Briefly: the ‘deliverable’ should present:
What we did:
* Discussed the UN call
* Researched what is being done;
* Made and discussed some of our own proposals;
* Learned some things;
* Discussed a suggestion to prepare an account of
what we learned, and
what we would recommend as a result; as well as
whether and how this could be presented to a larger public.
What we learned:
* We agree with the call's assessment of the crisis;
* There are many facets and manifestations of the crisis (problem), most of which are interrelated; in ways we do not yet completely understand
* There are already many efforts already underway to try to cope with the crisis;
* There are many current practices that seem to contribute and exacerbate the crisis;
* There are many 'ready to go' suggestions and proposals;
* There are many ideas and suggestion for solutions that need more research, development, testing to get them ready for implementation;
* There are considerable differences of opinion as to what should be done, and as a rust, considerable evident or emerging conflicts of interest: e.g.
- global vs local;
- small vs big;
- free market vs. regulation;
- reliance on technology, science vs. human values, ethics, effort and involvement;
- increasing awareness, inspiring, enabling, empowerment as a precondition for precipitating mass individual change, vs. looking for technological, organizational, legal 'leverage' points to efficiently and effectively engineer needed changes;
* There is currently no really effective forum for the global discourse to address these concerns and (actual and potential) conflicts of interest;
* Consequently, there is no meaningful link between the outcome and result of discussion and research about issues on the one hand, and individual as well as collective decisions made on the other.
* While there is considerable agreement that real solutions cannot be imposed but must be the result of broad participation in developing, negotiating, and making decisions, current conditions are prohibiting such participation due to
- inadequate awareness, information of many people;
- lack of education, skills, training; (enabling tools)
- power relations that favor some groups at the expense of others
(disenfranchising groups, minorities, women, etc.)
(lack of empowerment) and as a consequence
- lack of confidence, expectation of being able to make meaningful contributions: apathy, cynicism, anger (often leading to violent action that not always brings about better solutions but merely establishes different power structures).
Where we are: ready to articulate our Approach and tentative Recommendations
Approach:
Accepting the above findings as aims or goals for which we might look for meaningful answers (not the requested definitive 'model for survival' but rather 'ways to get there'):
Understanding the problem
Trying to develop a meaningful comprehensive overview picture of the 'whole system', identify the various individual problems contributing to the crisis or resulting from it, so that they can be studied and analyzed both individually and how they interact with other aspects and problems;
Matching the proposed solutions (underway, ready to go, needing research) to the individual problem facets
and/or
Grouping the problems into major themes of critical concern, and matching the proposed solutions to those;
(the matching visualized b way of 'maps' that simply link the items)
Describing the proposed solutions
Within the overview discussion, solutions will be
a) identified by 'name' in the overview matching maps (many of the most interesting ides will appear in several of the different 'theme' maps as they address multiple problem facts)
b) described by brief summaries in the description of one of the main theme maps; these will be linked to
c) Detailed descriptions that will be compiled in the Appendix.
Based on the insights drawn from the more than year-long discussion and assessment of the resulting findings above: tentative
Recommendations
Since the discussion was started as a challenge to respond to the UN call, it will be addressed to the UN (noting questions about the Un leadership or recommending other agencies / individuals as responsible agents as appropriate to each solution proposal)
For each of the major 'themes of critical concern' (their order up for discussion), e.g.
Problem awareness, understanding
Local / small group action projects;
Global coordination, discourse and policy
Food
Water
Climate
Governance
Economy / finance
Social
(in which solutions / projects are shown in the maps, identified / linked to their detailed descriptions in the Appendix)
Recommendations are stated:
Things to do, support, encourage (by whom? how, specifically?)
Things Not to do; (by whom? how to achieve the stopping?
Priority first steps…
Specific recommendations: (as in Debategraph element ….)
- Develop overall framework with its components of
Action Projects
Coordination
Discourse
Research
Education/information
- Overall policy of balance between local initiatives and global projects;
- Support for specific small / individual / local action or research projects, such as
- Systems models for better understanding of the crisis and problems;
- OASIS / ACORN;
- Permaculture policies and projects;
- Innovation zones in disaster areas (as part of disaster response policy)
('cracks in the establishes systems');
- Controls of power;
etc. (Suggestions:? )
- Strategy for achieving abandonment of destructive practices / programs
(Things NOT to do, to stop, to reduce…)
Appendix:
- UN Secretary General's call;
- Synopsis of themes, insights, limitations of (this ) STW discussion and our various
attempts to develop a response (implications for discourse framework)
- Detailed descriptions of individual problems
(symptoms, seriousness, causes, potential / proposed remedies,
links / relations to other problems, concerns) ?
- Detailed descriptions of
a) main framework components;
b) ideas, solutions, projects, needed research…
(order to be discussed: alphabetical; by theme group? priority?)
- References, links to material researched, others’ work, projects … |