Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info
Welcome to the NewsLog or Blog of Heiner Benking. This is a kaleidoscope of insights and impulses collected first in the Seeds of Change Viewsletter in 1995 and continually updated ever since, but now made available for broader distribution and comments - enjoy, and come again !
18 Jun 2013 @ 19:37
I was very "priviledged" to yesterday attend the SOIL gathering at the IASS. [link] Expert Meeting „Soils in the Nexus“ Global population growth and the impacts of climate change lead to a serious overuse of natural resources and thus to far-reaching consequences for ecosystems and people. … Read more [link] CHECK THIS OUT CAREFULLY !!
[link]
SOIL, like WATER, HEALTH, CLIMATE, SECURITY, ... are very important issues, they now call the need to bridge them: NEXUS !! So watch out - are very important term for the next programmes and summits !! Even the DG Klaus Töpfer was there: [link] and he was suprised to see me as i was the only with an "observer" status - like we said when I was young: sitting "besides" and not allowed to speak up !
But I was at the GLOBAL SOIL WEEK last year and I liked it very much, specially the GLOBAL COMMONS section, and feel that we need to make the NEXUS become real !! finally !! but what is the plurál of NEXUS in this case just a question...
Before we dig deeper I recommend: Global Soil Week: Film "Let's Talk About Soil" from the Global Soil Week 2012 available at: [link]
Klaus Töpfer greeted me with hand-shake and mumbling something like "you again!" - (we know each other since 25+ years and I invited him officially in 1991 to tour the geotechmica fair and the LOCAL and GLOBAL CHANGE hall and later the Hall of the ALfred Wegener Foundation who was in charge of this MARKETPLACE for the EARTH in 1991 ! [link]
This only to position my statements, insights and concerns for the eyes of "not-inisders"!!
So we met around and under the spell of
CHATHAM HOUSE RULES: [link]
For me it was essential in he late 80ies to not only cite statements, but also mot emtnion who was around at such meetings (times were quite different), but times change, so that is now all public: see above the programme, speakers, issues, ... [link]
So what is my turn here? Do some interviews, mingle, connect and reconnect, meddle in or help to "muddle through"?? !?
A VERY GOOD and IMPORTANT event a over 3 days - really no time to report - but to time to mingle and meddle in (in the sense of Heinrich Böll !!)
maybe follw the video recordings and the tweets.
Futures Congress with lectures, workshops, discussions, performances, and concerts, June 14-16.
Saturday evening Chantal Mouffe[link] speaks about INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY is identifiying the crisis of Democracy is in part a problem representation and identity. Read her books!
Inclusive is about an empowered agonistic democracy and practices of justification... See the scripts and check out her discussion partner Rainer Forst: [link] We are really digging deep here. In my sense a little to German/European philosophincal exchange about co-representation and "schools" and "isms". More >
13 Jun 2013 @ 13:58
Berlin is like a bees-hive these days. We have the Asia Pacific Week June 4-14 with the title SmartCities, meeting in the Princesses gardens as organized by the asbc (see more below) or the Käte Hamburger Lecture and Modern Diplomacy Handbook! The Foundations Week June 4-14, and lot of very special side-events, like the First Diversity Day, or the foundations presentations like in teh field of environment or capacity building, and besides there is for example the Kulturpolitical Federal Congress 12-14 With the title: Culture Politics as planned? - Kultur nach Plan ?Strategies of concept-based culture politics. We are talking her about hundreds of Events and „Long Nights“ - it like the Roman Games and Circus as I feel these events had much in common. Exhausting.... but I will try to select some very special highlights, like the ones on Diplomacy or on Urban Farming, but also "Planning" and Cultural Policy - for me a very special and controversial theme - check out the Culture Politics Policy links and how we can cultivate culture and keep the socail and other sectores/dimensions in mind !!
So stay tuned and come back. Meanwhie check the diversity of events in the booklet available on the websites.
BOOK Presentation:
The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy [link] Ramesh Thakur presenting in the 5th Käthe Hamburg Lecture: Global governance and the State of Nuclear Weapons. A very important book and a sobering lecture ! Check it out !! Ramesh Thakur-GCRMore >
6 Jun 2013 @ 15:14
INNOVATION FOR A BETTER TOMORROW [link] Pls. check the Lifestream [link] in English and German!!
Will need to translate a.s.a.p. - maybe do online translate !? and check LABS and DOSSIERS
PROGRAMME [link] - and also see the MANIFEST for an AGORA Energy "rebound" - 12 Insights on Germany's Energiewende [link]
and see GROWING INTELLIGENTLY by the Head of the BOELL FOUNDATION Ralf Fuechs: [link]
MASCHINENFRUEHLING - Innovationen für ein besseres Morgen Panels - Labs - Diskussionen 6/7. June 2013
I asked after the first panel about the quality of the needed change and mentioned "DOLPHIN SOLUTIONS" [link] as collected by Robert Jungk in the early 90ies. This link Dolphin Solutions also includes the connection to mindbugs and mindboggling, but also handprints and mindprints. [link] I will go there tomorrow, so stay tuned ! as there is agreat chance to revisit our mind-bugs and representation bugs !
What I mean: Why do we only think linear or circular? why do we think "flat" [link] when the world is alife, whole, and deep !? - so how about revisiting hoilistic systemic approaches [link] and our rule-sets and mind-sets ! [link] and ways to "negotiate" complex matters, and how we collect, frame, negotiate, connect .... [link]More >
5 Jun 2013 @ 21:19
Yesterday was something like a deja vu - the last 40 years
se MARLOESTENBHÖMER oh behave! KORDINATEN UND ECKEN#
[link] and Marloes: [link] and
Bürgerbeteiligung 2.0 [link]
I will need to add impressions and outcomes here a.s.a.p. SEE:
5. Juni 2013, Umweltforum Berlin Tagung "Bürgerbeteiligung 2.0" Wir leben im digitalen Zeitalter. Welche besonderen Chancen bietet das Netz für die politische Beteiligung? Die Konferenz "Bürgerbeteiligung 2.0" sucht Antworten. More >
4 Jun 2013 @ 09:08 VOM VATER STAAT ZUM BÜRGERSTAAT Kommunalkongress 2013 [link]
Every 3 years the German Association of German Cities and Communities / Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund www.dstgb.de assembles its German Communal Congress - DEUTSCHEN KOMMUNALKONGRESS. And here we are yesterday and today!
Watch the Videos, check the pages ! and compare with other countries.
We have the Mrs. Chancelor, Ministers, the President of the European Parliament and about 600 mayors here... quite an Assembly !! oops - Mrs Angela Merkel had to be excused - her duty is now to be seen by "making herself a picture of the desaster" in various regions of the country !! it is election times and the times are grim, the worst flood since hundreds of years in some places.
see also the [R]EVOLUTION: Saving the Local Democracy below ... More >
31 May 2013 @ 19:18
I went last night again to the Anthropocene event in the HKW ! [link]
HKW Wissensclub #3
THE BLUE PLANET – THE HISTORY OF AN IMAGE - CONVERSATION WITH ANSELM FRANKE
FRI 31.05.2013 | 17:00 h
What happened when humankind saw planet earth for the first time? What effects do iconic images such as the blue planet or the atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima have on our perceptions? How did it come about that romantic tradition and belief in progress shared a symbiosis in the California of the 1970s?
But before, let us go to my entry from the opening of the HKW "Anthropocene" Series: 2 month ago:
The WHOLE EARTH - a great story, a déjà-vu?, or a lot of missing pieces?? [link]More >
FGS Federation of German Scientists - VDW Vereinigung Deutscher Wissenschaftler
[link] Consultative [link] AGORA [link]
I was active in the VDW [link] some years ago. [link] Now a new generation is active and at the helm I feel we should link to our CGI Science for Peace and Pugwash links to Canada - will need to check this out !! More >
30 May 2013 @ 07:47 DRAFT - just typing in the finla wrap-up session. I am at the International Conference on Climate Change Effects, Impacts World 2013[link] and I am getting very sad and angry.
But first her the core questions discussed here for 4 days:
1. Can we integrate our existing knowledge across sectors? 2. How certain are we? 3. What is still missing? 4. How do we bridge the divide between regional and global impact studies? 5. Is anybody listening?
Maybe see also this VISIONING DOCUMENT first: [link] and note that you seldom get so many Nobel Laureats (2007) into one room ! (they all are Laureates as IPCC was awarded) [link]
Very good and earnest scientist around. I specially mentioned IIASA and Nathan Keyfitz a couple times.. See page 17-18 [link] also mentioned in this article (FN15): [link]
Yes there is a chance for change of mindsets and rulesets... see MINDPRINT website [link] and maybe flatworlds and deepworlds: [link]
I learned as a child "View of the Whole, Responsibility for the Whole" "Sicht aufs Ganze, Pflicht fürs Ganze" and realize that is actually what is missing in all these muddling through in view of the Problematique and the Predicament of Mankind we are confronted with.
In the opening discussion it was made clear that we know enough to act, but we do not know the root causes and can not manage vulnerability and fragility of of highly complex dynamic changes. Maybe revist again the lecture of Chrales Francois when introducing the 2nd edition of the Internation Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics. His title: The need for an integrated systemic-cybernetic language for concepts and models in complex and vague subject areas: "fields" such as humanities, cultural-, anthropological- and environmental- studies, education,… and last not least: governance
[link] maybe also see our presentation we did 10 years ago: [link] and when you then see the Need for a New Science, New Language, New Thinking [link]
ANGRY ? YES !! there were in my view central leverage points missed this today, Mai 30th
exactly 43 years ago when the Club of Rome did not get their early work and jumped onto Prognostic Futures, ignoring the Particiaptory and Normative aspects. See my interviews about the matter here in EUROPEsWORLD: [link]
exactly 23 years ago when we had the vernisage of the GLOBAL CHANGE touring exhibition - it subtitle was Challenges to Science and Politics !!!!! Since then Science and politics seem to have ignored most of the messages and presentations, work by a lot of scientist over years and an interesting "status quo" documentation by-the-way.... We introduced for example a "0-Energy House" and still we are fighting for other ways of building; we introduced the Rubik's Cube of Ecology to provide a view for general orientation. Read this text by Anthony Judge [link] "Pointers to possibilities, [link] but who reads and who cares? More >
This is my News Log, a public diary presenting events, symposia and happenings in Berlin. The Log links in to my work and interests and presents issues and special concern of maybe a small group of "concerned, engaged generalist" a Global Interest Group (GIG) in contrast to the ubiquitous Specialized Interest Groups (SIGs). One of my favourite stories is "Longing for Unified Knowledge" is the mumbling "not my field" (by Ivan M. Havel in our Wholeness Seminar).
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18 Jun 2013 @ 19:37
15 Jun 2013 @ 14:29
13 Jun 2013 @ 13:58
6 Jun 2013 @ 15:14
5 Jun 2013 @ 21:19
4 Jun 2013 @ 09:08
31 May 2013 @ 19:18
31 May 2013 @ 08:05
30 May 2013 @ 07:47