Tipping Point Action at MIT Climate Crowdsourcing Platform

[Stefan Pasti]

Invitation to Comment on the Tipping Point Action Proposal
at MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform

(sample invite letter)

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.

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


Tipping Point Action Campaign Now Entering New Phase

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”.

Here are the first two paragraphs of the Tipping Point Action Proposal Summary:

“Many people agree there are multi-disciplinary and cross-sector challenges to address in a comprehensive response to global warming, but 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)—and 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.

“Factoring in that deeper understanding means that collaborative problem solving processes which hope to maximize citizen participation at the local community level—and achieve significant agreement on plans for collective effort—will of necessity require careful considerations which go far beyond the kind of problem solving most of us have experienced.”


Calling the ‘better angels of our nature’

“In the Climate CoLab, you can work with people from all over the world to create proposals for what to do about climate change” (http://climatecolab.org/ ). There are annual contests, but 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.

I am now writing many personal letters to alert people working along similar lines to the potential of the MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform—and to encourage people to contribute to the discussion on the Tipping Point Action Proposal at the MIT Climate CoLab Platform. 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 you will consider reviewing the proposal and offering some input at the MIT Climate CoLab page for the Tipping Point Action Proposal.

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/ ).


Four Key Points

Here are four paragraphs which I hope will encourage people from many different backgrounds and interests to consider entering into the crowdsourcing effort on the Tipping Point Action Proposal.

1) 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.

2) Collaborative problem solving processes like Community Visioning Initiatives can help citizens understand that the investments of time, energy, and money (the “votes”) each of us make in our everyday circumstances become the larger economy. And that wisely directed, such “votes” can result in countless ways of earning a living which contribute to the peacebuilding, community revitalization, and ecological sustainability efforts necessary to drastically reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and to also (at the same time) mitigate many other related challenges. Citizens from every variety of circumstances can learn how to wisely cast such “votes”—through workshops and meetings at Neighborhood Learning Centers during a Community Visioning Initiative, and through other local learning experiences.

3) 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, this writer recommends the 13 minute documentary “Chattanooga: A Community with a Vision” (see vimeo.com/9653090 ). 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.

4) 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.


Two Key Questions

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?


Six Key Resources

Here are some of the key resources cited by the Tipping Point Action Proposal at the MIT Climate CoLab Platform:

1. “A List of Ten Critical Challenges” (1 page) (this writer). Condensation of evidence from many documents; describes convergence of many critical challenges.

2. Many books and articles by Lester R. Brown (Earth Policy Institute) a) “…A strategy for eradicating poverty will not succeed if an economy’s environmental support systems are collapsing.” [Plan B 2.0 (2006)—Lester R. Brown] b) “Plan B…involves cutting carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2020…We must move at wartime speed….” [Plan B 3.0 (2008)—Lester R. Brown] c) “Half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling as aquifers are being depleted.” [“World on the Edge’ (2011)—Lester R. Brown]

3. “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages; 3.65 MB) (compilation of excerpts document, and summary statement). The “Threat of Global Warming” section is, unfortunately, only one of many sections which provide evidence of trajectories continuing to move in a dangerous direction. Includes a 78 page section titled “A Constellation of Initiatives Approach to Collaborative Problem Solving and Citizen Peacebuilding”.

4. “The Potential of Community Visioning Initiatives (in 500 words)” (this writer)

5. “Gaia Education Design for Sustainability: Incorporating Transition Towns Training” (4 Oct. - 7 Nov. 2014) “Gaia Education curriculum draws on experience and expertise developed in a network of some of the most successful ecovillages and community projects across the Earth.”

6. Community Centers for Meeting Basic Needs—“The Hunger Project’s (THP’s) Epicenter Strategy unites 5,000 to 15,000 people in a cluster of villages to create an “epicenter,” or a dynamic center where communities are mobilized for action to meet their basic needs…The Hunger Project has mobilized more than 121 epicenter communities in eight countries in Africa.”


Closing Comments

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. But even more, this is an opportunity like no other in the history of human affairs on Earth: 1000 such collaborative problem solving and citizen peacebuilding efforts could carry solution-oriented momentum into a new era of multi-faceted accord with the only planet in the universe capable of supporting complex life forms—and with our fellow human beings. To miss such an opportunity—to not know, first-hand, what it might have been like… seems to me unthinkable.

I welcome any questions, comments, suggestions, and references to resources, links, etc.

I hope we will have an opportunity for further discussion.


For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,


Stefan Pasti, Resource Coordinator
Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative
www.cpcsc.info
[e-mail]