|
Twentieth century anthropologist Margaret Mead's oft quoted remark...
"Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." . . . was
perhaps never truer than in the conception and production of the
upcoming PlaNetwork conference.
PlanetWork
Website
It has been my pleasure to meet and interview the two principal
members of the "small group of committed citizens" who, with the
help of a little sponsorship and volunteer effort, but mostly through
their own ingenuity and the prodigious sweating of their brows,
have put together what may prove to be one of the pivotal events
in the crusade to save humanity from itself.
PlaNetwork, the Conference, is nothing short of a brilliant idea.
But ideas, like light bulbs, only shine when energized. No matter
what the direct, attributable results of the Conference, and whither
the ultimate fate of Gaia, I would like to take this moment to thank
co-organizers Jim Fournier and Elizabeth Thompson for their two
year, all-out effort to bring together some of the world's most
progressive thinkers in the hope of drawing a new line in the sands
of time.
As we leave the fossil-fueled industrial era behind, we are searching
for new intellectual paradigms and cultural norms to guide us away
from planetary devastation and spiritual desolation. Time is running
out, so this massive, painful task must be undertaken seriously
and urgently. More than anything else, we need new vision of what
could be or must be.
Story
continued at top of page
|
My own view is that the host of postindustrial problems known collectively
as the environmental crisis is already engendering an across-the-board
creative response from the world's best thinkers. As a result, we
are entering upon what I call the biological, or more precisely,
ecological revolution, where the whole system and relational aspects
of reality will displace the reductionist perspective in our thinking.
The study of complex systems will replace dissection (and vivisection)
as an approach to solving problems. Chaotic models will supersede
linear analysis, because they more accurately describe real phenomena.
The internet is complex, chaotic and participatory. It is much
more akin, in its multifarious communications and its latent evolutionary
potential to a brain or an ecosystem than to a machine. My belief
is that the "soft" apparatus of information technology will be to
the coming ecological revolution what the hard sciences of physics
and engineering were to the industrial. Though we have been astray
for a while, we are rooted in the biological world, and our thinking
is finally beginning to align with our reality.
For the first time in history, a formal event will begin to explore
the relationship between information technology and global ecology,
how they might inform each other, and how we might benefit from
the resulting marriage. One of the most exciting aspects of the
conference is that, true to its mission of spawning new thinking
on the topic and new formulations for the internet as a tool of
environmental reform, Planetworks, the organization, will create
a parallel and ongoing "on-line conference" described in this interview.
The entire discussion of how to bring the power of the Internet
to bear on the environmental crisis will begin, but not end in San
Francisco in May, 2000.
Scientist, architect and business man Fournier and artist, Thespian
and avant-garde event producer Thompson are setting the stage for
that to happen. In this discussion, which ranges from the Seattle
World Trade Organization protests to the synergy which can occur
unlike minds meet, we get a rare look at the type of thinking which
inspires a first magnitude thematic event. It was with considerably
excitement that I met Jim and Elizabeth on a sunny April afternoon
to learn their thoughts.
-PSW
INTERVIEW FOLLOWS
>>
PlanetWork
Website >>
|
