The Center for Wise Democracy, a non-profit headquartered in Port Townsend, WA, has developed a process for implementing the social changes needed to solve society’s biggest issues, including climate change. Two members of the Center, along with its founder, Jim Rough, bring their message to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Conference in Chicago, December 11-16, 2022.
For real and lasting change in social behaviors to occur a new kind of We the People conversation is necessary. This ongoing conversation will facilitate shifts from collective inaction to the collective wisdom that leads to effective action – a strong We that has agency. This approach – the Wisdom Council Process – has been adopted into the constitutions of two states in Austria and its use has consistently resulted in collective unity and creative options for addressing shared civic problems.
Joining Jim Rough at AGU 2022 are two members of the Center for Wise Democracy: Robert Holden, a former climate scientist who quit when he realized that without collective and unified social change his scientific endeavors would be under-utilized, and Markus Goetsch, a consultant and lecturer from Bregenz, Austria. Goetsch teaches seminars in Dynamic Facilitation, the essential ingredient for ensuring the Wisdom Council Process can reliably lead to unified, positive actions.
To get an update or simply dive deep, contact the Center fro Wise Democracy at hello@tobe.net or call (406) 208 7032. To learn more about the Wisdom Council Process and its underpinning philosophy and structure, visit www.WiseDemocracy.org.
Robert Holden
I spent 15 years working in the field of climate change as a technician, the last decade of which I lived in the small village of Abisko in the Swedish Arctic. For years I ran an ecosystem monitoring station in Stordalen Mire, in the discontinuous
permafrost, in what Arctic Scientists call the front-line of climate change.
On a daily basis I watched the CO2 value in the atmosphere creep up. As a student my textbook said CO2 was at 360ppm in the atmosphere. In the Arctic I watched it creep over 400ppm and vomited. I thought we would solve the problem before it went that high. When it hit 410ppm, just a couple of years later, I was terrified. I left my career and went looking for solutions.
I retrained as a coach, and I now work with Center for Wise Democracy, I use Dynamic Facilitation to help clients and businesses solve their problems, and I coach men, particularly in science, engineering and management roles. I also take men into the wilderness for rites of passage and deep healing experiences.
I am now looking for avenues to bring our process to bear on important issues, such as agriculture in a changing climate, water resources, and other climate-related issues.
Markus Goetsch
About 15 years ago I was a videographer and witnessed a Wisdom Council process in Austria. My job was to shoot a little online documentary for the Office for Future Related Issues in Vorarlberg. Over the years, this one incident turned my life upside down. After observing how the Wisdom Council Process evoked creative thinking and authentic unity across people with different perspectives, life circumstances, and belief systems, I was drawn to learn more about this applied facilitation method, so-called Dynamic Facilitation, or DF.
So this is what I did. I quit my job, travelled to the United States and followed my heart, eventually landing at the Center for Wise Democracy. It was here, I was able to dive deep into the power of Dynamic Facilitation, the Wisdom Council Process and especially Choice Creating as a truly transformational magic sauce for co-creation and self-organizing societal change.
I now teach Dynamic Facilitation and run the Dynamic Facilitators’ Lab for an NGO affiliated with the Center for WIse Democracy based in Germany. And of course I apply Dynamic Facilitation in Wisdom Council Processes to solve societies seemingly impossible to solve problems.
jim Rough
In the early eighties I was challenged to work with employees in a sawmill. They were angry and management was tied up with endless union meetings. Management agreed to the idea that I would facilitate the employees to solve their most pressing impossible-seeming problems.
The employees could take an hour per week off and work on their monster issues. The employees solved their issues and over time this had a transformational impact on the management system of the mill as well. What started out as an experiment turned into a total success for all parties.
Later, I started teaching Dynamic Facilitation seminars, where attendees would practice their new skills on monster problems from all different sectors and society. Shifts, breakthroughs and new solutions resulted. This was when I recognized that this method could be applied to systems of any size. The answer was the Wisdom Council Process – for a whole nation or even globally.
TOBE Project
Climate Change… what’s the real problem?
Typically we know the kinds of
things that have to be done.
What we don’t know is:
How to get humanity to act?
The Center for Wise Democracy
The current issues facing society are so large it becomes more and more obvious that our existing political system is struggling to solve them. It is at least partly captive to special interests and unable to enact workable solutions.
At the Center for Wise Democracy we have a way to facilitate a legitimate and powerful We the People into being. This We can provide responsible leadership to decision-makers, solve huge impossible-seeming problems in society, and transition the current system of governance to Wise Democracy.
Today
Through the Center for Wise Democracy, we are helping people to understand this approach, learn the skills of Dynamic Facilitation, Choice Creating while applying the Wisdom Council Process and preparing the ToBe Project. In this project a few of us will seek to convene the necessary global We the People Conversation, where people come together to solve these issues. And where we transform our System so that it stops creating today’s Monster Problems.
The ToBe project
At several moments in history people sat down and made a choice about how to create the world they wanted. One of these moments was when the Magna Carta was signed, another was the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, when the Founding Fathers created the United States.
The time is ripe for conversations of this calibre. In our ToBe Project, we aim to create this moment and with the Wisdom Council Process we know we can.
Get your personal update on the current status of the ToBe Project – As geo-scientists face frustrating times, identifying the depth of the problem, yet unable to see an adequate global response, the ToBe Project can help.
You can also support the ToBe Project with your tax deductable donation to the Center for Wise Democracy.
