“Momentum towards a climate-safe future is now unstoppable”, reassures Christiana Figueres. But there’s a catch, she warns. “We must avoid distraction: keep our eyes on the road … the direction of travel has been set.”
After more than two decades of international climate efforts are we now finally on the ri [...]
Just four steps to reverse climate ch...
“Momentum towards a climate-safe future is now unstoppable”, reassures Christiana Figueres. But there’s a catch, she warns. “We must avoid distraction: keep our eyes on the road … the direction of travel has been set.”
After more than two decades of international climate efforts are we now finally on the ri [...]
Climate rescue starts here – wi...
The task of climate rescue can feel daunting. Where do you start with the new policy, infrastructure and lifestyles urgently needed to switch humanity from wrecking to restabilizing the climate? This big switch should and could be made quickly but it’s controlled by a small switch in our heads that’s stuck. Our minds rebel against [...]
How to celebrate the 50th birthday of...
The 8th March 2016 is an important day for everyone concerned about resource consumption and waste issues, including climate change. It’s the 50th anniversary of the solution to these problems being offered by Kenneth Boulding. Boulding’s poetic vision of a future ‘spaceman economy’ on a ‘spaceship Earth’ more than encompassed today’s vision [...]
Making circular economy scale up R...
Circular economy was highlighted as a global imperative by Kenneth Boulding in 1966. 49 years later there is still no actual circular economy anywhere, which is tells us something important – we know how not to do it. The conventional incremental strategy of increasing targets, taxes and regulations hasn’t worked. Making circular [...]
#ThinkDif Festival OpenMic Webinar
BlindSpot Think Tank presents a session in the Think Dif Disruptive Innovation Festival run by Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Join us for a free public webinar on making circular economy happen everywhere…
System change is not hard to do, just hard to see
24th Oct 10:00am – 11:00am UK time
To take part please visit the Festival event [...]
Why don’t climate summits work?
Everyone knows that decades of international climate summits haven’t worked. Greenhouse gas emissions, concentrations and impacts all rise as if no discussion or agreement had ever been attempted. Yet climate conference agendas never include the question “why isn’t this working?”. Are big climate events doomed to fail [...]
Waste policy awaiting policy content
The English government’s recent consultations on waste planning and waste prevention reveal blindspots in the roles of government, business, local authorities and others. This is policy without policy content, a smokescreen for an absence of effort to set up the economy to design out waste. In particular, the opportunity of circular eco [...]
Seventh Policy Switch: Local and Cent...
“The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.” Abraham Lincoln (1865)
8.1 Where does money come from?
Almost all new money is issued into national economies as credit via the 500 year old fractional reserve system (UK Parliament, 1931 [...]
Sixth Policy Switch: Recruiting the M...
“There is no delight in owning anything unshared.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The winning strategy for the mega-rich is to create a world where wealth can retain meaning.
7.1 Acknowledge The Winners
If economics is a board game where players set out to own more than others then the mega-rich are the world’s winners. The richest 2 [...]
Fifth Policy Switch: Including Guardi...
Can we all learn to get on with nature before nature learns to get on without us? Existing policies don’t fix our broken relations to nature.
6.1 This One’s Finished, Can We Have a New Planet Please?
A study involving more than 1,360 experts worldwide over four years warned of an “increasing likelihood of nonlinear changes in ecosyste [...]
Fourth Policy Switch: Reversing an Un...
“No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.” A. J. P. Taylor
Economic competitiveness could very simply be turned into a ‘weapon’ for peace.
5.1 Military security can’t be bought
Global military spending in 2008 is estimated at $1464 billion (SIPRI, 2009), an in [...]
Third Policy Switch: From Consuming t...
Economic growth is taking us to the cliff edge. Opposing economic growth isn’t turning us around. There’s another way…
Image: Ouroboros Oil on linen 122 x 153 cm by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox
4.1 Linear Economics
Four decades ago the economist Kenneth Boulding (1966) wrote about the “reckless, exploitative and violent beha [...]
Second Policy Switch: From Predetermi...
All global problems come back to habits of thinking and none can be solved without addressing how we learn. We can unlearn the herd-thinking that is leading us all over the cliff-edge.
Image: Majesty and Order , oil on linen 36 x 36 cm by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox
3.1 Escaping the Old Ideas
The remaining policy switches could enable p [...]
First Policy Switch: From a Strategy ...
How far wrong have we gone as a ‘civilisation’? About 180 degrees.
Time for a turn-around strategy!
Ah Has, Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox
2.1 Less bad is not good enough
The default strategy during decades of persistent global problems has been incrementalism – planning for ‘less bad’. However, less [...]
Security Means Global Security
Today’s problems can’t be solved with the same habits of thought that cause them. Here is a way for the scale of our ambitions to match the scale of our problems.
Image: Love , oil on linen 100 x 100 cm by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox
1.1 Security includes non-military threats
Security in the modern world means far more than [...]
