Respect is a Catalyst for Success

Politics is hard. Making policy that appeals to a wide range of political actors, stakeholders, and related interests, is by some people’s estimation functionally impossible. But at the heart of every legitimate political endeavor, there is the core insight that in its most expansive sense, what is of real interest to humanity anywhere is of real interest to humanity everywhere. We are connected by certain shared truths. We require certain sustenance to facilitate our survival, and we are all vulnerable to the forces of nature and of human violence. We have a transcendent, reciprocal interest in humane policy processes that protect life-giving systems. Working with people of all views and from around the world, on something as complex as climate, I have witnessed firsthand to what degree respect is the most effective strategy for building up the possibility of effective outcomes.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Joseph is Executive Director of Citizens' Climate International. He represents Citizens’ Climate in the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, the UNFCCC negotiations, and other UN processes. He is the lead strategist supporting the Acceleration Dialogues (diplomatic climate-solutions roundtables) and Resilience Intel—an effort to move the world to 100% climate-smart finance. He is Senior Advisor Sustainable Finance for the EAT Foundation, where he served as Interim Director for the Food System Economics Commission, during its start-up phase from April through November 2020, and now serves on the Secretariat of the Good Food Finance Network. He is founder of Geoversiv and a lead contributor to the Earth Intelligence podcast. He publishes a free newsletter at LivingFutures.net

Overcoming the Dissociation Crisis

A report on the Global Online Policy Forum: Solutions from Crisis, from the Pathway to Paris project…

Systems thinking views systems as already containing the expression of their own virtues and their own failings. A system cannot fail, unless the failure is made possible by some component of the system. In our use of energy, in contact with the Earth’s climate system, there is a flaw: our system is not designed to maintain a reliable climate-energy balance. So, we are pushing past the limits of the system, and motivating/encountering disruption. If we understand this, we can better see our limits, understand our strengths, and leverage the virtues of the system to achieve an outcome conducive to human thriving.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Putin Squanders Olympic Glow to Seize Crimea

Russian President Vladimir Putin has thrown away the halo of global good feeling that might have come with the success of the Sochi Olympic Games. Russia’s hosting of the Games was marred when armed paramilitary extremists linked to Putin publicly whipped members of the punk rock protest band Pussy Riot, but Putin’s government handled that situation by scolding the responsible Cossacks and denouncing such abuse of citizens.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Why Kiev Matters

The struggle over Ukraine’s political system is important to the world for a lot of reasons. In short:

It matters whether any human population has fair and transparent, democratically accountable government;
Ukraine is a strategic crossroads, both for political and economic reasons;
The tension over violence against protesters in Kiev could explode into a regional war that no one can afford;
A peaceful resolution is an indicator of whether Russia and Europe can work together;
Ukraine’s strategic value is partly to do with geopolitical spheres of influence, partly about carbon-based energy.

So, what is happening at this hour in Kiev matters to the wider world for moral reasons, for strategic political and economic reasons and because the outcome may determine whether petrostate hegemony will hold sway over the future of more than half a billion people. That authoritarian petrostate model—an outgrowth of both the Soviet dictatorship and the post-Soviet plutocracy in Russia—severely limits the power of individuals and communities to influence government, and to build a more humane, more collaborative, more sustainable future, from the ground up.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

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