Tipping Point Action Proposal now up at MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform

The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative 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 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 Tipping Point Action Proposal Goal: Assist with creating 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives to maximize citizen participation and accelerate solution-oriented activity.

“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 no contests currently active at the MIT Climate CoLab Crowdsourcing Platform. The 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 comment on the Tipping Point Action Proposal at the platform. Dialogue associated with crowdsourcing along the lines of the Tipping Point Action Campaign can touch on a wide range of topic areas, and can be a most helpful learning experience.

Personal Invite: Please consider reviewing and commenting on the proposal

I hope readers of this message here at Village Vancouver 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 http://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 http://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 commenting 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 http://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.

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 (at cpcsc.info)” (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

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

For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,

Stefan Pasti, Resource Coordinator
Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative
www.cpcsc.info
stefanpasti@gmx.com