ASPEN - Are we in an endgame struggle for survival or do we face the greatest opportunities in the history of civilization?

Both.

Granted, the messages remain grim, perhaps even darker than I had expected here under the blue skies at the Aspen Environment Forum. But of all the gatherings I’ve attended this year, I’ve never felt such a tipping point of camaraderie and conviction that unify business, environmentalists, investors and the public.

Perhaps it’s just the crisp air and the informal, collegial atmosphere nurtured by the Aspen Institute’s tradition of convening diverse groups to tackle complicated, timely issues. Maybe it’s the powerful imagery we’ve seen presented by National Geographic photographers such as Jim Richardson who gave us an appreciation for soil, Paul Nicklen who took us to the melting poles, Jim Balog who shared the majesty of ice and Nick Nichols who tortures himself to make the most captivating wildlife pictures in the most remote parts of the world.

But unlike some conferences, there isn’t an air of back-room negotiations or tag-teams of special interests working the coffee bar. Surely, some participants and speakers wear their convictions and contentions on their sleeves, and some are resolute skeptics or doomsayers. But as Amy Coen told me last night, “This just feels different.” She’s president of Population Action International and is here to speak on the human footprint and climate issues related to population. “We all need to learn to listen better and this is a good place to do that.”

Just before the forum, organizers asked me to be one of six speakers to help open the forum with a “big idea.” But how could I give these big thinkers an even bigger idea?

I turned to the biggest thinkers I could find.

First, I went to our 7-year-old daughter for inspiration. Just before I left home to come to Aspen, we listened to Jack and the Beanstalk together. It’s all about magic beans. But in water, climate and energy we know there are no magic beans, no matter how hard we try to find them. Solving these issues requires commitment, innovation and mass collaboration.

Second, I found Pulitzer-winning biologist E.O. Wilson at breakfast Thursday morning and he enthusiastically described his latest book, a venture into fact-inspired fiction that’s a present day version of Orwell’s Animal Farm. “Anthill,” which he just completed and sent to his agent, is a story about an ant colony’s struggle for survival in the expansive world of a picnic area. Story is the realm in which we can explore new worlds and shape powerful drama, he said.

“We’ve done the science,” Professor Wilson added. “The human mind is based on scenarios, so now it’s time to tell the stories.”

Throughout the evolution of human culture - and Professor Wilson knows a lot about evolution - we’ve shared our stories, our histories. So that’s the other part of my Big Idea: We need to tell better stories.

Better stories, no magic beans. Simple, yes? As old as history and fairy tales.

The “Big Idea.”

The forum wraps up today with a panoply of sessions, ranging from “Living with Coal,” which is sure to generate vigorous discussion, to “Journalism and Coverage of the Environment.”

The forum certainly has sparked discussion and debate that will carry on long after we go back to our offices, whether in the headquarters of a major corporation wrestling with the “now what” of sustainability or a research camp upon the Greenland ice. Unfortunately, no one will leave the forum with a magic bean to fix the world’s woes. But we leave inspired by our colleagues and their passions to creating a better world. We all agree that at every tick of the clock there are the expansive, personal stories of drama, tragedy, hope and inspiration unfolding in our own backyards and around the world.

How we tell those stories - and how we respond - will define whether we’re writing our prologue or final chapter.

I’ll post a wrap up of our water session shortly - meanwhile, watch video selections from the forum here

Related links

Water: Aspen Environment Forum - Circle of Blue
PlumTV - interview
PlumTV - Aspen Environment Forum conversation
Grist - Big Ideas at the Aspen Environment Forum

BY KEITH SCHNEIDER
Senior Editor, Circle of Blue
(Also posted on Modeshift)

NEW YORK — The three-day Clinton Global Initiative concluded with a flurry of new commitments including a five-year, $4 billion pledge by Pacific Gas & Electric and Ausra to build solar thermal generating stations that both companies says is cost-competitive with fossil fuel generation. California-based Ausra will build at least 1,000 megawatts of solar power plants and PG&E will purchase at least 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal, and the deal will eliminate over 36 million tons of CO2 emissions in California and neighboring states over the next 20 years. Other projects announced here were these:

FourWinds Capital Management said it will invest $300 million to develop investment programs that focus on tplanting, harvesting, and processing of novel sources of bio-fuels using emerging technologies in tropical regions that offer significant environmental and social benefits in addition to alternative energy sources. The investment company also said it would develop a $1 billion global investment program to assist large cities and rural areas in improving their environmental infrastructure, with a particular focus on waste and water management systems.
Geothermal Power Company of Iceland committed to spending $150 million to help countries in the African Rift Valley develop geothermal energy resources. The project will invest in comprehensive research into the geothermal potential of Djibouti, and if successful, will build a large power plant driven on geothermal power.

Sea Studios Foundation, a Monterey-based documentary film production company, will produce a $16 million integrated media initiative to help audiences understand the connections between seemingly unrelated problems-and solutions-in global health, poverty, climate change, and the environment. Using television, the Internet, and new media, the studio’s “Strange Days on Planet Earth 2020″ series will include periodic primetime television events featuring Edward Norton; an interactive Web site hosted by PBS.org, an iTunes video Podcast series, ongoing “Search for Solutions” contests to foster user-generated content and showcase high-impact opportunities to make a difference, and live screening events involving the public, business leaders, opinion leaders, and policymakers.

The Apollo Alliance, the City of Newark, and the Center for American progress committed to organize Newark’s Green Future Summit in the Spring of 2008. The idea is to identify best practices and mobilize the resources to help Newark catch up with Chicago, Portland, Seattle, New York and other cities that are showcases for prosperity that emerges from developing a clean energy-efficient, green economic development strategy.

These and more than 200 other commitments announced this week were said by President Bill Clinton to touch “at least 100 million people worldwide.” The scope and numbers are stunning, even if half of what was announced here this week is actually executed. Mr. Clinton asserted that nearly 10 million children not in school around the world will enroll for the first time. Some 50 million people will gain access to treatment for neglected tropical diseases. Some 170 million acres of forest will be conserved and restored, area equal in size to Italy and Switzerland combined. And 11 million adults, most of them women, will gain access to industries and durable jobs.

I wasn’t the only observer who found the proceedings disorienting. There really isn’t anything quite like this conference anywhere on the planet. The Aspen Ideas Festival convenes a similar array of prominent thinkers and voices. The World Economic Forum is much larger and, I’m told, more perceptive and far-reaching in its choice of subjects and how far it asks panelists to advance their thinking. The United Nations, which also convened in New York last week, attracts more global leaders. But none of these, nor any other international conference, does as well in attracting such diverse leaders, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu (see pix). And none is motivated so clearly by one person seeking to make the world a better place and successfully making the ask so that not $millions, not $billions, but that something close to $10 billion is committed by individuals, companies, governments, and foundations to execute an incredible array of worthy projects. More was done to help solve the global warming crisis in these three days than the United Nations or the United States has done in half a decade.

Several more big ideas of the 21st century are at work here. The first is that important industrial companies, particularly those in pharmaceuticals, energy, utlitities, and online media see the value of reducing human and global stress to improving their bottom lines. There’s money to be made in solving misery, not only in the development and delivery of new products, but also in fostering collaborations that help companies gain access to new global markets. The second big idea, one that is becoming Mr. Clinton’s signature in this phase of his life, is the value of what he calls “giving back.” He frames this in the context of the difference between I wish and I will.

There were a lot of willing people in New York last week.

BY KEITH SCHNEIDER
Senior Editor, Circle of Blue
(also posted on Modeshift)

NEW YORK (September 29th, 2007) – Live television images from the various plenary and working sessions are everywhere at the Clinton Global Initiative. They appear on screens as big as king size bed sheets in the main conference hall. They illuminate flat screens that stand in the halls and smaller meeting rooms. A row of small screens decorate a refreshment area close to the lobby of the Sheraton New York.

This demonstration of televised ubiquity is just the leading edge of a communications strategy that also includes a well-designed and easily navigable Web site, live web casting of every panel discussion that also is archived and retrievable. There are five interior Wi-fi channels for conference participants and a small army of writers and videographers, most of whom represent online publications and networks, few of which – like treehugger.com — that you’ve ever heard of.

It’s noticeable that the mainstream media is barely here. The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times did nice wrapups Friday morning. Forbes and Fortune are covering the conference on their Web sites. The New York Times, though, published just three Associated Press and Reuters pieces. The major papers are still useful as arbiters of importance, but as sources of information about the nuances and transitions and ideas explored here this week they played no role whatsoever. The reason: In the age of the Internet and muti-media, it’s not only essential for organizations to tell their own stories, but they now have the tools and skills to do it better than traditional news organizations, and they can reach huge audiences with their own media.

The Clinton Global Initiative, staged by Scott Givens, understands those lessons well. The initiative generates the sort of idea excitement that translates well on television. Invite interesting and knowledgeable people to talk about vital ideas. Carefully set lights and cameras at the right angles. Array the conference with various kinds of titans — movie stars (Jolie and Pitt), media stars (Martha Stewart), political and diplomatic stars (Tony Blair, Al Gore), business luminaries (Larry Page) and grassroots heros (Jane Goodall). Then turn the conference into an eight-hour-a -day talk show broadcast live on the Web.

The beauty of the Web is that all of that content can be archived and readily downloaded for those who didn’t watch in real time. Then producers supplement the video with digital photographs, blogs, and various other print formats — including a running compendium of commitments. The result is that the online visitor can see for themselves on YouTube, MSN, the CGI Website and elsewhere what happened and generate their own narrative. If they need help, they can search the the dozens of blogs written here and brought to the fore by Google and Technorati. The combination of self-generated media, mainstream media, new media, all of it instantly available, provides the hundreds of thousands of online visitors who are paying attention this week a kind of instantaneous digital access to this very hopeful global event. Bill Clinton said this afternoon that MSN put the initiative events on its home and that YouTube’s archive of the initiative had generated 500,000 page views.

This afternoon, as if to emphasize the presence of new media here, Larry Page, the Google co-founder, shared the stage with Mr. Clinton and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen to talk about a new section YouTube is building to help non-profits raise money. The company’s news release described the new project this way: “YouTube’s 2007/2008 Clinton Global Initiative commitment enables nonprofit organizations (in the U.S. those with 501c3 tax filing status) that register for the program to receive a free nonprofit specific YouTube channel where they can upload footage of their work, public service announcements, calls to action and more. The channel will also allow them to collect donations with no processing costs using the newly launched Google Checkout for Non-Profits. YouTube’s global platform enables nonprofits to deliver their message, showcase their impact and needs, and encourage supporters to take action.”

It’s important and representative of the current media age that this event, which is defined by news of opportunity and promise, is taken so seriously by the new media. The news conferences are dominated by bloggers and independent news organizations from around the world.

The transparent and unavoidable conclusion is that the 20th century American journalistic principles and values — if it bleeds it leads — don’t fit here. The BBC broadcast a half-hour talk show from here that featured Mr. Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg discussing the green economic development strategy that has revived the city’s economy. No American national broadcast devoted even a few minutes to the initiative’s ideas or personalities.

The sort of transactions that occur at this conference — funders putting projects together with government and non-profits to do such things as educate women in Africa — are understood as vital to the world’s progress by the new media. They’re not, however, seen as news by enough conventional American news organizations. As a writer who contributes to both I worry. The old media’s frame needs to adjust to new conditions. The new media’s capacity to develop the revenue streams that enable its writers and producers to really dig in needs to improve. The unmistakable conclusion I draw is that with the complexity and confusion that abounds in helping the world understand itself, people just need solid facts and real stories. The world, in short, needs great media in whatever form it’s produced.

As we race the dawn to complete the details for this exciting week at the Emmys and the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, I thought I’d point out a most significant modeshift within our midst.

Click over to Keith Schneider’s Modeshift blog entry, “You say goodbye, I say hello.” Thank you, Keith. It’s an honor to say hi.

As a lifelong member of the tribe of career adventurists it’s time to announce another turn in the journey. I am leaving the Michigan Land Use Institute to take a new position as senior editor and strategist for Circle of Blue, an independent online journalism, research, and movement building organization focused on helping to solve the freshwater crisis. What’s especially keen, along with the great promise of a new way to influence a global environmental and economic crisis, is that I won’t have to leave home. Circle of Blue, based in Traverse City, is the second organization devoted to public interest journalism, research, and social organizing in northwest Michigan.

Keith will be blogging daily on Modeshift from the Clinton Global Initiative. We’ll be mirroring his posts here.

With feeling.
Selfless. Sensual.
People like to have meaning.
These might sound like words from a new-age counselor, not scientists.
But these reflected the thoughts, frustrations and tribulations expressed by panelists during “Science and the Public Sphere: Getting Out the Truth — a Media Roundtable” at the Aspen Ideas Festival this morning. So how do you make science sensual and with feeling? NPR and ABC News journalist Robert Krulwich, who’s darned good at it ,said scientists have to do a better job connecting with the public, helping them find meaning in life.