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September 2010

United Nations

The Whole World at Work - About the Millennium Development Goals in Progress

Always highly interesting to follow the United Nations "live" where 192 countries gathered this month to tell about what they are doing about the world problems in their own countries and how the MDG's are in progress! Best speakers are always those who speak paperless: Poland about solidarity worldwide, Obama as the great mediator about that we (all) can! And the Netherlands as co-founders of globalization, EU and UN about renovation from old to new structures in international institutions.

Looking to the world as a whole is now much easier for everybody thanks to internet, but seeiing the big picture and all kinds of relations is only possible by our own imaginations of course! And even more important is to think about remarks that not only governments and NGO's but also business must be involved, and most of all of course we ourselves as consumers! Because we are the ones that ask the questions, always pay the real price direct or indirect, and enjoy yes or no the quality of all products and services, the quality of life.

Videos

August 2010

Decade for a Culture of Peace 2001-2010

At the end of the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace now the final report is published by the project manager David Adams. From over 100 countries worldwide 1.054 organizations of which 147 international organizations gave their opinions about the past and the future, about problems and opportunities for a worldwide future of peace, sustainability, tolerance and solidarity.

Eight categories of organizations reported about their experiences and about their points of view. Education as the most important. Sustainability, Human Rights, Gender, Participative democracy, Understanding tolerance and solidarity, Freedom of information, Peace and security. The most interesting development mentioned in the report was the worldwide famous project of micro credits, the Grameen Bank of Yunus who gave the most powerful impuls towards a better world.

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PS: We joined the country-conference which David Adams held in Amsterdam in 2005 together with thirty people of other dutch organizations. In the final report 2010 we give our opinion about the past and the future by mentioning our annual report and our publication "about the quality of life" (see international organizations / sustainability / vrije consumenten / free consumers or see our website).

July 2010

juni 2010 juni 2010

Our Common Future 2.0 in the making

More than 400 people in the Netherlands have gathered to write an upgrade version of the famous Brundtland Report and to present it in 2012 exact 25 years after the first publication by the United Nations in 1987. Starting next month on the yearly "Sustainable Tuesday" in the old parliament building in The Hague on September 7 with a presentation to politicians and the public. This crowdsourcing project of twenty teams working on different themes everybody will spend two weeks of his/her time in the next three months for discussions and try to rewrite the report and make it fit for the 21st century.

Of course only the most exact scientific knowledge can show us the best possible roadmaps. And only the most humane institutions we build can help to build the most reasonable human relations. And so the best possible circumstances for our common future. We think!

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June 2010

juni 2010 juni 2010

From the End of Poverty to Common Wealth

Jeffrey Sachs wrote a masterpiece again with a magnificent title! One word that can motivate everyone of us everywhere to go forward working for a better world possible! A title that invites us to go on even when one should disagree with parts of his book. In the 21th century thinking and talking is necessary, but trial & error is even more important!

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the director of The Earth Institute, professor of sustainable development at Columbia University. He is also special advisor to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the UN Millennium Project on the Millennium Development Goals.

About the book: Drawing from his unexcelled experience and knowledge, Jeffrey D. Sachs has written a state of the world report of immediate and enormous practical value. Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet delivers what the title promises: a crystal-clear analysis, a synthesis, a reference work, a field manual, a guidebook, a forecast, and an executive summary of recommendations fundamental to human welfare. It says to those responsible for Earth's 6.6 billion people: Just look at the numbers. The world has changed radically in the past several decades; it is going to change more, faster and faster. In spite of all we have accomplished through science and technology -indeed because of it – we will soon run out of margin. Now is the time to grasp exactly what is happening. The evidence is compelling: we need to redesign our social and economic policies before we wreck this planet. At stake is humankind's one shot at a permanently bright future.

ISBN 9780141026152

http://earthinstitute.columbia.edu

May 2010

Worldwide introduction of consumer-education

Consumer-education in sustainable consumption has been introduced by the United Nations at the CSD-18 conference May 3-14 in New York. The Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living PERL led by the Hedmark University in Norway was represented by the project manager prof. Victoria Thoresen. PERL is the international group of teacher trainers that prepared the Guidelines for consumer education for primary and secundary schools and higher education.

In 2008 the United Nations already published a report about how journalists and the media can help to make sustainability more and more transparent for the public, for business and for politicians ......... and for educators and students.

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April 2010

150 years Rudolf Steiner - The science must go on!

If we really want to know how to choose as consumers, we have to know the ‘inner quality’ of everything, of products, services and processes and the whole cosmos around in space and time and beyond those parameters. Therefore we need not only the natural sciences, but also the spiritual sciences. Since Einstein created the thought milieu that all phenomena are dependent on matter alone, Goethe already gave us the tools to discover the higher forms of research. Furthermore it is thanks to Rudolf Steiner that we can now understand how even the higher spiritual sciences have developed through human history until the present time. The science must go on! If we include natural science, however, there are seven steps to go. In the problems concerning the environment and climate, we can now experience a second stage of living processes al around us.

Just as the natural sciences made great progress since the sixteenth century, to discover how the various parts of the universe fit and work together, so did Goethe, during his journey through Italy how man can learn to see the unity of it all in minerals, plants (his idea of the ‘Urpflanze’), animals (characters) and human beings (the significance of biographies). To alchemists these were known as earth, water, air and fire; in modern chemistry they are known as the states : solid, liquid, gas and heat.

In this way we can understand that the physical sciences have their limits in the material world as such. As far as plants are concerned we can see that they have not merely a material process but also a ‘living’ process, not only gravitation as it were but also levitation. In the animal world, we can see that they have a material body, that they live by eating plants directly or indirectly, and have the capacity to walk freely, each sort with its specific character. The human being goes beyond all these characteristics with his possession of an inner spirit and the capacity to act with a high degree of freedom and to create his or her own biography. This process is comparable to a factory building with all its machines, tools and other component parts as materials, transport and production as the living process, and working schemes and organization as the ‘character ‘ as it were of the enterprise and finally human relations as the ‘spirit of enterprise’)

That Goethe was the great builder of the bridge between the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences was recognized by Rudolf Steiner, who did all the research to make transparent how the spiritual side is always the other side of the same ‘coin’ which we call reality. Using the factory again as an analogy: behind all the processes of a factory we can find the mission statement, the motivation. The question why we should we produce for specific consumers is a case of question and answer between human beings, in the encounter of freely (!) chosen goals in life, which we can call ‘new karma’. The further development of these higher degrees of research are called imagination, inspiration and intuition. In other words it is the world of imaginations, feelings and experiences, and furthermore of encounters with the other as an individual entity, … also when we talk of angels and beings of a higher order.

It was this month that Dick van Romunde died at the age of 96, who was a good friend and a great scientist, who taught us to take these steps in our own personal evolution.

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March 2010

   

Kennedy and the World Consumer Rights Day

It was president John F Kennedy who announced on March 15 1962 the Bill on Consumer Rights, giving the consumers and their newborn worldwide organization Consumers International (International Organization of Consumer Unions) some very important tools to become partners on the playing field of the world economy.

This year Consumer Rights Day was about "It's OUR money!" pointing towards everyone who is working with money one way or another. But of course we ourselves are the first and most important players in the economy! Because every time we decide to buy or to finance something WE decide who is going to work for us as e farmer, teacher, politician or automaker, and a euro yen or dollar begins a new round!

So in one way or another .... we are also responsible for the whole process in the end! In the same way that a manager has responsibility for the whole factory, consumer governance is about the whole chain of production. Made visible in fair trade and all kinds of labelling. Made practical by all kinds of consumer associations, visitors days and dialogues every season and/or every annual meeting with producers and all other stakeholders.

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February 2010

How egoism turns into altruism

When we are taking care for our own life we are free but also egoistic by definition. When we take into account our family as well, then our egoism will have another "sound". And when a king is fighting for his people, then egoism gets an even bigger scale and a sound of higher ideals! But when somebody feels him/herself responsible for humankind and the cosmos as a whole, egoism becomes altruism! In other words: freedom becomes freedom for all!

Thanks to globalization and internet we feel more and more like living in a big village, as one big family. Which - of course - we were already since Adam and Eve! Together with our ongoing insight that spirituality and materiality are two sides of the same coin we learned to look 360 degrees around to become world citizens AND cosmopolitans!

A better world in progress - looking talking and working 360

In the ongoing process we can also recognise the developments within the twelve different areas.

01 The upcoming talks between worldreligions starting 2011 in the UN Decade for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue. 02 The rise of art and especially social art as a tool for more dialogue and thinking in solutions instead of problems only. 03 Science on a turning point from materialistic towards wholistic thinking.

04 Education for a free individual development for everybody as UN Millennium Development Goal. 05 Medicare, clean water and hygiene worldwide. 06 Food, biological agriculture and biodiversity becoming mainstream, INCLUDING the buzz of living bees if we are not too late!

07 Housing and architecture show more experiments and "organic" style according to more creativity of the people living in it. 08 Financial restructuring of institutions making money a mirror of reality instead of virtuality. 09 Traveling from tourism to connecting people and projects.

10 Communication from small talk towards international conferencing and sharing knowledge. 11 Human/consumer rights, fair trade and democratization towards direct dialogues. 12 Associations from sporting clubs and small talks towards highly professional consumer organizations.

Consumer governance in progress

Those who take the final decisions are the consumers of course! WE make choices every day who is going to work for us as farmer, physician, teacher for our children, architect, government, artist or scientist! And WE pay the bills. So WE are the stakeholders and the stockowners. And our household booklet is the mirror of our piece of a better world in progress!!!

Manager360
 housekeeping book in 12 columns

Click here to read this Excel file...

January 2010

 

Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild - Another World is Possible

The first three words are the title of the annual conference of the World Economic Forum this month in Davos Switzerland. The World Social Forum (Another World is Possible) is organising dialogues this whole year around the world on many platforms. And the Worldwatch Institute published their annual State of the World 2010 with the title "From Consumerism to Sustainability". After a century of lessons learned and homework done now the exams can begin!

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