Fall | Winter 2011

We are living in a time of ecological devastation, in which our materialistic culture has had a catastrophic effect on […]

The jury is still out on whether the Great Transition Initiative’s hoped-for Great Transition will be realized; its achievement rests on the emergence of a planetary movement of concerned citizens buoyed by the conviction that together they can change the world.

The celebration of Ramadan in the Arab World in 2011 has been unlike any other Ramadan in recent memory. For the proceeding five years every night during this holy month of fasting the Arab street was glued to their TV’s watching a drama series called Bab El Hara, which loosely translates to ‘The Neighborhood Gate.’ The show is about local heroes in Damascus defending their ancestral homes against the tyranny of French colonialists. This Ramadan, the highest rated TV viewership is the trial of a tyrant who’s not a colonialist but is one of their own, Hosni Mubarak.

When you authentically connect with someone or deeply resonate with an idea, you touch in the center, like a bridge has newly formed. Sometimes these are external bridges—connections that others can see. At other times, they are internal rewiring, a revolution of thought. As a Kosmos Global Ambassador, in my own small way, I build bridges. Our current institutions are crumbling and we stand at the edge of radical change. Bridging our inner and outer worlds is critical to our survival and skillful transformation.

A Breakthough of Worldwide Importance In 1995, as the Chinese government and people were beginning an ambitious effort to restore […]

Economics is the science of generating wealth. The only problem is that it is interested only in a certain kind of wealth—wealth that comes encased in private property rights and has a price attached to it. This standard economic narrative doesn’t have much to say about the great stores of value that don’t have price tags. How much is the Earth’s atmosphere worth? What about the human genome? Fresh water supplies? Our inheritance of scientific knowledge and culture? Parks and open spaces? The Internet?

Over the past 60 years, civil society, together with governments, has played an increasingly important role in human development (e.g., poverty alleviation) and human rights. Building on a foundation laid by Gandhi, Badshah Khan and their contemporaries, civil society has recently entered the field of human security (in its narrower meaning of safety/physical security and physical protection of threatened, vulnerable groups and individuals). Much of the creative leadership in setting new global norms in these domains has come from civil society, from visionary pragmatists, individuals with the courage of their conviction that 'another world is possible'.

Nothing short of a paradigm shift will bring us full circle towards the world we long for. If we are aware of the scientific evidence that people are basically good, we no longer buy into economic greed based on the belief that self interest is our primary motivation.

In far western Tibet there is a solitary mountain that has been considered sacred for over a thousand years. Ancient texts describe it as the spiritual center of the universe. Mount Kailas is a revered pilgrimage site for Hindus, Bon, Jains and Buddhists.