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December 13, 2009

A Challenge to The Integral Community

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
You may have noticed that we have been blogging on climate change issues. Our intention is to remind the integral community that we are at a key moment in the emergence and evolution of our species. The Copenhagen climate conference is widely acknowledged as the last opportunity our civilization has of creating world changing international agreements.

If we cannot maintain our basic life-conditions then the emergent spiral of cultural evolution will come to a brutal halt.

But where are all the integral voices? Silent. When the rest of the world is engaging this moment in history the 'integrally informed' remain silent? If the integral paradigm cannot rise to the biggest challenge in human history then what good is it?

So here is the challenge:
The IRG openly challenges every integrally-informed blogger, organization or person to speak up, speak out and join in on the most important dialogue humanity has ever undertaken. No matter where you sit in terms of the debate, let your views and perspectives be heard and known.

There is no room for silence and no one will escape being called into account on where they were or what they did during this crucial time.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The challenge is coming to grips with the globalist politics, incl. its shadows, running the show. This article seems quite clueless on the matter.
Here's an article that shows some perspective on the matter : http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1633

Joel Morrison
spinbitz.net

~C4Chaos said...

i'm no integralist but here's my retro response http://www.c4chaos.com/2009/10/blog-action-day-2009-on-climate-change/

~C

Anonymous said...

offhand, one thing to watch out for with middle-of-the-road povs, is that the Hegelian dialectic at the heart of the esoteric (note esoteric doesn't = morally good, but just hidden) power structure specifically targets the middle-road as the artificial synthesis of its equally artificial thesis and antithesis. So if you always take the middle of the road simply because of the complexities involved and the inability to find the critical higher level povs (e.g. globalist power games), thinking that it must be correct, never daring to accept even the possibility that the two poles were MANUFACTURED for just this averaging reaction, then you are being led by the nose..

Joel Morrison
spinbitz.net

subtillioN said...

... [cont.] That, to me, is the key pitfall of being integral for the sake of being integral. To integrate with intelligence requires a higher perspective in which to see objectively what's actually being integrated.

Joel Morrison
http://www.spinbitz.net

Anonymous said...

Marilyn Hamilton speaks up and out at INTEGRAL CITY:
http://marilyn.integralcity.com/

Maybe Meme said...

Personally, I think that energy consumption is on the decline long term, and already we have seen a break from the predictions of the IPCC’s v4 report from 2007. My friend Spiralman comments in a recent email exchange…

“To the right, Here is the IPCC AYR4 scenario diagram. The most optimistic scenario, B1, has CO2 emissions growing and not declining below 2005 levels until ~2060. Global oil consumption, just one proxy for emissions admittedly, is already down from almost 88mbd down to 84+mbd, and the crisis has been blunted so far with massive government interventions of stimulus and more debt issuance, which is not financially sustainable, and will lead to major bankruptcies and currency collapses, mass unemployment, and quite likely to world war and civil wars. So we will see energy consumption continue to shrink through this decade.

Demand for oil in the OECD will not recover until 2013, says Opec
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/demand-for-oil-in-the-oecd-will-not-recover-until-2013-says-opec-1738086.html

Aside from the world wars and civil wars generating a huge amount of carbon emissions in the form of soot from explosions and fires, and aerosols from incinerations of cities, the future industrial emissions are very likely to be considerably lower than even today. I expect that as the capitalist overproduction crisis progresses over the next several years, industrial activity will shrink by 25% to 50% from peak activity.

Meanwhile solar (and wind) power will continue to cheapen along its exponential learning curve, making it ever more desirable and capable of fulfilling any need for growth of energy generation capacity, especially that which will enable the belligerents in the wars to be energy independent of international disruptions to fuel supply chains.

The same will occur with natural gas, now that the shale gas makes natural gas a local resource for US, Europe, China and India. And since natural gas can not only replace coal, but also be cheaply converted into gasoline, diesel and kerosene, we will see oil and coal consumption replaced by the lower emission natural gas.

And of course, there will be the huge milestone of affordable LED’s combined with the bans on incandescent bulbs taking effect starting from 2012-2014 which will lead to the rapid replacement with LEDs and the equally huge shrinkage of electricity consumption from lighting (and the extra energy consumption for the air conditioning necessary to deal with the waste heat from inefficient fluorescents in office buildings). So sometime over 2013-2020 there will be the evaporation of ~20% of demand for OECD electricity.

This pattern of Spike, Crash, Streamline, and Replace is the identical dynamic to which occurred from 1930-1945, 1860-1878 and from 1789-1812. Like clockwork the world experiences generational financial and genocidal crisis eras every 65-80 years. I have tracked this cycle back to the 1420’s for Western Europe, India, China and Japan, and I suspect that if I researched it further the pattern continues even deeper into time”

* Climate Change Emails Have Been Quoted Entirely Out Of Context
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6948008.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657

* Understanding Climategate’s Hidden Decline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6948008.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657

* In Face of Skeptics, Experts Affirm Climate Peril -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true

Is the climate change industry perfect, should we trust the general “scientific” consensus and base our assumptions and economic policy on them?


http://maybememe.posterous.com/us-2009-carbon-emissions-to-fall-61-pct-eia-c

http://www.maybememe.com/post/91127514/could-renewables-supply-40-percent-of-global-power-by

http://maybememe.posterous.com/why-there-will-be-a-major-oversupply-of-elect

Mark Walsh said...

The integral community is busy in mental masturbation.

Here's a report from a (non integral) Buddhist friend of mine there:

http://integrationtraining.blogspot.com/2009/12/buddhist-in-copenhagen.html


All the best from Brighton,
Mark
http://www.integrationtraining.co.uk/

Lyn said...

"If the integral paradigm cannot rise to the biggest challenge in human history, then what good is it?"

I hear you. Next week the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice (JITP) will publish the first issue of a double volume on climate change. These issues were a year in the making, and I assure you the full power of the Integral model is brought to bear. Authors tackle all of the big issues: whether wealthy nations should shoulder the burden of curtailing emissions; how/whether to more broadly implement cap-and-trade systems; the voice of NGOs, journalists, and ordinary citizens in the debate; policy setting and the role of the IPCC; how to balance the needs of developing nations with CO2 mitigation efforts; behavior change strategies; and, unique to integral studies, a discussion of solutions and observations as being dependent on the perspective that frames the issue.

An entire article is devoted to addressing your exact concern of the integral community being silent (generally, the author muses why some are reluctant to view themselves as being part of and partners in an integral movement, let alone a movement powered by ideology). Compelling arguments about the politicization of science, civic engagement, and world governance also are presented. Other great (often under-discussed) questions that get addressed: Who had a seat at the table when the decision was made that climate change is the “defining” issue of the 21st century? What perspectives were left out of the deliberations? Who are the self-appointed field generals who propose to give everyone marching orders, without having given the vast majority of people any say in matters that could profoundly affect their lives? To what extent are economic interests now distorting policy debates pertaining to climate change? And so on...

In other words, this will be a great coming out for integral studies -- the JITP double issue will be featured prominently at the State of the World Forum gathering in February 2010. So no worries, the integral community's voice will be heard. :-)

Term Papers said...

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rachellouise said...

yup, when i see an integral institute person do anything other than tell other people what to do, oh, yes - start listening to their critics, instead of thinking they are above them, i will start listening to them, till then, have to go with those in the world that are living their vision in the world, and managing to do it more or less well, under incredible stresses, obama, gore, brown, thankyou

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