---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gary Cleveland <[email protected]> Date: Mon, May 6, 2019 at 2:14 AM Subject: My response, and intro from Paul Raskin Thrilled my response has gone out to the GTNetwork. And delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the ideas of Organisations, their Ethos and Stakeholders to such a massive audience?? Gary Response GTN May 2019 Considerations – 1. WHAT IS THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT’S STATE OF PLAY? 2. “SYSTEM CHANGE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE?” 3. DO WE NEED A META-MOVEMENT? My profound thanks to Paul for opening and simplifying this massive area by posing these three considerations as it allows me to respond – [hopefully succinctly]. I will enumerate my reply in hope that my opinions are more easily undertstood and, thus, of value? 1. I hurdle the first and address a combination of No’s 2 and 3. 2. I have always considered “Climate Change”, though terrifying, a blessing for, as a personal threat inducing fear in all humans, it acts as a window to the big room where has long lurked the problems that demand a *‘meta’ - ‘system’ – change, *in other words, A Great Transition, GT. [I am sure I don’t need remind anyone that we are the ‘G T Network’? GT] 3. So, the question comes down to how do we speed the advance to the GT? Paul gives one all important answer when he notes we need – “build overarching alliances and movements” and then “bind--- disparate movements into a coherent force for a just and sustainable future” 4. I maintain the prime reason the world have been so slow towards a GT is that almost all humans avoid either ‘building’ or ‘binding’. [To our own disgrace, we have deflected doing this within the area of great non-profit organisations, even though, we are all key stakeholders to them.] 5. If we ponder the three great sectors of organisations; namely – A. for-profit - commerce and industry; B. non-profit - community, such as health, education, religion etc; C. government - at all levels. the sad answer is that only the commerce sector has succeeded, partly, in creating alliances, eg - WRI, WBCSD, the Bteam, etc. and, that national governments make endless attempts that either fail totally or fail within the time scale that fate allows us? But, you and I in the non-profits community sector [whom profess to know the need.] have not even tried - until, maybe, now! I believe it is not too fanciful to imagine we, the Great Transition Network within Tellus, can provide the impetus and leadership that ‘builds’ and ‘binds’ a coherent force. [The notable success folk like Ceres, Volans, p2p, GreenBiz etc. have achieved as individuals is truly remarkable. One can only wonder how much faster we will move if they combine to partake in forming that ‘force’?] My response to Paul’s invitation is that I am convinced that pressure from us, the thousand plus GTNetwork, as key stakeholders can build and bind an ethos to allow the coherent force to lead to a *just* and *sustainable** future*. - - - - - - - - - Great Transition Network
From Paul Raskin <[email protected]>
We launched our current series on key social movements in November 2017 with a rich discussion of a “global citizens movement” as the missing historical agent for a Great Transition (the GTN exchange is archived at www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/201-how-do-we-get-there-the-problem-of-action). A recurrent theme has been how the portentous issue of climate change infuses all social and environmental mobilizations. Our May discussion will focus directly on the climate movement, per se. With so many of us active in this diverse arena, centering the GTN discussion on a specific essay seems overly restrictive. Instead, I invite you all to respond, succinctly or at length, to one or more of the following questions: WHAT IS THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT’S STATE OF PLAY? What has worked, and where has the movement fallen short? What lessons can be drawn for the next phase? “SYSTEM CHANGE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE?” Does defusing the climate crisis require the deep structural and value changes of a Great Transition? Or can “green capitalism” get us there? Where do you stand on the reform versus transformation debate? DO WE NEED A META-MOVEMENT? To the degree that climate change is a symptom, along with other crises, of deeply embedded structural problems, does the climate movement need to build overarching alliances and movements? Does the climate movement, by addressing a signal existential threat, have a special role in binding disparate movements into a coherent force for a just and sustainable future? To kick off the discussion, we asked 350.org founder Bill McKibben to respond to each of these questions (soon to arrive in your inbox -- and also attached). What Bill says (and doesn’t say) may provoke some thoughts of your own. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens