Communicating a systems view of climate change by thealternative

First of all, thank you for supporting the idea through the first stage. I am really happy to say that I have made some key changes, mainly in the areas of involving new institutional and expert collaborators and in creating a higher impact through a focused public engagement. Please see a point-wise narrative of the changes.

1.       Forged new collaborations: In the previous stage of the competition, I was working individually. This time I propose working woth two collaborators

a.       Alternative Futures (AF) is a non governmental organization in India. AF is a research and communication group working on social, policy and technological innovations and viable alternatives for development and social transformation (www.alternativefutures.org.in). 

Mr. Rakesh Kapoor, the Founder-Director of Alternative Futures, works on the interface of science, technology, society and the future and on issues of sustainable lifestyles and development. He is Consulting Editor of Futures: the journal of policy, planning and futures studies (www.elsevier.com/locate/futures), since 2003 and a fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation and was its Director during 2008-14. He has edited some special issues of Futures including ‘India@2050’ (2014), ‘Global Mindset Change’ (2010), ‘Transformative Initiatives’ (2007) and ‘Indian Futures’ (2004). AF, through its experience and linkages in the sector, will facilitate public engagement activities on a large scale in addition to working on developing the alternative worldview ideas.

b.      Prof Sanjeev Ghotge has been involved in climate change related research and has been a regular contributor to national and international journals, books and other online media. He has also been invited to speak at numerous national as well as international conferences and discussion roundtables on climate change. He will be collaborating in development of the concept and will also play a role in public engagement with students.

Going forward, we expect to forge collaborations with many other individuals and institutes across the world.

2.       Included Stronger public engagement component: The previous entry focused on website and online magazine targeting a limited constituency. Based on discussions with the collaborators, we are proposing a higher level of direct engagement with two main constituencies: graduate/postgraduate-students/young adults and media.

This inclusion is felt necessary because as specialists, we are trapped in intellectual constructs of our own choosing and are unable to communicate ideas, however transformative, outside our cliques. Economists can only communicate ideas to economists, scientists to scientists, and so on. This tradition of cloistered thinking has to be broken and efforts have to be made to choose a simpler language pared of jargon and conceptual complexities. This idea will now be the rallying force behind the public engagement activities and the publication focus proposed under this initiative.

We plan to involve students right from the charter preparation stage and engage them intellectually through classroom interaction, cross-disciplinary debates and focused workshops.

We plan to target at least 500 students in the first year and 1500 students in the subsequent years from top educational institutes and universities in India. We also plan to engage new international/national/regional media to discuss and debate on alternative models of worldviews.

In addition, we are also proposing to conduct a one day workshop in New Delhi in early September to discuss the charter and to debate and seek new ideas for public engagement from thought leaders, prominent intellectuals, economists, environmental campaigners, NGOs, social activists and young students.

3.       Changed the budget and the timelines: Costs for proposed public engagement activities have been considered in arriving at the revised budget estimates. The timelines have also been appropriately modified to reflect the addition of public engagement component

4.       Included a scientific worldview (in addition to other worldviews): In addition to the economic, ecological and religious worldview, a fourth lens of scientific worldview is also introduced. This is included to reconcile with the fact that many scientific disciplines, particularly the discipline of climate sciences, are realizing that mere technological and scientific progress may not be enough to solve/explain all the problems of the world and that non-scientific ways of engagement may also be viable alternatives to bring about change. Interestingly, new scientific hypotheses, particularly after the discovery of quantum science,  indicate that physical reality could be intimately linked with human consciousness. This transformation from a causal mechanistic worldview to a more complicated worldview lends these new science, a more human centric view. If we consider climate sciences, there seems to be conclusive scientific evidence that for the first time in evolutionary history, humankind may be the causative factor in the sixth round of extinction, now apparently underway. Interestingly, this realization has played a large role in mobilising the usually reticent scientific community to comment on the larger social/economic causes of climate change and potential human solutions.