama is under constant attack from China, which fears the power of his presence and his teachings. President Obama is under constant attack from the far right, which apparently fears his message as well and ardently wishes for him to fail (not realizing, perhaps, the harm to all of us that would entail, or maybe not caring).

I came away from my Nobel weekend with profound gratitude to the Nobel Committee for recognizing the power and importance of President Obama’s mission. While he may not have the moral and spiritual stature of the Dalai Lama or Desmond Tutu; or the concrete accomplishments of Jimmy Carter (Camp David accords), Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank and microfinance), or Jody Williams (treaty to ban landmines); or the human rights bona fides of Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Mayan), or Shirin Ebadi (Iranian), or Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese), he has already, in just nine short months, planted a significant signpost on humanity’s journey toward ‘peace on earth,’ one that is exactly right for our times.

Now I look forward to his acceptance speech in Oslo – and since we are indeed all in this together, to his finally greeting the Dalai Lama in the White House.

Change Power
Louise Diamond

We live in a rapidly changing world. Technology breakthroughs, weather disruptions, economic breakdowns, political shifts, and the exponential creation of new knowledge are but a few of the emergent conditions that call for new responses. Accelerating resource depletion, ice sheet melts, population growth, weapons acquisition, and violent militancy all require more than simple adaptation on the part of global leaders.

To address these and other large-scale challenges – and the opportunities they present for the birth of new ways of living together on and with the planet – we need systemic changes at three levels: Political, Institutional, and Social. We need transformative approaches to policy-making. We need to re-configure some of our core national and global institutions. We need to develop consensus among the people for a united vision. And we need change in our political, bureaucratic, corporate, and popular cultures or collective mindsets.

In particular, we need to:

1. Change our worldview/assumptions/attitudes/stories – in government and in the public – from separation to interconnectedness;
   
   
2. Change our political culture from adversarial polarization to collaboration;
   
   
3. Change our institutions from hierarchical and smoke-stacked to networked and holistic structures;
   
   
4. Change public opinion and government focus from inertia to urgent engagement;
   
   
5. Change our institutions from rigid to resilient; from fortressed to accessible.

To make these changes we need to know about the process of change itself. How do human beings, individually and collectively, transform their attitudes and beliefs, their behaviors, their organizations? How do complex systems accomplish and sustain transformative change in an ever-shifting environment?

Global Systems Initiatives is launching a project to synthesize that wisdom from a wide variety of sources to ask the question: How can the best of what we know about the process of change help us address the profound global challenges we now face? It will accomplish this task by reaching out to social innovators, thought leaders, organizational and human behavior specialists, social movement experts, change agents, indigenous wisdom-keepers, funders, scientists, relief and development workers, business leaders, systems thinkers, activists, advocates, and others – all of whom carry some thread of the larger tapestry.

In November and December we will convene dialogues, interviews, and teleconferences, asking some version of the following questions:

What do we know about culture change in complex systems? (memes, mindsets, behavioral norms)

• What do we know about moving from separative to inclusive; from segregated to integrated; from fragmented (smoke-stacked) to holistic (cross-functional) in complex systems?
  
• What do we know about building resilience in complex systems?
  
• What do we know about fostering collaboration and co-creativity in complex systems?

In January we will host a one-day Change Summit, inviting up to 100 people to comment on and refine the principles we have discovered through this process, translate them into strategies and tools, and test their application to real-life change issues. To accomplish this, policymakers and advocates on three global issues will join change agents from various sectors in exploring how the tools might make a difference to particular policies. The three issues are: Resource Scarcity (food, water, and energy, in the context of climate change), disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and peace and security in Afghanistan/Pakistan/India.

The project will culminate in a white paper that highlights transformative innovations, describes the change strategies we have synthesized from the research, shows the application of those principles to the identified issues, and makes recommendations for further application to other challenges. This paper will ultimately become a chapter in a book called The Power of WE: New Tools of Global Engagement for an Interconnected World.

The outcomes of this project will be disseminated through various means: email distribution, public speaking, presentations, op-eds, workshops, conferences, blogging, and more. Go to www.globalsystemsinitiatives.net/changepower from time to time to see interview and dialogue notes as the project unfolds. If you would like to participate in this project, please emai diamond@globalsystemsinitiatives.net.

All living systems exchange energy, matter, and information with their environment. How the administration can manage its boundaries to incorporate wisdom from outside sources is a big challenge for any government. What we know, collectively, about change is a much-needed resource in these times – for all of us, and especially for those making decisions about our future. We’re knocking at the door of officialdom; let us trust it will open and welcome what we have to share.