Today’s World

Global Emergency — economic and social instability

by Ervin Laszlo February 21, 2010

An emergency is a specific condition in a system, whether that system is an organism, a community, an ecology, or all communities and ecologies taken together. This condition signifies that the system is unstable and is not sustainable as it is; it either changes or breaks down. Societies exhibit economic and social instabilities, and nature [...]

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Labrador over the Mediterranean — a not-so-subtle reminder of our changing climate

by Ervin Laszlo February 19, 2010

The rain came down in sheets. The sky was ice-grey, with darker clouds chasing each other across the horizon. An occasional break allowed the sun to come through now and again, lighting the scene with an eerie, unnaturally brilliant light. The sea was angry, with large, uneven waves topped by white-caps. The ship was lurching [...]

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War or life — your choice

by Ervin Laszlo February 11, 2010

Peace is said to be the absence of war: when we don’t have war, we have peace.  Entirely wrong.  When we don’t have war, we could still be far from having peace—we could be full of conflict, frustration, aggression, and repressed or overt violence. We just don’t have the organized kind of violence that states [...]

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The cardinal sins of our time — and the cardinal virtue

by Ervin Laszlo February 9, 2010

These are times of change. We don’t know yet when or how our world will change, but we do know that it will change, for it cannot remain as it is. If the range of possible changes embraces on the one hand a breakthrough to a more peaceful, equitable and sustainable world, and on the [...]

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The crises are over — now back to business-as-usual?

by Ervin Laszlo February 8, 2010

The financial crisis is over: now the big banks can continue to treat money as the means to make money.  The environmental crisis is over: now the industrial economies can concentrate on creating jobs using whatever means are the most profitable without undue concern as to what it does to the environment.  In other words [...]

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The already forgotten lesson of Haiti

by Ervin Laszlo February 6, 2010

On this paradisiacal but politically and economically depressed island of the Caribbean an almost unprecedented human catastrophe has happened before our very eyes. When the earth shook, hundreds of thousands were stricken, more than two hundred thousand have perished, and nobody knows just how many were left without a roof over their head. Now that [...]

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The key insight

by Ervin Laszlo January 30, 2010

We must recognize that the world has become unsustainable. The idea of unsustainable is a current term, but the idea behind it is not new.  Already at the end of the 18th century Thomas Malthus published his famous treatise on food and population.  He claimed, first, that food is necessary to the existence of man, [...]

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