Our Keynote authors represent the Coalition for Global Citizenship (CGC2030). The Coalition, based at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, advocates that governments, public and private sectors, and civil society, all work from a basis of values of just and fair treatment, inclusion and cooperation.
Of course, the question was—after a century and a half of “Social Darwinism” claiming that it was all about competition, from the lowest to the highest—could our world now dominated by the shark-tank rubrics of business, economics, and politics adjust to this astounding news? Could it realize that because of this basic blunder about Darwin’s message, we had, in fact, ended up with dystopia instead of utopia?
...witnessing brave communities who have managed to hold onto Indigenous language and ways, and continue their advocacy for the Earth, is important. We can appreciate the Indigenous experience unfolding today as a model for what is happening to all of us.
Westphalian Sovereignty was created to end the Thirty Years’ War, but is it adaptable enough to underpin our current geopolitical system? It might be time for an update.
Farmers in urban civilizations have always been subject to powers beyond them. Indeed, there is ample evidence that urban civilizations were invariably built on the conquest and subjection of farming cultures. Our current food industry grew out of the defeat of farmers’ efforts in the late nineteenth century to win fair prices for their production.
The largest impediment to improving the well-being of humanity is not in finding the funding to implement the Sustainable Development Goals; the largest impediment is the unwillingness of the part of the heads of state, senior government politicians, and business leaders to embrace higher order human values.
I believe the commons paradigm can help us develop a new social and cultural vision, and new strategies for practical change. Paradoxically enough, redirecting our attention away from conventional politics and policy may offer the most promising possibilities for developing a transformational vision.
Kosmos Journal | In 2015, your team produced 50 Feet from Syria, a film focused on the civilian impact of the Syrian conflict. Your new film, Lifeboat, bears witness to refugees desperate enough to risk their lives in rubber boats leaving Libya. What was different for you personally about making those two films?
Judy Rodgers | ...I think decisions about things like governance or institutions source from our awareness. We can’t build something if it’s outside the scope of our awareness. We can’t design a true commons if we’re in a very limited consciousness.
How do we cultivate a sense of place in an industrialized, globalizing world? Writer and farmer Wendell Berry discusses the role of agrarian values in nurturing communitarian consciousness with Tellus Senior Fellow Allen White.
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Allen White | You have [...]
