Welcome 2012: Occupy Love

Our wish for 2102 is that this year we will recognize the value of our hearts in true connective intelligence, and we will finally, collectively, Occupy Love.

Consider that the heart has its own intrinsic nervous system, a bundle of neurons in the heart that actually qualifies as a brain. Our heart brains communicate information to the brains in our heads—in fact, more information travels from the heart to the head than the other way around, the only organ for which this is true.  But we have to be receptive, in a psychophysiological way, to receive its subtle signals.

I’ve been looking for and have found some subtle signals within the Occupy movement that this could be a movement to promote change through love instead of chaos; that there’s an opportunity to replace old patterns of change based on being AGAINST that are slow and not resilient with ones that transcend based on being FOR.

So for our last post of 2011, I’m including links to those signals within Occupy.  May they get ever brighter.  At the end of the list is a special Vimeo treat created by NextNower Manuel Maqueda, and we echo his wish for us all:

May you flow like a big river, graceful, peaceful, and yet unstoppable in your great power, to bring about the profound changes we need in 2012 for the benefit of all.

Happy New Year 2012

If We Get OWS Right We Get Everything Right:  Ian MacKenzie:  Ultimately, we are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies. We want everyone to wake up to the beauty of what we can create.  And within it the short film:  OWS: The Revolution is Love. Occupy4Love:  “Occupy4Love is a beacon for heart-centered individuals, groups, and organizations that are supporting the Love in Occupy”. Facebook page  Occupy Evolution:  “Supporting the Occupy movement in reaching its full evolutionary potential.”  The planned film, Occupy Love: “Occupy Love will be a moving, transformative feature documentary that asks the question: how are the economic and ecological crises we are facing today a great love story?”  Occupy Your Heart: “There is no higher wisdom than a loving heart.”  The 100% for a Peaceful Occupy:  This group was created for the coming together of the people that want to stand up for a peaceful, non-violent Occupy.  From John Steiner:  Compassion is Our New Currency:  “Young activists have spoken to me about the extraordinary richness of their experiences at Occupy, and they call it love.”  From the Daily Kos: Occupy Your Heart:  “They may not understand it on an intellectual level, but they showed me that when they occupy their hearts with love fear falls away.  And now I get it.  It’s not bravery or courage that propels the success of OWS, it is love.  When we occupy our hearts with love, fear flees and cannot stand against the power that emanates from the heart.

Also of interest:  Occupy Your Soul by Michael Meade

Recuerdos de los ríos Amazonas y Ucayali by Manuel Maqueda

THRIVE Movie Premiers 11.11.11

Thanks to NextNowers Vic Desotelle and Bill Daul for circulating to our NextNowNetwork community.  The website is interesting.

“My name is Foster Gamble and I’ve spent nearly a lifetime trying to figure out what happened that could account for the staggering agony and deprivation on this planet.  I set out on a journey seeking to answer questions like, is it even possible for humans to thrive?  I found a code, a pattern in nature, that’s been embedded in arts and icons throughout the centuries.  Truth hidden.”

Cultural Creatives 1.0 – The (R)Evolution

This is a rendering of what 80 million points of light on a map of the United States might look like.  Those Points of Light are the Cultural Creatives.

From the website and other sources:

Cultural Creatives 1.0 – THE REVOLUTION is a documentary made by Frygis Fogel, an Hungarian independent filmmaker, on the topic of the Cultural Creatives, people who are taking an interest in improving the quality of life and making it sustainable for future generations. It is NOT a global organization or any kind of political movement, yet there are an increasing number of people showing an enormous change in consciousness, providing examples through their own initiatives, and giving humanity an opportunity to find solutions to the issues of the 21st century. The Cultural Creatives comprise over one third of the adult populations of the US, Europe, Japan, and many major cosmopolitan cities worldwide, all with a similar mindset. In the midst of many world crises, they are anticipating the future as an abundant opportunity.

Featuring many key figures from Europe and the U.S., this is the first documentary film to look with scientific thoroughness at the world of Cultural Creatives. It shows that a great mass of people think differently from the way propagated by the media and promoted by the establishment. By the end of the film it becomes evident that this huge mass, were it to become aware of its power, could change the world. Because Cultural Creatives are unstoppable and their number is continuously rising, the values they champion could soon become core values for human civilization generally.

Cultural Creatives are emerging without anybody organizing their presence, without anyone seeking to create political power from their existence, and without any group having any interest in them. They are emerging simply because in real historical development the growth of human consciousness can not be stopped, no matter how much today’s establishments and intellectual elites try to ignore and even hide their appearance.

So they are all here, among and around us: 80 million Cultural Creatives in the United States and 120 million in Europe, all with a similar mindset – the citizens of a new world. They are the ones who are really preparing the future and its new social structures for us, and are doing so right now. They are the ones who anticipate the future as an astonishing opportunity never before available to mankind throughout the whole course of its history here on earth. Their message: The time is ripe to take the shaping of social life into our own hands.

The principle researcher for the Cultural Creatives is Dr. Paul Ray of the Institute for the Emerging Wisdom Culture at Wisdom University, a partner with NextNow Collaboratory on various State of the World Forum initiatives.

Community Leaders Convene: Join us at theCoreConference Sept. 23-25 2010

NextNowCollaboratory is a Community Partner of theCoreConference

The strong resonance between the goals of the two organizations is obvious in this description from their website:  ‘One of the themes of theCOREconference is “collective intent”.  How can we come together to create something bigger than ourselves that benefits everyone in greater proportion to what we can do for ourselves.  This is inherent in any successful collaboration, and we are manifesting it in every way possible in our creation and execution of the conference.”

theCoreConference has created a discount code for NextNowers.  PLEASE CHECK THE NEXTNOWNetwork HUB NEWSLETTER FOR THE DISCOUNT CODE.

Here’s the invitation:

Explore the future of communities at theCoreConference!

September 23rd-25th, Richmond, CA

We are excited about a new groundbreaking event called theCOREconference, where you can learn how to engage, build, lead and collaborate from key thought leaders and practitioners in community building and collaborative leadership.

» Social and collaboration technologies expo

» Multi-sector speakers and facilitators

» Case studies and best practice demonstrations

» Open space collaboration sessions

» Facilitated networking circles

theCOREconference will convene community leaders and technology developers from multiple sectors to present, discuss and exchange the best practices, technology platforms and tools, strategies of engagement, and help convene a network of many networks to come together at this compelling point in time.

NextNowers already supporting theCoreConference include Bill Daul, John Furey, Jeff Hamaoui, Brad Nye, Claudia Welss and others.

You’ll find NextNow Collaboratory at the conference hosting dialogues on community building and key organizational initiatives.  To join in, just look for a table with our name on it.

Additionally, we are excited to be able to offer you a $100 discount ticket through our network!  Refer to the latest NEXTNOWNetwork Hub newsletter and use the discount code when purchasing your ticket.

Visit the website to find out more about keynote speakers and workshop lineups: http://www.theCOREconference.com.

See you there!

Great Coverage from Partners 1Sky

NextNow Collaboratory is a 1Sky Ally (under Media, although we perhaps belong under Civil Society).

1Sky Policy Update 2/15/10 – Extreme Weather Shuts Down Capitol Hill

Everything in the nation’s capitol took a backseat to two major snowstorms that dumped over 32 inches of snow on DC last week. Congress fell behind and climate deniers took advantage of the storm to stir up baseless controversy. Momentum is still building behind a much-anticipated senate jobs bill, but members of Congress are home this week for the President’s Day Recess, and won’t take it up until February 22. Throughout this week 1Sky organizers and volunteers will be out in force talking face-to-face with their reps and senators about protecting the Clean Air Act and passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill this year.
Snow storms break records, stall progress on the Hill

• Washington, DC received over 32 inches of snow over the past week, breaking records, shutting down much of the city, and giving us a taste of the impacts of new weather patterns and extreme weather events driven by climate change http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/201002100002

• All House votes were canceled for the entire week; the Senate was closed on Wednesday, with limited business taking place Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
• Climate deniers are using the storm to perpetuate myths about global warming and the fate of the climate bill

• • Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) built an Igloo with his family and called it “Al Gore’s New Home” http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/09/inhofe-family-gore-mockery/
  • The Virginia GOP is using the snowstorm as an opportunity to launch attack ads against Reps who voted for the House-sponsored climate bill http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/02/virginia-gop-uses-blizzard-spread-climate-lies

• • Even Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who generally accepts climate science and supports climate legislation, suggested this week that the storm, “makes it more challenging for folks not taking time to review the scientific arguments.” http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/02/11/bingaman-snowmaggedon-warming/

• Those familiar with climate science however, have noted that the extreme amount of moisture in last weeks’ storms is in fact directly in line with predictions made by climate scientists.

• • Climate Progress: http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/08/climate-science-extreme-weather-moisture-precipitation-warmest-winter-satellite-record-deniers-jeff-masters/
  • Repower made sure its members saw Jon Stewart’s comical analysis of how the storm relates to climate change: http://repoweramerica.org/climate-change-causes-severe-weather/

Senate Jobs Bill delayed, vote postponed until after recess

• The first of at least two jobs bills was expected to be introduced in the Senate early last week, and passed before the recess, but was delayed due to the snow storms as well as difficulties in resolving disagreements among key senators
• On Thursday, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) unveiled a long-awaited jobs bill with a price tag of $85 billion http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2010/02/09/2/ (subs. req’d)

• • The bill included a number of energy tax credits for biofuels, energy-efficient home improvements, and other measures as well as an extension of the current highway and transit law

• Just hours after the bill was introduced, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) quickly asserted (to the surprise of many) that he would scale it back to simpler, $15 billion version without most of the energy-related provisions http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32878.html
• The bill will now be considered after the President’s Day Recess, but no deadline has been set for its passage
• The New York Times editorial board published this harsh critique of the Jobs bill and process surrounding it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/opinion/12fri1.html

Climate Bill Still On the Table

• Key players in the senate released additional statements last week reaffirming that they are moving forward on a bill

• • In response to claims in the media and from colleagues about climate legislation being “buried under record snowfall,” Senator John Kerry (D-MA) asserted Wednesday that anyone who says climate legislation is dead for the year is “dead wrong” http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/80539-kerry-those-writing-climate-legislation-obituary-are-dead-wrong?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
  • Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and others are speculating about where the newly-elected Scott Brown (R-MA) will stand on climate legislation (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32657.html), especially in light of a new poll showing that a majority of Brown’s supporters in the special election favor comprehensive climate legislation, while overall Massachusetts voters said that energy independence should be Brown’s top legislative priority http://www.nationaljournal.com/img/pdfs/100204_Masspoll.pdf

• On Thursday, the Obama administration released it’s annual economic report, which included an extensive chapter on the economic benefits of comprehensive climate and energy legislation http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-12-obama-celebrates-clean-energy-investments-reaffirms-support-cap
• 1Sky organizers and volunteers will keep the pressure on during this week’s Congressional Recess by showing up at in-state events and showing Senators that there is overwhelming public support for a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill this year http://local.1sky.org/

Defending The Clean Air Act from House and Senate Attacks

• Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution of disapproval aimed at preventing the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is still expected to be brought to the senate floor next month

• • The measure only requires 51 votes to pass, and currently has 40 supporters, including 3 democrats
  • A number of groups, including several 1Sky allies, are launching ad campaigns in key states calling out senators like Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) who support the “Dirty Air Act” http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/02/11/11greenwire-enviro-groups-target-sens-lincoln-murkowski-on-10465.html

• Three similar attacks in the House are being spearheaded by Representatives Ike Skelton (D-MO), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Earl Pomeroy (D-ND). Some co-sponsors of these efforts include members who voted in favor of comprehensive climate and energy legislation last June.
• Over the recess, 1Sky organizers and volunteers will show members of Congress that it is unacceptable to protect the profits of big polluters like Big Oil and Dirty Coal at the expense of our health and much-needed clean energy jobs. http://local.1sky.org/

1Sky Follows Up On Obama Rope Line Debate

Last week, we noted that 1Sky Campaign Director Gillian Caldwell took an opportunistic moment to talk to President Obama on a rope line about “clean coal” and federal priorities. Videotape of the exchange and a blog and follow up letter can be found at the URLs below.

If you missed it, here is the Video of President Obama and Gillian Caldwell talking with a related blog

http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/02/my-chat-with-president-obama-dont-be-stubborn-or-we-will-be

And here is the new follow up 1Sky letter to President Obama which was delivered last week and copied to several members of his cabinet

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gillian-caldwell/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_459052.html

Prepared by Julie Erickson and Jason Kowalski from the 1Sky’s policy team. Please direct questions or comments to jason@1sky.org.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this weekly policy update, please email Adi at adi@1sky.org

COP15: Accepting Responsibility (Huffington Post)

Forwarded by Jim Garrison, State of the World Forum, NextNow Collab collaboration, as, in his view, “an excellent perspective on the reason for the breakdown in Copenhagen today.”

William S. Becker,

Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project

HuffingtonPost: December 14, 2009

COP 15: Accepting Responsibility

Imagine you’re a well-to-do person attending a dinner of your peers. The food is top-rate and there’s plenty of it. Course after course is laid upon the table.

A group of less-advantaged people has been watching from the sidelines. When the dinner is done, you invite them to join you at the table. After the restaurant staff has served coffee, the bill comes. You and your rich peers insist that everyone now at the table must share in paying the entire bill.

If that seems unfair, then you have just understood the position of the delegates from emerging economies, now negotiating with their wealthier colleagues from the North over a climate deal at Copenhagen.

Some poorer nations have taken the position that because the industrialized world is responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions already in the atmosphere — in effect exhausting the environment’s capacity to cope with carbon — rich nations must pay “damages” or “reparations.” These payments presumably would be used by emerging economies to cope with the climate changes that already are devastating some of them, and to increase their standards of living while minimizing their emissions.

But the United States’ chief negotiator, Todd Stern — an attorney and by all accounts a very good and moral man — rejects that argument. Speaking at COP-15, he repeated President Barack Obama’s recent promise that the United States will pay a “fair share” of financial assistance to emerging economies. But, he said: “We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting emissions in the atmosphere, up there, but the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that.”

Through most of the past 200 years of industrial revolution, Stern argued, people were “blissfully ignorant” that carbon emissions caused climate change. Therefore, he contended, the people of the United States need not feel a sense of guilt.

Like a good lawyer arguing on behalf of his defendant, Mr. Stern has taken a tough bargaining position. But it is neither accurate nor moral. At the highest levels of academia and government, we have not been blissfully ignorant that industrialization would result in climate change, and even if we were, that does not absolve the developed world of its responsibility to help poor nations as they attempt to achieve a standard of living they so far have only observed from the sidelines.

Scientists have known about climate change since the late 1800s. The first estimates that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could dramatically increase atmospheric temperatures were made in the late 1800s when Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius estimated that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would increase the Earth’s surface temperatures by 5-6 degrees Celsius.

A long period of debate ensued during the early 20th Century, but evidence mounted that Arrehenius had it right. By mid-century, physical measurements were showing a striking correlation between greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the Earth’s temperature.

In the United States, presidents at least as early as Lyndon Johnson were warned that climate change was coming. In 1965, Johnson’s panel of science advisors told him:

By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO2 in the atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur.

Every U.S. president since has known of the risks of climate change. Every president and Congress since has failed to adequately mitigate or manage that risk. Although then Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the United States in 1998, the U.S. Senate made clear it would not vote in favor of ratification. As a result, President Clinton didn’t bother to try.

It wasn’t until this year that either house of the U.S. Congress passed a bill to begin controlling greenhouse gases. That bill, the Waxman-Markey bill, proposes to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at about 3 percent below their 1990 level by 2020 — a ridiculously low goal given that America is the country most responsible for the warming gases in the atmosphere today and remains one of the world’s leading carbon polluters.

Our national climate policy has been dominated for a century by denial, by the political influence of fossil energy industries, and by willful disregard for climate science verging on, if not crossing the line into, gross negligence.

Even if Mr. Stern were correct — that the political leaders of the industrial revolution were “blissfully ignorant” of the relationship between pollution and climate change — that may not absolve them of liability for the damages our greenhouse gas emissions have caused. I asked University of Oregon Law Prof. Mary Wood about this. Her answer:

There are different competing policy objectives that a government has to consider, one of which is fairness to the polluter (by not punishing action that was legal at the time) and the other is protection of the public (by cleaning up the hazardous waste site). The courts have chosen the latter over the former every single time.

Prof. Wood contends there is substantial basis in case law, U.S. statutes and international treaties to hold public officials accountable as “trustees of the commons,” responsible for protecting the air, water, soils and other natural resources on which our wealth and health depend.

If we Americans should not feel guilty about our role in climate change, then we should at least acknowledge a great moral obligation to help poorer nations get to the table of genuine prosperity (the definition of which deserves its own essay) without further destroying the commons.

In arguing for the plaintiff, I will concede two points. First, money is far from the only issue on which developed nations must take responsibility. We also have a moral duty to dramatically cut our emissions and to do so quickly. On its blog, the Center for American Progress reported one conversation it had at COP-15 with a representative of island nations that are seeing their land and cultures lost to sea level rise:

All of the billions and trillions in the world won’t do a darn thing if your country is drowning or, worse yet, no longer exists. For the small islands, the focus should be on drastic emission reductions and not a price tag for their existence.

Second, we must be creative in finding the money that developing nations will need for mitigation and adaptation. Financial assistance of the type and amount that adds appreciably to staggering national debts or that further undermines the economies of the developed world is not in anyone’s best interest.

For example, among the ideas circulating through COP-15 is a proposal by George Soros to create a $100 billion assistance fund for poor nations using foreign exchange reserves issued by the International Monetary Fund – an idea Soros said would not add to anyone’s national debt.

Poorer countries would win a moral victory by forcing industrial economies to characterize financial assistance as “reparations,” or to demand punitive as well as compensatory damages for past emissions. But the moral victory is not as important as the funding itself.

What cannot be reasonably argued, however, is that the United States and the other rich countries who have been eating so well for so long have no moral responsibility to help others find a way to achieve their own decent, safe, sanitary and sustainable standards of living. That help should be given willingly and generously.

State of the World Forum Launches in Brazil: 2020 By 2050

SEE END OF POST FOR EVENT LIVE BROADCAST LINKS

NextNow Collaboratory is an organizational partner of State of the World Forum, launching the global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign today in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  This Forum marks the first time people will be coming together from around the world at this scale to strategize plans of action to reduce carbon emissions globally by 80% by 2020 (instead of 2050, widely accepted by governments but acknowledged by scientists as “too late”) not just through a change in behavior (which can be difficult to sustain) but by re-aligning our relationship to ourselves and to our values, to each other, to Earth and to Life itself.  It also marks the first time a major media company launches a national public education campaign on global warming intended to mobilize a nation to take action– from stopping clear-cutting of the Amazon to creating sustainable lifestyles.

Over 200 scientists, political leaders, business executives, academics, civil society activists and artists from 20 nations and across Brazil are in attendance.  But this initiative is about everyone becoming a climate leader, because that’s what it will take. We’re all part of this movement to build a future in alignment with our most deeply-held values, with the natural systems of Earth and all Life.  Increase your awareness by visiting the State of the World Forum 2020 Climate Leadership Media and Resources page, and join us for the next Forum in Washington D.C. February 28 – March 3, 2010.

Below is the press release for this historic meeting in Belo Horizonte:

PRESS RELEASE
August 4, 2009

Globo TV launches unprecedented national public education ads on global warming to support the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign

The Globo Organization, the largest media company in Brazil and the fourth largest in the world, will premiere its national public education ads to support the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign at the State of the World Forum in Belo Horizonte, Brazil August 4 – 7, 2009. The aim is to educate the public about the escalating dangers of global warming and to encourage “climate leadership” in reducing carbon emissions and developing sustainable lifestyles.

This action is unprecedented and marks the first time anywhere in the world when a major media company has taken up the issue of global warming and begun a sustained public educational effort in support of a national mobilization on global warming. “We are delighted at this demonstration of climate leadership,” said Jim Garrison, President of the State of the World Forum. “ We believe it will serve as a model for other major companies to join Globo and begin to educate their constituencies about the escalating crisis of global warming.”

Albert Alcouloumbre, Director of Planning and Social Programs at Globo, said, “We consider our support for the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign to be part of our responsibility to our viewers. Globo has a long history of social responsibility going back to the founder Roberto Marinho, and we are proud of this tradition.”

Ricardo Young, President of the Ethos Institute, said, “Brazil is ready for a national 2020 mobilization on this critical issue.”

The Globo ads support the launch of a global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign and a Brazil 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign in Belo Horizonte August 4 – 7, when scientists, government leaders, business executives and civil society activists from around the world and Brazil will meet to begin planning 2020 campaigns.

Says Garrison: “The urgency of global warming mandates that each and every one of us become climate leaders. For the first time in our lives, indeed for the first time in history, all of us must take responsibility for our climate, whether at the individual, community, company, institution, state, or national level. We are all responsible for global warming. We must all share in the leadership required to solve it, for nothing less than the fate of human civilization is at stake. The crisis is that stark, the choice is that clear, the leadership required is that urgent.”

At the heart of the Climate Leadership Campaign and the purpose of the Belo Horizonte conference is resolving the contradiction between what our governments are negotiating and what our scientists are asserting about the accelerating pace of global warming. Our governments are negotiating as if the world has another forty years to solve global warming. The Copenhagen negotiations call for an 80% reduction of CO2 by 2050.  But the more our scientists know, the more urgent the crisis becomes and the more urgently we must act. The current world situation with regard to climate change is worse than the worst cast scenario of the IPCC in its 2007 Report.

It is for these reasons that when he accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri said “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Thousands of scientists around the world agree. Lester Brown, who will keynote the Belo Horizonte Forum, states “The situation is so urgent it has come down to mobilizing to save civilization.”

Says Garrison:  “Climate leadership must be based on what is scientifically urgent, not on what is politically expedient. Thus our strategic intention and call is a very simple one: ‘2050 by 2020.’ What our governments are negotiating for 2050 must be accomplished by 2020 and we must all be prepared to demonstrate the climate leadership required to accomplish this.”

For further information: Leandro Grandi at FSB Communications at leandro.grandi@fsb.com.br or Jim Garrison at jgarrison@worldforum.org

For further information on the State of the World Forum in Belo Horizonte:
http://brasil2020.com.br

For further information on the State of the World Forum:
http://worldforum.org

TO WATCH LIVE BROADCASTS OF THE BELO HORIZONTE STATE OF THE WORLD FORUM:

6:00- 8:00 PM EST ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 4

9:00 AM- 5:00 PM EST ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5

Ecological Creditor Nation Brazil Mobilizes: State of the World Forum moves to February 2010 (Washington, D.C.) and August 2010 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

In February, NextNow Collab helped launch the Ecological Creditor Nation Summit initiated by the Global Footprint Network.  Brazil is one of the approximately 20% of nations studied that maintains Ecological Creditor status.  Now NextNow Collab partner State of the World Forum is moving its Washington D.C. conference from November 2009 to February, 2010, largely due to the extensive involvement of Brazil, which is launching a Brazil 2020 campaign in partnership with the Forum in August 2009–the developments of which will go far in informing the subsequent Forum in Washington, D.C.– and which we plan to attend.  All of these efforts combined act to energize the emerging global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  We’re really excited by these developments and inspired by Brazil’s commitment.

Below is the announcement from Jim Garrison as it appears on the State of the World Forum website.

Dear Friends of the State of the World Forum,

We want to inform you that the upcoming State of the World Forum has been rescheduled from November 12-14, 2009 to February 28 – March 3, 2010. This has come about due to the extraordinary success of our endeavors and the fact that what was originally an intent to convene a conference has morphed into a global strategy to develop a 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  Allow me to explain.

A year ago, we decided to convene the 2009 State of the World Forum in November 2009 to address the escalating crisis of global warming.  We decided to do so using an integral framework, a perspective that was unique to the debate and which would allow for very synergistic cross sectoral dialogue. In early March of this year, I was invited down to Brazil to give some lectures on climate change and to speak about the integral approach we were taking on the issue.  What took place can only be described as phenomenal.  Each place I went, the response was not only an affirmation of the urgency of the crisis global warming represents but a willingness to begin working to develop a national mobilization in Brazil to support our efforts to mobilize action by 2020. Similar responses have been forthcoming in Australia, Holland, and Mexico and from a range of organizations and companies around the world.

To make a long story very short, four months later, we are launching a global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign as well as launching a national Brazil 2020 campaign in Belo Horizonte, Brazil August 4 – 7 with over a hundred international specialists in climate change and several hundred activists from all over Brazil.  The decision has also been made to convene the 2010 State of the World Forum in Rio de Janeiro August 30 – September 3, 2010.  The emergence of a global strategy and such dynamic movement in Brazil has necessitated a reframing of the 2009 State of the World Forum in Washington.

There are four main reasons we are changing the date:

1) By moving to the 2010 February 28 – March date we will have much more space available to us at the Washington Hilton hotel to accommodate more people and to design a more interactive event with more breakout rooms.

2) The new dates for the Washington Forum will place this event equidistance between the two other Forums, giving us the opportunity to respond to the developments from Belo Horizonte in August 4 -7, 2009 and incorporate the work from Washington February 28 – March 3, 2010 into the Rio Forum August 30 – September 3, 2010.  This Phase One plan is in keeping with our overall orientation as a  global Campaign as opposed to a single event.  Our intent is to convene State of the World Forums in major cities worldwide over the next ten years, through 2020, as we building support for our 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.

3) We have recently established an important partnership with Globo TV, the largest media company in Brazil and South America, and are in the process of developing programming ideas, including the production of at least one special in conjunction with the Washington Forum.  This gives us the opportunity to create other global television distribution deals and give the rescheduled Forum world-wide exposure.  The new February dates will give us the time necessary to make these arrangements.

4) The new dates will place the conference in Washington at a time when the Congress is in session, thus providing us with an opportunity to involve members of Congress in the Forum and include some lobbying activity concerning the overall Forum 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign.  As you may know, the United States is essentially acting like a failed state in the climate change domain and so there is a serious and urgent need for further education and lobbying in the Congress.

We sincerely hope that you appreciate the logic of our need to reschedule the Forum and that this change of dates has not inconvenienced you in any way.

We would invite you to peruse our website, which as been transformed from featuring an event to describing an entire global strategy: http://www.worldforum.org/

The urgency of global warming mandates that each and every one of us become climate leaders. For the first time in our lives, indeed for the first time in history, all of us must take responsibility for our climate, whether at the individual, community, company, institution, state, or national level. We are all responsible for global warming. We must all share in the leadership required to solve it, for nothing less than the fate of human civilization is at stake. The crisis is that stark, the choice is that clear, the leadership required is that urgent.

If we rise to this challenge, if we take climate leadership, we will generate climate justice and climate prosperity because it is precisely our capacity to solve our greatest crisis that affords us our greatest opportunities for growth within the context of sustainability and alignment with natural systems.

Update and Save the Date: State of the World Forum in Washington D.C.

NextNow Collab is joined by Club of Budapest, CSR Wire, Earth Policy Institute, EnlightenNext, EthicalMarkets, Friends of the Earth, GaiaSoft, Integral Institute, New York Open Center, Ode Magazine, Pachamama Alliance, Presidential Climate Action Project, Resilient Cities Initiative and a growing host of others in partnering to convene the 2009 State of the World Forum.  This is the launch of a 10-year plan of committed action to transform our economy, our world, and ourselves in relation to each other and the natural world.  To register, visit the website; to explore collaboration, please contact me at cwelssatnextnowdotnet.  Watch for our announcement in the upcoming issue of NextNow Collab partner Imaging Notes:

This SWF announcement will appear in the upcoming issue of NextNow Collab partner Imaging Notes

NNC and 2009 State of the World Forum in Washington, D.C. Nov. 12-14

“Gaia’s main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, over-population, or resource depletion. Gaia’s main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement … about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot reign in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons.” – Ken Wilber

NextNow Collab is collaborating with The 2009 State of the World Forum to inspire a global network of people and organizations committed to transforming the way we live.  Global challenges are both too systemic and too personal to be left to government and business alone; it really is time for each of us to “be the change.”  (Sorry; it’s well-worn but nothing says it better.)

The 2009 State of the World Forum will vision and launch a 10-year plan to make more sustainable both our economies and our lives by 2020, including through

• Using Ken Wilber‘s Integral Framework as our “operating system,” allowing for organizing knowledge and action plans that recognize personal and cultural values, resulting in truly empowered action
• Debuting Version 4.0 of Lester Brown’s Plan B
• Drawing inspiration from action-oriented, forward-thinking organizations such as the Presidential Climate Action Project, Apollo Alliance (who gave a powerful presentation at Social Venture Network conference in October), Friends of the Earth, Global Urban Development and many others
• Leveraging the concept of “social artistry,” as embraced by the United Nations Development Programme, towards creating real leadership for social change
• Releasing the latest data supporting the rise of the “new progressives,” a culturally creative worldwide demographic reflecting global values
• Demonstrating new technologies that enable us to envision, and participate in, sustainable systems.

NextNower’s that will be in the Washington, D.C. area and wish to collaborate please contact NextNow Collab.

Ken Wilber's Integral Framework

Featured speakers include:

Ray Anderson, Founder and CEO, Interface Inc. www.interfaceglobal.com Esperide Ananas, International Coordinator, Federation of Damanhur, Italy, founded in 1975. Damanhur  is a U.N. agency award-winning sustainable society numbering 1,000 citizens; it is a member of G.E.N.; and an active supporter of the Earth Charter Initiative.   www.damanhur.org Bill Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project; Project Director and Senior Consultant, National Leadership Summits for a Sustainable America; and former Director, Department of Energy, Central Regional Office. www.natcapsolutions.org Barrett C. Brown, Co-Director, Integral Sustainability Center, organizational consultant, author, and specialist in leadership development for global environmental and social sustainability. www.integrallife.com Lester Brown, Founder, Earth Policy Institute, World Watch Institute, author of numerous books, including Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. www.earth-policy.org Brian Castelli, Executive Vice President for Programs and Development, Alliance to Save Energy. www.ase.org Michael Cox, Chair, Executive Committee, California Student Sustainability Coalition. www.sustainabilitycoalition.org Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Chair, Integral Theory Department, John F. Kennedy University; Executive Editor, Journal of Integral Theory and Practice; co-author, Integral Ecology. www.integralinstitute.org Morel Fourman, Founder, Gaiasoft; author Managing in the New Economy – Performance Management Habits; and The Book of Personal and Global Transformation. www.mindofmany.com Vasilis M. Fthenakis, Senior Scientist, Head, National Photovoltaic Environmental Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Director, Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Earth and Environmental Engineering Department, Columbia University www.bnl.gov Jim Garrison, President and Chairman of Wisdom University, a graduate academic institution that explores both ancient wisdom traditions and the wisdom culture shaping our future today. He is also founder and president of State of the World Forum, a San Francisco based non-profit institution with a global network of leaders dedicated to developing a more sustainable global civilization. Richard Hames, Distinguished University Professor, Founding Director, Asian Foresight Institute, Dhurakij Pundit University, Bangkok, Thailand www.richardhames.com Marilyn Hamilton, Founder, Integral City Meshworks Inc.; author, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligence for the Human Hive. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Adjunct Professor, Department of Earth and Earth Sciences Division, Columbia University. www.giss.nasa.gov Johannes Heimrath, Executive Director, Club of Budapest. www.johannesheimrath.de Jean Houston, mythologist, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, long regarded as one of the principal founders of the human potential movement; author of 19 published books, including The Possible Human, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, The Passion of Isis and Osiris, and Jump Time. www.jeanhouston.org Ross Jackson, Founder and Chairman, Gaia Trust, a Danish foundation which since 1987 has supported over 300 sustainability products in over 40 countries, especially in the ecovillage movement. He is also a major shareholder in the Urtekram International, the largest organic wholesaler in Scandinavia. Jurriaan Kamp, President, Editor-in-Chief, Ode Magazine www.odemagazine.com Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer/Group Manager, Thermal Systems Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory www.nrel.gov Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder/artist of the International Cheemah and Mari Monument Projects, which are dedicated to environmental sustainability, cultural diversity and societal transformation. www.ospreyoriellelake.com Ervin Laszlo, President, The Club of Budapest; Founder and University Chancellor, The Institute at GlobalShift University. www.clubofbudapest.org Pierre-Yves Longaretti, Theoretical astrophysicist, Astrophysics Laboratory of Grenoble, France. http://www-laog.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr/~pyl/ Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; focuses on transforming the hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and several other sectors toward advanced resource productivity. He has authored or co-authored twenty-nine books and hundreds of papers, and consulted for scores of industries and governments worldwide. www.rmi.org Hunter Lovins, President and Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions. She is currently a founding Professor of Business at Presidio School of Management, one of the first accredited programs offering an MBA in Sustainable Management. www.hunterlovins.com David Martin, Executive Chairman, M∙CAM, Fellow, Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. www.m-cam.com Peter Merry, Founding partner of Engage! InterAct; Chair of the Board of the Center for Human Emergence; author, Evolutionary Leadership. www.engage.nl Caroline Myss, Author of five New York Times bestselling books, including Sacred Contracts, The Interior Castle, The Anatomy of the Spirit; founder, Caroline Myss Education Institute. www.myss.com Karen O’Brien, Chair, Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project Professor, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo  http://www.iss.uio.no/instituttet/ansatte/karenob.xml Mary Otto-Chang, Consultant, UNICEF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Children and Climate Change; UN Secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2003-2007); UN Development Program, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (2000-2003).  UNICEF and UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2007); Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Director, Tata Energy Research Institute; author of over twenty books and numerous articles on ecology, climate change and technology.  www.climatescience.gov Sandra Postel, Director, Global Water Policy Project and Center for the Environment at Mount Holyoke College.  www.globalwaterpolicy.org James Quilligan, Economic development policy advisor and writer for many international politicians and leaders, including Pierre Trudeau, François Mitterand, Jimmy Carter, Edward Heath, Julius Nyerere, Olof Palme, Willy Brandt, Tony Blair, and His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal.  www.global-negotiations.org Sally Ranney, CEO, StillWater Preservation LLC. www.stillwaterpreservation.com Paul Ray, Sociologist; Director, Institute of the Emerging Wisdom Culture, Wisdom University; author, The Cultural Creatives.  www.wisdomuniversity.org Jerome Ringo, Chairman, Apollo Alliance; Associate Research Scholar “ Yale University; former Chairman, World Wildlife Fund.  www.jeromeringo.com Rustum Roy, Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State Emeritus; Professor of Science Technology and Society Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University www.rustumroy.com Robb Smith, CEO, Integral Institute; Chairman, CEO and co-founder, Integral Life. www.integrallife.com Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche; Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. www.cosmosandpsyche.com Marc Weiss, Founder and CEO of Global Urban Development. www.globalurban.org Herman Wijffels, Member, Office of the Executive Director, World Bank, representing Armenia, Bosnia and Herzengovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine; former Chairman of Rabobank; Chairman, Economic and Social Council of the Netherlands. www.clubofbudapest.org Ken Wilber, Author of 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, he is the most widely translated academic writer in the United States. Ken is the internationally acknowledged originator of Integral Theory and co-founder of Integral Life.  www.kenwilber.com Michael Zimmerman, Director, Center for Humanities and the Arts, and Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder; co-author, Integral Ecology.  www.colorado.edu Ken Zweibel, former Program Leader for the Thin Film Photovoltaic Partnership Program, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and is often credited with the success of thin film photovoltaics in the U.S. Zweibel also cofounded a thin film CdTe PV start-up, PrimeStar Solar and became the founding Director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University. He has written two books on photovoltaics and co-authored a Scientific American article (January 2008) on solar energy as a solution to climate change. solar.gwu.edu