Press Kit for Tipping Point Action Campaign

[Stefan Pasti]

Press Kit for Tipping Point Action Campaign
Citizen Participation in Times of Unprecedented Challenges
a campaign of The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative
(www.cpcsc.info)

[Location where readers can access a pdf file of the Press Kit: cpcsc.info/press-kit/ Note: in the pdf file, links are provided to all documents and resources described]


Contact: Stefan Pasti, Campaign Coordinator
Cell: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]


Contents of Press Kit

A. Press Release: “The Tipping Point Action Campaign: A Catalyst for Exponentially
Accelerating Solution-Oriented Activity at this Critical Time”
B. Primary Outreach Documents
C. Already Created Articles
D. Quick Reference Resources

E. Backgrounders
1) “About the Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative”
2) “About Stefan Pasti, Campaign Coordinator--Tipping Point Action Campaign”

F. Fact Sheets/Executive Summaries
(summarizing key document “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages)
1) “Resources, Statistics, and Observations” (20 pages)
2) “20 Page Introduction” (to “Invitation Package…” document)

G. How Local Newspapers Can Help



Introduction

This Press Kit has been created to assist newspaper reporters (and other media representatives) with appreciating the valuable contributions which can be made by the Tipping Point Action Campaign—and to assist reporters and other interested people with sharing information about the Tipping Point Action Campaign.

This Press Kit has also been created as a way of sharing information about the Tipping Point Action Campaign with organizations and individuals working along similar lines. Much potential for partnerships and collaborations is brought forward by the Tipping Point Action Campaign. The Campaign Coordinator, Stefan Pasti, hopes people who access this Press Kit will see that potential. The contents of the Press Kit can then help facilitate partnerships to realize the goal of the Tipping Point Campaign—thousands of Community Visioning Initiatives to help maximize citizen participation, and exponentially accelerate solution-oriented activity in these times of unprecedented challenges.

Most of the contents of the Press Kit will be self-explanatory (except for the Press Release, descriptions of documents are offered, and links to those documents are provided). However, it is worth giving special attention in this introduction to the “Resources, Statistics, and Observations” document. One of the key obstacles to realizing the potential of the Tipping Point Action Campaign is that the need for an unprecedented degree of problem solving has not yet become a well known fact. The “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages; Nov., 2013), a compilation of excerpts from many sources, was created to help bring the evidence “through the mist”—but that document is a lot to digest for most readers. The “Resources, Statistics, and Observations” document (20 pages) summarizes the most valuable insight provided by the “Invitation Package…” document, and can provide reporters and other commentators with evidence from many angles (source references in the “Invitation Package…” document), which points to the need for thousands of Community Visioning Initiatives.

The Tipping Point Action Campaign Coordinator, Stefan Pasti, welcomes comments, questions, suggestions, etc on how to improve this Press Kit—and such input can be contributed in the “Press Kit” section of the CPCS Campaigns Discussion Forum, or directly to him at [e-mail]




A. Press release detailing the news the Press Kit has been created for (1672 words)


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2/14/14
Contact: Stefan Pasti
Cell: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]


The Tipping Point Action Campaign
A Catalyst for Exponentially Accelerating Solution-Oriented Activity at this Critical Time


The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative provides research for critical challenge alerts, and support for collaborative problem solving initiatives which seek to maximize citizen participation.

There are two key pieces the Tipping Point Action Campaign is contributing to efforts to overcome the challenges of our times: a) evidence that a profound level of problem solving is needed b) starting points for discussion on how such a level of problem solving can be achieved.

Beginning in December, 2013, The CPCS Initiative launched a new and comprehensive campaign called “Tipping Point Action: Citizen Participation in Times of Unprecedented Challenges”.

The primary goal of the Tipping Point Action Campaign is to encourage citizens from every variety of circumstances to help create, become involved, contribute to, and participate in one or more of the thousands of Community Visioning Initiatives (or similar stakeholder engagement/collaborative problem solving processes designed to maximize citizen participation) which will be needed to exponentially accelerate solution-oriented activity at this critical time.


A Difficult Argument to Make

“We are at a critical point in the evolution of life on Planet Earth,” said Stefan Pasti, the Founder of the CPCS Initiative, and the Campaign Coordinator for the Tipping Point Action Campaign. “Unfortunately, much of the evidence is not ‘coming through the mist’ as much as it should be. So I understand why many people might wonder what I am talking about, and have no idea why I would be advocating for thousands of Community Visioning Initiatives. And yet… I do believe if many people saw the evidence I’ve seen, they would appreciate the need for many stakeholder engagement processes which are designed to maximize citizen participation. Thus, it may simply be that the need for an unprecedented degree of problem solving has not yet become a well known fact.”

The evidence Mr. Pasti has seen has been compiled in a key CPCS Initiative document titled “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages; Nov. 2013). The 56 page section on “The Threat of Global Warming” includes a 28 point timeline of warnings on Global Warming (1988—2013), and many key graphs and charts (fair use for educational purposes). The “Global Warming” section is, unfortunately, only one of many sections in the “Invitation Package” document which provide evidence of trajectories that are continuing to move in a dangerous direction. [Note: “A List of Ten Critical Challenges” (1 page) is one quick way to awareness of the convergence of critical challenges now occurring. This “list” is a condensed summary of longer critical challenge assessments, and includes supplementary evidence from longer documents.


What about all the efforts now underway? Why are new initiatives needed?

“What we need,” said Mr. Pasti. “are initiatives which are comprehensive enough to keep momentum on the side of ‘We can do it’. Here’s why I don’t see that we have reached that point yet.”

1) Too often mitigation strategies have limited definitions of “stakeholders”—as if the challenges of our times can be resolved by the experts while the rest of us are doing something else. Whereas the Tipping Point Action Campaign acknowledges that we are going to need all the resources, knowledge, and skills each one of us has, and we are going to need the best efforts we can make at working together, if we are going to succeed at resolving the challenges ahead of us.

2) Unfortunately, many of the efforts now underway give little attention to the spiritual/moral dimensions of cultural worldviews [Ex: “The satisfaction of one's physical needs must come at a certain point to a dead stop before it degenerates into physical decadence.” (Mahatma Gandhi)]. How important is a deeper understanding of the spiritual/moral dimensions of global warming, and other related challenges? Consider the following: a) there are many people who do not understand the wisdom in Gandhi’s statement b) their help will be needed to avoid disastrous global warming outcomes.

3) Unfortunately, there are many people in communities around the world who—regardless of the difficulties and urgencies associated with resolving multiple crises—choose to focus their attention of trying to make money by preying of people’s fears, manipulating people’s trust, and/or encouraging people to abandon hope in higher aspirations, and indulge in unhealthy, or immoral behavior. Widespread cynicism that many of the critical challenges of our times will not be resolved could be a crippling factor affecting many projects. Again—what we need are efforts comprehensive enough to keep momentum on the side of “We can do it”.

4) If the initiatives were in place to exponentially accelerate solution-oriented activity at this critical time—which is what is really needed—it would be a significant change from “business-as-usual” (in communities around the world), and public discourse in even the most “mainstream” media outlets would be contributing to the efforts. The fact that unprecedented solution-oriented activity has not reached such visibility (the kind of visibility that means a majority of people in the world are aware of it) can be seen as another “danger sign flashing red”.


Two Key Questions

Here are two questions which will help readers see how this Tipping Point Action Campaign might be scaled up, and why it might need to be scaled up soon:

1) What would an educational curriculum look like—for preparing survey specialists, resource coordinators for Neighborhood Learning Centers, and organizers/facilitators for Community Visioning Initiatives (and other stakeholder engagement/collaborative problem solving approaches)—if it was to be delivered in training modules similar to the kind used when the Peace Corps was scaled up?

2) What if there needed to be a reversal of the urbanization trend, and a demographic shift from megacities to more ecologically sustainable and villages, towns, and small cities (with much more potential to achieve carbon neutral economies)? What kind of curriculum (in colleges, other learning institutions, and in Neighborhood Learning Centers) would be most appropriate to create the knowledge base and skill sets necessary to make such a transition?

“Educational institutions, and other organizations, could increase their existing efforts, or take up the call, to develop educational curriculum and training in response to such questions,” said Mr. Pasti.

“One important step towards realizing the potential of the Tipping Point Action Campaign would be collaboration among organizations to train organizers and facilitators in 1) how to describe the potential of Community Visioning Initiatives to key local community leaders and 2) how to guide a community of residents through the process (from preparation through implementation to evaluation).
Lead organizations providing such training programs would be providing the following services to local communities: affordable workshops; neighborhood learning centers; collaborative problem solving which will turn polarizing circumstances into “how does our community want to respond to what 150 local leaders have identified (in preliminary surveys) as challenges and solution options at this critical time?”;--and a means of continually raising awareness about the outcomes of the “votes” people cast (every day) with their investments of time, energy, and money.

“If the goal is to resolve the unprecedented challenges ahead,” said Mr. Pasti, “then it would seem necessary to exponentially increase the number of actively engaged citizens—citizens who (thus) have a much more comprehensive sense of civic duty. Organizations and initiatives providing trustworthy guidance for collaborative problem solving and citizen peacebuilding efforts—especially at this critical time—should be valued for serving the greater good, and setting a good example.”


Crowdsourcing the Tipping Point Action Campaign

The Tipping Point Action Campaign is now entering a new phase, as there is a Tipping Point Action Proposal up at the MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform.

The primary question posed by the MIT Climate CoLab is: "What actions should be taken to address climate change?" The goal of the Tipping Point Action Proposal: “Assist with creating 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives to maximize citizen participation and accelerate solution-oriented activity”. [It is worth noting here that, at the present time, there are no contests active at the MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform. Currently, the 2014 Proposal Workspace is a place for input, comments, revision, and networking.]

People who would like to review the proposal and comment can find the Tipping Point Action Proposal at climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/1300103 . There is also a pdf file of the 10 page proposal at the Community Peacebuildng and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative website (see cpcsc.info/tipping-point-action/ ).

Dialogue associated with crowdsourcing the Tipping Point Action Campaign can touch on a wide range of topic areas, and can be a most rewarding “learn and share” experience—for all participants.

"I hope many readers of this interview will consider reviewing the proposal and offering some input at the MIT Climate CoLab page for the Tipping Point Action Proposal," said Mr. Pasti.


Concluding Comments

“We are going to need all the resources, knowledge, and skills each one of us has, and we are going to need to make the best efforts we can at working together, if we are going to succeed at resolving the challenges ahead of us,” said Mr. Pasti.

"1000 time-intensive Community Visioning Initiatives, in communities around the world, would create an exponential increase in solution-oriented investment, an exponential increase in solution-oriented employment, and an exponential increase in our collective capacity to overcome the challenges of our times."

________


The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative (at http://www.cpcsc.info) provides research for critical challenge alerts, and support for collaborative problem solving initiatives which seek to maximize citizen participation.

Stefan Pasti is the Campaign Coordinator for “Tipping Point Action: Citizen Participation in Times of Unprecedented Challenges”. He is good at analyzing complex information regarding challenges of our times, identifying pathways for solution-oriented activity to flow, synthesizing such information into
understandable parts, and organizing those parts into well organized documents (much like the work
which would need to be done to sort through participant input during a Community Visioning Initiative).



XXX



B. Primary Outreach Documents

1) "Invitation to Comment on the Tipping Point Action Proposal at MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform" (sample invite letter) (4 pages)—includes the sections: Tipping Point Action Campaign Now Entering New Phase; Calling the ‘better angels of our nature’; Four Key Points; Two Key Questions; Six Key Resources; and… “We are now at a critical point in the evolution of life on Planet Earth. 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives are urgently needed, the expertise to plan and implement such stakeholder engagement processes exists—and there are more than enough financial resources to fund 5000 Community Visioning Initiatives.”

2) “Tipping Point Action: Citizen Participation in Times of Unprecedented Challenges” (5 pages) An introduction to the Tipping Point Action Campaign, and currently the primary outreach document. There are many initiatives which are part of the Tipping Point Action Campaign: Planetary Distress Signal Campaign; 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives Campaign; Preliminary Survey Development (in preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives); CPCS Campaigns Discussion Forum; Community Visioning Initiatives Clearinghouse; Neighborhood Learning Centers Clearinghouse; Community Good News Networks; Spiritual Friendships; and 24/7 Peace Vigils. This introduction to the campaign includes brief descriptions of the above “pieces” of the campaign, a brief introduction to Community Visioning Initiatives, a section titled “Why the Sense of Urgency?”, and a section titled “Who is going to do all this?”


C. Already Created Articles

1) “The Tipping Point Action Campaign: Making the case for problem solving on a scale most of us have never known before” (5 pages) Includes the sections: “A Difficult Argument to Make”; “What about all the efforts now underway? Why are new initiatives needed?”; “Stakeholder engagement comprehensive enough to keep momentum on the side of ‘We can do it’”; “Two Key Questions”; “Scaling Up”; and “What about the Cost?” Written to be close to press ready, and being offered to newspapers and news weeklies Excerpt: “What I saw in the Chattanooga Visioning Video,” said Mr. Pasti, “was a way of revitalizing the sense of working together with our neighbors for the greater good, so that there would be an electrifying feeling about what going to happen next—a collective revitalization of the belief that many good things would be happening in the community, and that many people who lived in the same community would have a part in it. Local newspapers can do much to help revitalize that sense of working together for the greater good.”

2) “An Invitation to Participate in Community Visioning Initiatives--as a way of carefully examining our options at this critical time” (6 pages) (part personal journey, part advocacy; includes one page assessment of the urgent necessity for unprecedented culture change; being offered to newspapers and news weeklies) Includes a more detailed section on “Where the Sense of Urgency Comes In? Here is one excerpt: “As a result of watching one 13 minute video documentary, I have been able to see that there are many ways to create positive multiplier effect s by applying the collaborative problem solving potential of Community Visioning Initiatives. It seemed easy for me to imagine those possibilities--because what I saw in that video was more than just the actual practices which facilitated citizen participation in brainstorming ideas and solutions for their city. What I saw was a way of revitalizing the sense of working together with our neighbors for the greater good, so that there would be an electrifying feeling about what going to happen next—a collective revitalization of the belief that many good things would be happening in the community, and that many people who lived in the same community would have a part in it.”

3) “The Tipping Point Action Campaign: A Catalyst for Exponentially Accelerating Solution-Oriented Activity at this Critical Time (An Interview with Campaign Coordinator, Stefan Pasti)” (10 pages) Includes answers to the following questions: “First, if we are at such a critical point, why aren’t more people saying that?”; “What about all the efforts now underway? Why are new initiatives needed?”;
“Could you provide a brief overview of the Tipping Point Action Campaign? What are the goals? And how might those goals be accomplished?”; “Have you tried submitting an overview of the Tipping Point Action Campaign to a crowdsourcing platform?”; “How is the current Tipping Point Action Campaign funded?”; “Do you have any thoughts about why you have not been successful in finding an organization to support the work of the CPCS Initiative—that is, the work of providing research for critical challenge alerts, and support for collaborative problem solving initiatives which seek to maximize citizen participation?”; “Have you tried crowdfunding to support your initiative and the Tipping Point Action Campaign?”; “Can you provide an example of your approach to summarizing the potential of the Tipping Point Action Campaign—an example of a summary which you might present in a crowdfunding campaign?”; “Any thoughts you would like to close this interview with?”


D. Quick Reference Resources

1) “A List of Ten Critical Challenges” (1 page) One quick way to awareness of the convergence of critical challenges now occurring. A condensed summary of longer critical challenge assessments which includes supplementary evidence from longer documents

2) “The Potential of Community Visioning Initiatives (in 500 words)” Referred to in many documents as an introduction to the kind of Community Visioning Initiatives advocated for by The CPCS Initiative

3) A video about Community Visioning Initiatives. The Campaign Coordinator for the Tipping Point Action Campaign (Stefan Pasti) was inspired instantly when, in 1994, I watched a video documentary titled “Chattanooga: A Community With A Vision” (13 minutes). The documentary provides many personal interviews and how-to details associated and is provided as a way of visualizing the potential of Community Visioning Initiatives to revitalize the experience of working together with our neighbors for the greater good. The 1984 Chattanooga Community Visioning Project (“Vision 2000”) attracted more than 1,700 participants, and produced 40 community goals—which resulted in the implementation of 223 projects and programs, the creation of 1,300 permanent jobs, and a total financial investment of 793 million dollars. [“What I saw was a way of revitalizing the sense of working together with our neighbors for the greater good, so that there would be an electrifying feeling about what going to happen next—a collective revitalization of the belief that many good things would be happening in the community, and that many people who lived in the same community would have a part in it.” (SP)]


E. Backgrounders

1) “About the Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative” (1 page)
2) “About Stefan Pasti, Campaign Coordinator--Tipping Point Action Campaign: Some Biographical Notes” (2 pages)


F. Fact Sheets/Executive Summaries
(summarizing key document “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages)

1) “Resources, Statistics, and Observations” (20 pages) Includes a multitude of statistics (source references in the “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages; Nov., 2013) in the following categories: Monetary Debt; Population and Urbanization Trends; Resource Depletion; Global Media, Entertainment, and Advertising; Violence; Greed; Obesity; Tobacco Use; Alcohol Use; Gambling; Incarceration; Hunger and Food Waste; and The Threat of Global Warming—and Selected Resources in the following categories: Summary Statement Documents; Critical Challenges Assessments; Community Visioning Initiatives/Maximizing Citizen Participation; Neighborhood Learning Centers; Stakeholder Engagement/Collaborative Problem Solving Organizations; Related Fields of Activity at Colleges and Universities
2) “20 Page Introduction” (to “Invitation Package…” document) Summarizes resources and key insights in the “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages), and provides a kind of Executive Summary of that document. Includes sections: “A. In this ‘Invitation Package’ document, readers will find—“B. This 589 page document is an invitation to—“ and “C. This ‘Invitation Package’ document can encourage awareness and insights relating to many critical issues, and accelerate many different kinds of solution-oriented activity. Here are examples of some hoped for outcomes—“


G. How Local Newspapers Can Help

Soon we will be moving into a time of unprecedented change, as there are many social and environmental “externalities” (challenges not adequately accounted for in most economic forecasts and investment prospectuses) which are going to require more and more of our attention. In this time of unprecedented change, local newspapers can provide many valuable community services.

There are two kinds of articles in particular which local newspapers could bring on, or do more of, which would represent a new and improved social contract with their readers, and provide many valuable community services:

1) articles about “seed” ideas, which may be most helpful to the local communities they would benefit, but which need people support and financial support to realize their potential
2) articles about existing initiatives which are directly related to resolving some of the complex critical challenges of our times—so that residents can learn more about how they can make best use of their time, energy, and financial support