Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: It`s only ... The people must change their way of thinking

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I do not know which steps should be taken to do that, but it is clear that the world is going to face serious problems and nobody tries really to put an end to that. Sure we are aware of these problems, even if you ask any student in the university he will tell you well about them or if you ask anyone in the street he will also tell you, so it is not secret what is going on. In despite of the big companies and the countries which are connected somehow with these companies, nobody makes effort to do something to solve this problem. The global policy or global ideas should blame people, regimes and companies for their mistakes which they commit in the world.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Immediate steps that we can take for the preparation of our society for emergency. Sometimes someone would say that the only possibility is to pray for the planet and to cry for humanity because of processes of trying to unite political, economical and social volunties in order to prepare ourselves for facing all those problems. It is very difficult to foresee what we can do. To make people be conscient and perhaps to have some united nations that are really effective and that have a principal and effective organisation for the global problems of the environment. The only thing that we could do is work for the enforcement of global organisations and agglutinated corporations of the countries in order to do something for the salvation of our sick body which is the planet.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Mike, this is an enormous question. I can’t do it in three minutes. First of all I believe we should get the USA to not only sign but adhere to the Kyoto protocol, as they are the major consumers of energy and the major polluters as it stands right now. Once we’ve done that, there should be a global agreement by all governments that there would be strict adherence to certain internationally defined and defined restrictions for national usage of non-renewable resources. There needs to be a global moratorium on research. And may I so bold as to say as that whatever we’re spending on defense globally should be shifted towards research into long-term, non-toxic, renewable forms of energy, as well as a deeper research into the kind of relationship between global capital and poverty, as well as the inability for completely decimated so-called third-world countries’ inability to recover from incurable diseases. And to look at the relationship between those diseases, that poverty, and the kind of economic and governmental systems that we have in the world today.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: I think there is no shortcuts to achieving the kind of social change that’s necessary to address these problems. And so, in terms of what one can immediately do, I think what one can immediate do is begin to educate oneself to understand the nature of these problems and what one can immediately do is find other people with whom one can organize, can work together in that process of education and through that process forming a commitment to action of figuring out what it is that one can do to take action. There is not a formula for what actions will be effective, but the possibility of social transformation rests on power that we only have collectively, not a power that we have as individuals. So, immediately, one can commit oneself to finding others with whom to take action, to address these problems.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I would say one of the first steps that can be taken to ensure that we don’t destroy our biodiversity completely is by ensuring that this industrial agriculture, which is being allowed to go in and replace our family farmers with corporate farms, to replace our farmers with machines, to replace our biodiversity with monocultures is stopped right away. Two, I would say that corporations which have been allowed to gain more and more control over our seeds remain in public domain, that the seeds remain in the hands of the farmer and communities who have been the best seed savers and the keepers. In terms of poverty, I would say one of the first things that can be done is to institute policies which are aimed at eradicating the poor, are aimed at eradicating poverty itself. We are in a world where we see basically, instead of ending poverty, policies such as welfare-to-farm in the United States or the reduction of social safety nets are small government model which basically takes away the state’s role in preventing poverty. Those policies will have to go.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I like this question. And it's one that brings us here to Berlin and to this event of Dropping Knowledge. And the World Wisdom Council is precisely taking this question on and realizing that we are at an age of crisis. And this question hits right at it. And the situation in which the unsustainability and the cumulative patterns of our culture to this point has taken us to a dangerous tipping point that calls for urgent measures to be taken immediately to deal with this urgent situation that’s before us. And we find that in the World Wisdom Council that helping to bring a mass shift in consciousness that can move into global consciousness, global spirituality, which is global wisdom of the ages of recognizing our integral connection with each other and with the entire human family and with the planet earth. That consciousness is the most powerful single act of spiritual activism to change the trends that are leading to this dangerous tipping point that we’re facing. So really its a shift, a mass shift in consciousness that’s going to be the key. The most powerful thing that can be done to change this mega trend on a runaway situation, that's now reached such a dangerous point on the planet.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I believe the world´s public needs to be educated, it needs to receive information. The public needs to realise what is waiting ahead of us. And what is coming in the future is not necessarily tragic. All of these problems are solveable if dealt with in the right way. There were times when is was assumed that there will not be enough wood for the industry, for heatings. Then there were worries about whether the coal supply would be sufficient. Now we worry about the oil supply. Everything is replaceable. It just needs to be done properly, people need to get used to changes in their way of life, but that does not necessarily mean that life´s standard is going down. Maybe even in the contrary. One needs to realise and understand the development of the energy situation, of the world´s development and to adapt to it and maybe even benefit from it. A change in the climate, that only is caused by us, by how we are using energy and what energies we are using for our industry. We are the reason, and we can control it. Diseases... We have overcome almost all diseases until this day, or we are on the verge of overcoming them. There will be new diseases that need to be examined and studied. We will always have to face new challenges in all those fields...

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Localize it. Again, it’s about scale and if we’re looking at the long emergency. We also have to look at the long now and that what we do right now ripples out in many different ways. And that, we are here in such a short amount time and that really now is the future as well in the past, it’s a very a long now that we’re in. So the steps that we can immediately take to prepare for this is to localize first our systems; our food systems, our water systems, and our energy systems and consume less. Always ask the question, how is my action taking care of the earth? How’s my action taking care of my people? Always measuring their actions around that. All these things, this convergence of peak oil, destruction of biodiversity, climate change, poverty, and global disease, a long emergency, it will be all over the planet. We don’t only need to prepare for it, but also response. How we can be able to respond in these times of technological shifts and natural disasters? When is it going to happen? And will you be prepared enough? We can do what we know how to do and what feels right, and we can listen more, we can listen more to the changes and see what we’re doing and how it affects all of these aspects. We can stop the destruction of biodiversity. We can help end poverty by shifting some of the money into helping those that are in poverty, and we can give more funding to global disease. To peak oil, we can change our renewable sources.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: As I already said in my former answear, the first step is an efficient use of energy. The second step is to search for friendly alternatives of energy like for example solar energy, wind power or the use of hydroelectric energy in a more efficient way, and some other sources for the production of energy that don’t need forests and that don’t need spaces that are already degenerated and that will stay degenerated in some areas of our countries. Obviously it will take many years to find the answears for a use of alternative sources of energy like the [] because we didn’t yet find a technology that produces this energy at low costs. Nuclear energy is another source of energy but it has its risks and the implications of this kind of energy may also provoque other type of problems that could affect our economies and our peace in the world. So we have to revise our energetic development in the national and global politics and we have to suceed in implicating the public. The public, you, me and all of us that are here today as persons in charge of this process and this pact for a new development with a more efficient process concerning the use of energy.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: The 21st century is truly a transformational century. We are reaching limits. But we have a lot of opportunity to address these issues. There’s a lot of things we can do to cut our resource consumption. We can get smarter, we can make money doing it. We have to get going. I think we now recognize these limits. We recognize how inefficient we’re being. My job is investing in green technologies, I see enormous innovations coming which can transform the way we operate to deal with the limits and the issues of climate change and peak oil. But we’re going to have to reinvent things. We’re going to have to replace a lot of the equipment that we use with more efficient equipment. It’s a great opportunity for both creation and recycling of a lot of old bad stuff. The destruction of biodiversity is perhaps a harder problem because it’s simply a population and the human footprint. And in the small we have to do it locally in the communities and regionally save the diverse environments. And lots of people are working on that. I think we’ve been going backwards in the United States in the last few years but on a global basis I think the problem is widely recognized. And we can have some hope. The issue of poverty is of course a difficult one but it’s a question of putting our mind to it. We have the resources to bring the people out of poverty. And in the area of disease we’re concerned, we’re very concerned at my venture firm we’ve formed a $200 million specialty fund to try to find innovations to address the threat of pandemic disease, especially avian flu. But there are new biotechnologies, new vaccines, therapeutics, new ways of doing diagnostics and surveillance to contain the outbreak of infectious disease and to go and attack these diseases and improve the basic state of health of people because people tend to get sick not only because they’re exposed to disease but because their basic health situation is poor.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: If we listen to the experts, scientist and intelligent people, especially if some of them are to be found in some government, then we can do a lot. But if we keep the same course as now then we will come to the situation of Croatian boor that say on the tongue of big Croatian poet "Miroslav Krlez" :"may it be nowhere, may it never be", which is a fusty almost medieval way of understanding. We must get out of our European medieval.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Okay, so this is a big question. Well, this is how I see it. We’ve got to create an all-out global mass media, Internet music-arts led program to wake up the world. I can’t think of a better way to respond to this question by talking about Lester Brown’s Plan B. Check that out on the Internet, Lester Brown, Plan B, and he talks about the following. We’ve got to restructure the global economy so it can sustain civilization. So, that’s getting a relationship between and sustainability and population and that’s really about lifestyle. Second, an all-out effort to eradicate poverty, stabilize population growth and restore hope in order to elicit participation of the developing countries. That’s like a process of enrollment. So number three, a systematic effort to restore natural systems worldwide. And incredibly, this could be done by spending just one-sixth of the approximate one trillion dollars now spent worldwide on armaments. That amounts to basically $161 billion of current armament production expenditures, and with that kind of expenditure, that’s one-sixth of what we’re spending now currently on armament, we could literally make a huge difference in this Long Emergency problem. So, we’ve got to change the global story also towards earth community and we need a cultural awakening and a real partnership ethic. So, it’s really kind of a rethinking, reinventing where we’re headed. So, these are the three steps I would suggest based on Lester Brown’s Plan B.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Catherine David: I think we have to do the opposite of what we are actually doing as we are destroying the Iraq, destroying Afghanistan and as we are providing the most illegal commerces. In other words we did not have a good start and long emergency today does not mean the same for everyone. We have to break with our noble feelings, with our pious hopes and we have to start to be a little bit more realistic, more pragmatically and eventually more radical as we have to point their own responsibility out to the concerned people and the concerned authorities.

by Catherine David