LD 099: Chip Comins guest - AREDAY (American Renewable Energy Day) Aug. 20-22, 2009 Aspen, CO - a podcast by Duncan Campbell

Episode Description:“For human evolution to continue, the conversation must deepen.”–Margaret MeadThe 6th Annual AREDAY–American Renewable Energy Day–produced by long-time environmental activist and filmmaker Chip Comins -- is a uniquely innovative and interactive annual gathering of co-creative change in this time of Yes We Can, and Yes We Must. It will take place Aug. 20-22, 2009 in the beauty of summertime in the Rocky Mountains in Aspen, Colorado. This year’s focus is“The Problem IS the Solution: Wall Street Meets Green Street–Creating the New Energy Economy”, bringing together a truly amazing array of people.This gathering will present all of us in attendance with an extraordinary opportunity not just to share information on visionary perspectives and practical tools for change, but to directly experience and co-create one of most important global transformations of our times. Participants will include a number of the people I have dialogued with on this site, such as Lester Brown, Bracken Hendricks, Van Jones, Bob Gough of Intertribal COUP, and many more. See Living Dialogues Episodes 68 and 70.Details, list of other key participants you will appreciate, and registration information available at www.areday.net. At last year’s AREDAY, Ted Turner was asked what he told the Board after he resigned from Time Warner in the wake of the AOL fiasco. He replied:“I just told them to stop doing the dumb things, and start doing the smart things.”To get a sense of how profound this simple message is if our public and private powers would only apply this advice, why they don’t, and why it really is true that the ball is in our court as citizens to show the way, that only“if the people will lead, the leaders will follow”, consider the following statements from one of this year’s AREDAY keynote speakers, Amory Lovins (then a 29 year old physicist), made thirty-three years ago, in his seminal article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled“Energy Strategy–The Road Not Taken?”:At a time before Al Gore was even in Congress, Lovins noted:“The commitment (of U.S. policy) to a long-term coal economy many times the scale of today’s makes the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration early in the next century virtually unavoidable, with the prospect then or soon thereafter of substantial and perhaps irreversible changes in global climate.”He dubbed this“the hard path.”The alternative, which Lovins called“the soft path,”favored“benign”sources of renewable power like wind and the sun, along with a heightened commitment to meeting energy demands through conservation and efficiency. Such a heterodox blend of clean technologies, Lovins argued, would bring a host of salutary effects: a healthier environment, an end to our dependence on Middle East oil, a diminished likelihood of future wars over energy, and the foundation of a vibrant new economy.”[The preceding two paragraphs are from the summary by Joshua Green in his article“Better Luck This Time”, reviewing the history of U.S. policy persisting in“doing the dumb things”all this time, in the July-August issue of The Atlantic magazine.]In my view, the U.S. is weighted down with the collective albatross in this Second Gilded Age of greed by highly centralized corporate systems beyond the control of our public government, including the U.S. financial system, fossil fuel energy and utility system, and health care system, among others–disconnected from any meaningful innovation and the public good. We will be exploring these aspects–and how they relate to the evolutionary imperative of consciousness transformation -- in future dialogues, including the upcoming next dialogues with Jeffrey Hopkins, the translator the Dalai Lama’s new book“Becoming Enlightened”(No. 100), Gillian Tett of the Financial Times of London on“Fool’s Gold”the creation by ambitious, self-centered Wall Street“high fliers”of the global economic catastrophe (Nos. 101 and 102), and David Korten on an“Agenda for a New Economy”(Nos. 103 and 104), followed by Judith Orloff on“Emotional Freedom”, and more to come.In the meantime, we invite you and look forward to seeing you at AREDAY on Aug. 20-22, 2009 in the natural beauty of Aspen, Colorado. As a listener to Living Dialogues, you can still receive an early bird discount by emailing Chip Comins directly at ccomins@rof.net. And if you cannot physically put yourself in Aspen Colorado for AREDAY, you’re very much invited to continue participating through your deep listening to not only this dialogue (and those related Living Dialogues listed above and below), but to our continuing Living Dialogues after that. And also to honor the fact that really it is true -- and we’re experiencing it with great gratitude for our listenership and their Website Contact emails from around the world -- that as the world becomes smaller,“yes, we can”and do experience in greater depth and greater celebration our own common humanity and our personal ability to shape our collective destiny in very real ways.“We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth…. and we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself....For the world has changed, and we must change with it…why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration…"-- Barack Obama Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009 As we say on Living Dialogues:“Dialogue is the Language of Evolutionary Transformation”™.Contact me if you like at www.livingdialogues.com. Visit my blog at Duncan.personallifemedia.com.”. (For more, including information on the Engaged Elder Wisdom Dialogue Series on my website www.livihngdialogues.com, click on Episode Detail to the left above and go to Transcript section.)
Among other heartful visionary conversations you will find of particular interest on these themes are my Dialogues on this site with Lester Brown, David Boren, Jav Inslee, Bracken Hendricks, Bob Gough, Van Jones, Ted Sorensen, Frances Moore Lappe, Angeles Arrien, David Mendell, Michael Dowd, and Barbara Marx Hubbard among others [click on their name(s) in green on right hand column of the Living Dialogues Home Page on this site].
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey. My thanks and appreciation for your participation.

Further episodes of Living Dialogues: Thought-Leaders in Transforming Ourselves and Our Global Community with Duncan Campbell, Visionary Conversationalist, Living Dialogues.com

Further podcasts by Duncan Campbell

Website of Duncan Campbell