March 26, 2008

We have entered an era where adaptation to global climate change and sustainable solutions for our energy future will be challenging to implement. It’s complicated: the facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.

The conventional concern is to protect our economic health, our way of life, but it’s also the era where we must move toward a reality of sustainable development. Without a sea-change to sustainable development our way of life will not survive and, today, as a result of these challenges we find ourselves inventing the future.

No-one has ever gone where we need to go but people are innovative, they have ideas. Third Planet has ideas, technical skills, and implementation experience.

The eminent American scholar Ian Barbour maintains there are four promising sources of social change that “contribute to a more just, participatory, and sustainable world”: education, political action, crisis as catalyst, and a vision of alternatives.

Nowhere is ‘crisis as catalyst’ a more obvious source for social change than in the twin crises of global climate change and energy security in a carbon–constrained world. ‘Political action’ is evolving as a source for change in response to these dual threats. Where significantly more work is needed is in ‘education’ and ‘a vision of alternatives’.

To Third Planet, a pragmatic ‘vision of alternatives’ in concert with smart cross-sector ‘education’ is key to accelerating the social change process on these issues—and acceleration is a much-needed outcome at this time.