   28 Nov 2012 @ 04:47, by Heiner Benking
WORK IN PROGRESS
Herrenhausen Symposium by the Volkswagen Foundation
„Already Beyond – 40 Years Limits to Growth“
November, 28 and 29, 2012, Hanover, Germany, [link]
http://www.contoo.de/en_US/congress/webpage/id/357/c_cult/en_US
PROGRAMME: [link]
Volkswagen Foundation in Hannover doing their: Herrenhäuser Symposium "Already Beyond? – 40 Years Limits to Growth" and the Winter School "Limits to Growth Revisited"
I am preparing some concerns about the event, as I heard about the event maybe a year ago, had hoped to input in the preparation phase, and now I am eager to learn how the event is going. How the Volkswagen Stiftung sees the Methodenstreit from 1970, and what could be done now to make a difference !! Maybe read the interviews I did with Alexander Christakis, to be prepared for the next summary tomorrow. [link]
- on the train:
On the Way to Hannover 4 issues about the Club of Rome exercises I will try to explore:
1) the first figure in the CoR Limits to Growth was about the axis’s of the endeavour. Time Horizons and magnitudes. The appealing message was that this report is about the upper-right quadrant (green), but the focus of individuals is in the lower-left quadrant box. (red). Colours added my me ! So what is the progress on bridging scales? Have the youth in the Winter School been introduced to the term glocal and transdisciplinarity in concrete ways?
I will show some figures to them….... (see below) they show what the Report 1972 was about according to Fig 1. The second graph shows that the magnitudes and exchanges between the "levels" need to be included, the third how we tried to develop a combination of spaces to map and negotiate interactions along aand across scales, sectors, times, but also extensions, expressions, and presentations. Maybe start with the Presentation at the Konrad Lorenz Institute Summer SChool 1997: Konrad-Lorenz-Institute- Emergence Series: phylogenetic... benking.de/worldview-compositions.html slides: [link], this presentation at the UNESCO HQ 1998: Positions and Identities in Global Contexts: benking.de/cob-paris.html, and see a figure so present the Cognitive Panorama "grid-model" so allow pointing at and outlining issues from a distance.
2) What is the Progress and follow-up of the Club of Rome “Capacity to Govern” report from Yehezkel Dror? Have the recommendations from the Climate Summit 1995 been revisited and has anyone studied the original report full of footnotes and references and literature? Or only the English, let me call it “executive summary” from 6 years later !? [link]
3) Did the Winter School Students revisited the “Methodenstreit”? The question of the needed Future Creation along the axis of prognostic, but also normative and participative Futures. This question is the most exciting for me as I was after my early 70ies “involvement” thrown again into the matter in 2004 when I met Alexander Christakis and later Walter Bogan, helping me remember the discussions around the Limits to Growth, my study focus on Ecological Modelling, and the work around, before and after the Rio 92 Earth Summit exercise. Maybe start with these Interviews I published in EUROPEsWORLD: [link]
4) How is Dennis Meadows now? The both Pestels and Donella Meadows are not with us any more and they are much missed …. So how about the Leverage points ( where to intervene in systems *** ) is there a discussion about terminologies, Policy and Governance Types?
Many more questions come up – but I have to go to the venue now…..
WORK IN PROGRESS
Joprgen Randers and his shortermis complaint should be discussed ! AND what his results are! Giving Democracy a Dispense!?
Dennis Meadows showed that we need to think aout of the box. But did his presenatation show how to do it !? - see "out of the box thinking - paradigm mapping [link] and see workshop-graphs here: [link] or see a larger series of slides here: [link]
Dennis Meadows tells us we are post-sustainability. But what to do now and what should ahve been done the last 40 years. Where is the FUTURES CREATION Hassan Oezbekhan requested ! where do we link issues, secors scales and overcome segmentation, segregation and ego-elbow behaviour!? I am getting a little desperate here. I had expected more, specially as I have distributed my Interviews with Chirstakis and more material, but none of the the Youth from teh Winter School which I asked had received any info about the MethoidenStreit and on other views on the matter.
In all this nominalistic figth over words and "schools" there is a danger to miss the whole picture there is not only the position of the CoR presenting the "Limmits" and at the other "end" the view of contrarians ignoring limmits and human caused effects, there is also an "end" on the other side. The end which considers the end of obvious "limits" but also the power of creativity and innovation of Future Creations, but also the dangers of re-inforcing rapid feed-backs in highly complex social and cultural "vague subject fields": Read this article by the founding editor of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics: Charles François (PART III) "The need for an integrated systemic-cybernetic language for concepts and models in complex and vague subject areas": [link] to get challenges, proportions, consequences and possibilities & dangers in a bigger picture.
The only interesting talk and hope I have is a follow up after excahnging some words with Roberto Peccei ! see [more] !! below.
He got some of what I said and promised documents where his father underliened the very special influence Hassan Oezbekhan and Erich Jantsch ahd on him and the idea to form the Club of Rome. So maybe we will have the needed revisit of Limmits and Boundaries some time soon. Meanwhile maybe check: Ignorance or Compassion? Limits and potentials of human concepts, maps and models with regard to nature [link] and this recent proposal about crossing, moving, deleting, sharing, ... boundaries and mindsets: [link]
Here the description of the first figure in "limits to growth": Subtitle of Fig 1: Although the perspectives of the world's people vary in space and time, every human concern falls somewhere on the space time graph.
The majority of the world's people are concerned with matters that effect only family or friends over a short period of time.
Others look far ahead in time or over a large area - a city or a nation. Only few people have a perspective that extends far into the future.
*
Later we can read in the book: that in contrast to the majorities focus in the quadrant in the lower left “box”, the book concerns itself with the upper
right quadrant or “box”.
  
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