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The Global Systems Review Issue 4 November 2008
The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.
In This Special Holiday Issue:
- Letter to Santa – I’ve made my wish list – of questions I’d like Santa, or someone, to answer More...
- New Year’s Resolutions – Eight commitments for 2009
More...
- Special Gifts – Alan Betts and Tom Atlee weigh in on sustainability and deliberative democracy
More...
Letter to Santa, by Louise Diamond
Dear Santa,
When I saw you in the Mall the other day you told me I was never too old to ask for what I want for Christmas. Since I already have more ‘things’ than I could possibly need, my wish list is full of questions – the kind only a naïve child would ask:
- What is ‘the Market’ anyway, and how is it that we have allowed it to harm so many lives?
- How can some people be allowed to gamble with other peoples’ assets for their own gain and without regard for the devastation this may cause?
- Why are we so addicted to consumerism, materialism, limitless growth, and high-stakes risks, and what can we do about it?
- Is Afghanistan our next Viet Nam?
- Why is the ‘war on terror’ only producing stronger terrorist networks?
- Has anyone noticed that several of our most basic systems – the economy, the climate, health care, security – are in various stages of crisis and failure all at once? Is anyone asking ‘why?’ Does anyone care?
- Where have all the people who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure gone to live? Are they like our very own IDP’s (internally displaced persons)?
- Why can’t every member of Congress be allotted a fixed amount of special spending for their district, and all other pork be outlawed?
- Where is the political will for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian and the Kashmiri conflicts?
- Who is laughing all the way to the bank from this financial meltdown? From the Iraqi war? From the health care crisis?
- Have you seen even the titles of the violent movies and games our children are enthralled with? Does this seem healthy to you?
- Why don’t the Democrats in Congress just let the Republicans filibuster against saving the auto industry (and the one in ten American jobs they produce), or against anything else for that matter, and let the American people see who is bringing government to a screeching halt?
- Why are the workers and unions suddenly the enemy, in an era when management is bloated and obscenely overpaid?
- What makes a CEO, or a sports star for that matter, worth tens of millions of dollars a year – when the success of their enterprise is clearly a team effort; when they are sometimes not even successful; and when we pay those who care for the most precious among us, our children and our elders, a pittance?
- Why don’t we count the number of Iraq dead and injured the way we count American casualties of the war there? Don’t we believe all people are created equal?
- How can we stand by idly and let Zimbabwe crash and burn? Darfur? The Congo?
- Why do some radio talk show hosts and television pundits think filling the airwaves with hate and anger is ‘the American way?’
- As we watch the presidential transition, why don’t we realize that we are all in transition, from one way of looking at the world to another?
- How can we help the Obama administration succeed in turning crisis into opportunity?
- What will I do with my new sled when there’s no more snow in Vermont because of global warming?
Thanks, Santa, for thinking of my list when you pack your sleigh for Christmas Eve deliveries. Your cookies and milk – made from all organic ingredients, of course – are waiting.
Much love,
Louise’s Inner Child
New Year’s Resolutions
As we approach the New Year, it’s time to start thinking about our resolutions for 2009. Here are eight commitments – for the eight nights of Hanukah – that I would like to suggest for the body politic:
- In 2009 we will hold our leaders accountable when they misuse their power, fail to steward our shared resources carefully, or act for narrow interests and personal gain.
- In 2009 we will realize that hatred and divisiveness are also weapons of mass destruction with which we tear each other apart, and that when we recognize how much we need each other, our diversity becomes our strength. We will reach out to those who hold different views, different beliefs, different cultures or lifestyles, to appreciate our common interests and shared humanity.
- In 2009 we will recognize what Thich Nhat Hanh calls our ‘interbeing’ with the natural world. We will go beyond turning out the lights and driving hybrids to considering all the ways our actions contribute to the destruction – or the sustainability – of the living environment which is our only home. We will live as if, indeed, there is only one of us – one family of life on and with this precious planet Earth.
- In 2009 we will exchange fear for hope, and not allow ourselves to be caught in the web of those who would manipulate us for gain, control, or ideology. We will wake up from the hypnotic trance of mindless entertainment and oversimplifying orations, and exercise our innate intelligence to see the world as it is, and our responsibility for its future.
- In 2009 we will realize that true terror is not having food, or water, or shelter, or education, or health care; that true security can never be gained if our basic needs go unmet; and that violence always begets more violence. We will walk fearlessly into the heart of suffering and offer our compassion, our care, and our resources to those in need, because nothing is more important than the well-being of our family, the whole family.
- In 2009 we will remember gratitude, wonder, and awe for the great mysteries of this living universe. Therefore, we will choose dialogue over debate, inquiry over certainty, and collective wisdom over individual pride-fulness. We will speak our truth without needing to convince anyone of anything, knowing that our words – even our thoughts – create the world around us. Above all, we will listen – with an open mind and open heart – to the truths of others, whether we agree with them or not.
- In 2009 we will make ‘peace on earth’ Job One.
- In 2009 we will look at our children and our grandchildren – at everyone’s children – and commit ourselves to their future.
- In the spirit of the season, I wish you all joy and peace galore!
Special Gifts of the Season
I found these two articles to be especially insightful and wise, and great examples of looking at the big picture. I think you will too.
Sustainable Systems
By Alan K. Betts
[Betts, A. K. (2008), Climate, Energy and Community: Vermont 2008. Chapter 12, JAMES discussion section,http://adv-model-earth-syst-discuss.org/index.php/JAMES-D/article/view/16/14
One of a series of columns written for the Weekly Planet in the Environment section of two Vermont Sunday newspapers, the Rutland Herald (www.rutlandherald.com) and the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus (www.timesargus.com)].
Sitting outside the last few weeks on glorious sunny days, watching the leaves fall, I have been reflecting on the natural cycles of life. This October mirrored in many ways the spring transition that I talked about back in May. Nature delays the first frost as long as possible. When the forests are green, they are transpiring water, keeping the air moist and providing vapor to form clouds. Clouds and water vapor, a greenhouse gas, blanket the earth. This reduces night-time cooling, so temperatures before sunrise can stay in the 40s. Dew may form, but there is no frost.
In September as the nights get longer and the sun drops lower in the sky, the earth cools, until one night cold dry air blows down from the north, and the temperature falls until frost forms. Our summer vegetables die, and our forests recognize frost as a signal to prepare for winter. The leaves turn, and transpiration falls dramatically. The air gets drier, cloud cover diminishes and so frosts become more frequent.
Nature goes through a cycle of growth and decay. The forests grow slowly and respond to the supply of nutrients, water and sunlight. All parts of the system ? soil, roots, tree, leaves and air ? are exchanging and ‘communicating’ with each other. There is a balance, with a complex network of regulatory controls providing stability.
Sure, I harvest some trees for fuel and compost some leaves to feed my garden in the spring. But if I am wise, I do so in moderation.
Contrast this with our human economic and financial system. Against all evidence, we believe that we have unlimited material and financial resources. We think that we can grow our economies, our wealth and our debt without limit, with less and less regulation and control ? and without proper information flows and feedbacks to keep the system stable. What arrogance! Blinded and driven by greed we have created an unstable financial system that grows like a cancer until it collapses, most recently into a bottomless sea of ‘toxic debt.’ Trillions of dollars of complex financial instruments (think ‘virtual money’) have sucked all the real wealth out of business.
We don’t know how to uncouple one part of the financial system from the whole. We have not built in a way to ‘compost’ this toxic debt and separate it from the basic banking system that we all need for commerce. We got drunk with greed, and failed to notice we had coupled the real world, which has real limits, with our virtual world of limitless leveraged debt. With so much money and ideology at stake, no one wants to discuss the reality of the mess and admit the truth, especially in an election season. And it is silly to expect economists and financiers to sort it out. It was their false assumptions and dishonesty that created it in the first place. Ecologists understand sustainable systems much better ? we should listen to them!
A sustainable society is not just a slogan; we know better and could do better. So let us spend this winter in all our communities, planning a better future, where the rules are designed to work for us, the earth and the whole of creation! There are many places to start. Here is just one, with a rich thirty-year history.
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has proposed we develop a set of new rules that restore human-scale politics and economics and rebuild our communities. These rules are an extension of the ‘localism’ movement which has been discussed on these pages. They embrace three principles:
- Decisions are made by those who will feel the impact of those decisions.
- Communities accept responsibility for the welfare of their members and for the next generation.
- Households and communities possess or own sufficient productive capacity to generate real wealth.
These seem like common-sense principles, but they are a radical shift from the unregulated global financial system, which accepts no responsibility for communities or for the earth. We feel its impact, but it is by design out of control. Contrast the rapid rise of the local food movement in Vermont, which meets a real need, is under local control and generates real wealth in our communities. You could feel the excitement and satisfaction last weekend when the Rutland winter farmers market re-opened in the old Strand Theater.
What would it take to transform our communities so that our citizens and entrepreneurs are active and informed, with the skills to generate real wealth and the authority to be self-governing? We have still a little precious time, and one rich, unlimited and sustainable resource in our spirit and collective wisdom. Here lies the source of our faith, honesty and trust. But our expertise has been scattered and weakened by a sea of deception. Across Vermont we need to gather together in groups in our communities to collect ideas and inspiration, and then get to work.
Web references:
Institute for Local Self-Reliance: www.ilsr.org
New Rules Project: www.newrules.org
PRESIDENT 3.0
By Tom Atlee
[An Open Letter to Newsweek, Google, and others envisioning a new era of citizen engagement in government. In reference to "President 2.0" in Newsweek Dec 1, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/170347]
Many people are waking up to how digital technology is generating new possibilities for citizen engagement in governance. And some also recognize the additional amazing potential offered by our rapidly developing "social technologies" -- new ways for citizens to come together face-to-face for conversation and action.
Some also recognize that rapidly developing SOCIAL technologies -- new ways to come together for conversation and action -- offer additional amazing potential.
While the Internet does make mass citizen participation possible, its ability to generate COLLECTIVELY INTELLIGENT citizen guidance for policy-makers is limited. Generating true public policy wisdom requires high-quality, informed face-to-face dialogue and deliberation -- diverse citizens creatively exploring, comparing and weighing options together towards a coherent decision about a public issue.
But how do we get deliberative coherence from a population of millions? The revolutionary answer is... the same way we do with juries and public opinion polls: convene a randomly selected microcosm of the whole country: a small group -- a dozen to several hundred people -- whose members approximate the actual diversity of our nation. (This approach can also work at state and local levels, but the focus here is the whole nation.)
President Obama could convene tried-and-true, jury-style citizen deliberative councils like (1) British Columbia's remarkable 2004 Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform, (2) the official Consensus Conferences used by Denmark's Parliament to evaluate new technologies, or (3) the internationally popular Citizens Juries created by the United States' own Jefferson Center. These randomly selected microcosm groups get balanced briefings about the issue they're considering. They take testimony from -- and cross-examine -- diverse expert witnesses. Then they deliberate to make recommendations they publicly announce to policy-makers, media and the citizenry.
These leading-edge "policy juries" could be used to generate collectively intelligent recommendations on any issue, grounded in the knowledge of diverse experts and the values and experience of diverse citizens. President Obama could go three innovative steps further and (a) provide a public record of their briefings, hearings, and deliberations, available online; (b) have them do web research as part of their deliberative agendas and (c) submit their findings to online public forums and on-the-ground community gatherings across the country, where they can be debated and compared with other policy proposals. This would engage the whole nation with the best efforts of these potent citizen deliberative councils.
By stepping out of partisan politics into a "politics of the whole" in this powerful way -- by taking the unifying spirit of his campaign to the next level -- President Obama would in effect be creating a "President 3.0". Rather than simply using the Internet to further individual expression and interest-group activism -- the usual political uses of Web 2.0 -- he would actually be developing the public wisdom and collective intelligence capacity of our whole country.
But he and we will need to keep in mind an important dynamic: When Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, "A community will always make a better decision than an individual," he is unfortunately overlooking the proven -- and widely recognized -- phenomenon of "groupthink". The truth is that there are conditions where collective activity generates collective intelligence and others in which such activity generates collective stupidity. Much knowledge exists about the different conditions that predictably lead us into one state or the other. We need to get smart about using that knowledge.
So how would all this come about? Clearly, President Obama could spearhead this revolution in our politics and governance. But if the President doesn't want to innovate Governance 3.0, Google or any of dozens of other thoughtful, well-resourced groups and individuals or emerging grassroots networks could do it. There's nothing stopping
us but our own bias towards partisanship. It's time -- high time -- we got over that. There's a sane, healthy future just waiting for us to gather our collective wits into collective wisdom, using our diversity creatively.
During his campaign, Obama opened the door to that future. Citizen deliberative councils offer a very powerful way for all of us to walk through it together.
Tom Atlee
The Co-Intelligence Institute
http://www.co-intelligence.org
Author: THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY: USING CO-INTELLIGENCE
TO CREATE A WORLD THAT WORKS FOR ALL |
