The #forkintheroadproject Goes Public with First #Fork Talks
As regular readers know, I am one of three global futurists that are the initiators of the #forkintheroadproject. In a column back in March I introduced you to this global initiative.
Since this initiative was launched in January it has grown significantly with an ever -increasing number of initial signers and participants in our four global Zoom meetings. We have gained so many futurists, leaders, authors, and leading thinkers that we now want to open to the global public and have some virtual live- streaming events.
Our First ever Fork Talks will be on Thursday May 13 at 11a eastern time US. Here is a column on Medium that provides the details. Here is the link to the Eventbrite invitation to RSVP for a free ticket for this You Tube livestream event
The framework is to introduce non-signers to the #forkintheroadproject, provide the public and all signers with four 5-minute Fork Talks from initial signers, and to prompt viewers to ask questions of the four speakers and the initiators of the project. It will be one hour long.
Some of the initial response to the project was that this was redundant to institutional efforts already in place. In this column we explained why we are different, complimentary and an accelerant to all efforts already underway.
In the 2020s, humanity is at the fork in the road on all major issues and realities. In our Manifesto we highlight four of the ones we see as critical and urgent:
- Dealing with the Climate Crisis so that humans and all life can continue to flourish on Earth
- Designing New Economic and Political Frameworks, based on sustainable principles such as “People, Planet, Purpose & Prosperity”
- Managing Exponential Scientific and Technological Progress
- Governing Human Enhancement, Longevity, and Human Genome Editing so that progress continues while consequences are carefully considered
To highlight just number 1 above; the climate crisis. The reality is simple: over the past 50 years all the negative dynamics – increased global temperatures, rate of sea level rise, species extinction to just name three- have been increasing arithmetically, geometrically, and now in some cases exponentially while the human response has been incremental if at all. The #forkintheroadproject wants to infuse humanity’s response with urgency. Urgency on all fronts: lowering GHG emissions, drawing down atmospheric CO2 levels, moving from consumption to conscious non-consumption, moving from extraction and depletion to regeneration and increasing crew consciousness. We need to change consciousness so that thinking will change and therefore actions will change.
The first Earth Day was in 1970 but the amount of CO2 and all GHG emissions has increased since then. Of all the CO2 that has been put into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, 50% has been since 2000. We think individually, locally and at very small scale. The only way to face the climate crisis is at the planetary level. Sustainability is a meaningless word except at a planetary level.
I have written extensively for 15 years that humanity has entered the global stage of human evolution. Most of the major issues humanity faces are global in scope and yet we continue to face them at the nation state level, which is why humanity is failing on most fronts.
The #forkintheroadproject has been shaped in these early months largely by futurists. Futurists, and certainly the three initiators, “live” in the future in the sense that we think about, focus on and explain what is ahead, what might be ahead, what could happen and what should be anticipated. This is the fundamental difference between the project and most other global entities in place. The #forkintheroadproject is bringing what lies ahead into the present. We see that the 2020s is the time – perhaps the last time- when humanity can shape the future enough to move to the road of the good future, the future we can create, rather than continuing mindlessly, ignorantly down the road we are on.
Other great organizations such as the UN, the World Economic Forum, the Millennium Project, the B Team are all doing wonderful and important work. However, as mentioned above, the progress made is not enough, is not fast enough. Much of this is due to the legacy thinking of trying to solve problems, current problems. Good! The #forkintheroadproject sees into the future and seeks to create extreme urgency in the present to address the problems of the future that we are hurdling to, unaware.
We are not alarmists, but future facing realists. We are not trying to build any organization or institution as much as we are story tellers, using a universal metaphor and hoping to create a meme of urgency to seize the time remaining between now and 2030 to elevate the understanding that collective, creative urgency of action is needed…..now!
We hope you join us. We hope you bring your talents, creativity, commitment and networks to make #forkintheroadproject a meme that rapidly courses through the collective consciousness to save ourselves from ourselves. Join us!
Make your first action be joining us on Thursday May 13 at 11a eastern U.S.
Again here is the link to get your free ticket
