Here's my post inviting people to submit and vote on questions, posted at www.conversationweek.org
What is the Most Important Question in the World Today?
Talk about herding cats. It’s hard to know if we humans will ever agree on who we are, what we believe, where we are headed and how to get there. But with over 30 significant wars raging globally, a human population topping 6.6 billion and oil, water and other reserves dwindling there are some very important conversations we just need to have. Conversation Week is that one time a year when the table is set for people to talk with strangers and friends about the most important questions in the world today. Of course, who can agree what those questions should be? That’s why we are asking thoughtful people — like you — to suggest potential questions, and asking people who care — like you — to vote on them and then inviting people who can listen and be curious — like you — to host conversations.
Conversation Week began in 2002 to launch the Conversation Cafes in Seattle, Washington. Then, 9-11 was on everyone’s mind. Since then we hosted CWs in 2003, 2007 and now 2008. The questions from last year (with some answers from around the world) are later on this blog. Reports from prior CWs are at www.conversationcafe.org.
Don’t pass up the chance to submit a question before Feburary 12, vote on your top pick questions from February 14-27 and host a conversation during Conversation Week March 24-30.
How can we bring the world together across all of the traditional boundaries that have divided us to address the issue of climate security for ourselves, our children, and future generations?
One thing we all have in common - even if to different degrees - is technologies based on science. All the time since the renaissance and indeed much earlier too , the aim of science has been to understand nature and so to control it. That dominance over nature is what all nations are following; and while it hase done so much undoubted good - most of us would not be here today without it - it has also brought us to this brink of wrecking life on earth. Take farming as an example: fantastic progress in green revolutioon and breeding new varieties based on the science of fertilisation of crops. Alongside this has been another science; that of the life of the soils and the fungal and bacterial associations with plants and their nutrition. This science has been largely neglected in application. There is no purely scientific way to choose between the two scientific appproaches - the first to overcome and short-circuit natures’ mechanisms, the other to harness them. To make this more popularly appreciated, I am proposing that we need another name for the second science, to contrast with conventional science. And I propose ‘convivial science’, meaning ‘with life’. Since this word has so many other connotations, maybe someone can come up with another. Meanwhile I am writing up this argument more fully.