Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

February 01, 2022

Really? Who are we to say what is right and wrong? Taking a broader approach at the question: Who gets to say what’s right or wrong? A past based answer would be our political, social or religious leaders. They’ve had the authority to make decisions for us and to give us guidelines on how to conduct our lives. Yet over the past decade we have had the covers pulled back to reveal that our leaders are either corrupt, a willing player in the current dysfunctional system, and/or incompetent. The corrupt ones, which may be the majority, manipulate us so that they can maintain their status and power.  They dictate what’s right and wrong to the people and then break any rule that doesn’t personally suit them. Worse yet is the day-to-day lying, gaslighting and psychological warfare that our leaders mistake for leadership.  

How about our business leaders? At one point I had great hope for the business elite to turn their wealth to the public good.  Many took the Giving Pledge to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes. Most set up foundations and do good projects. Then Covid hit and while the world crumbled the most wealthy doubled their wealth. World Bank figures show that 163 million people fell below the poverty line in the past two years while the richest ten men doubled their wealth to $1.5 trillion. Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos topped $200 billion of wealth generation. To date, neither one of these men or the other eight on the list have announced a global effort to aid in the climate crisis, the pandemic or the wealth inequality crisis.  

It’s clear that there is no clear moral authority to be found.  

So is morality dead?  Is ethics only something studied in the philosophy departments of the world’s universities? The answer is likely that ethics, like so many of our more noble human values, has been sacrificed to the twin gods of short-termism and unrestrained selfishness. “I want what I want and I want it now.” But that doesn’t mean that ethics is dead, rather it has been driven underground where those who consider the impact of our actions, personally and collectively, grapple to define a modern ethics. Given that so much of what we historically think about right and wrong stems from  the weaponization of ethics by colonialism, monoculturalism and power, it’s hard to declare an ethical framework that works for all – or even most.

In the past few years there has been a lot of conversation and thinking about good sensemaking leading to good choice making. Bold.ly NOW contributor Daniel Schmactenberger has launched a course on the topic with Rebel Wisdom, and a “good sense” publication, the Consilience Project. I highly recommend checking both of these out. His methodological approach to educating on good sense making, paired with the examples of making good sense, are a good place to start when thinking of ethics.  We need to make sense out of what is happening in the world. Then we can determine which things are definitively unethical, i.e. murder, clearcutting, extreme wealth and which things are ethical, i.e. giving/contribution, carbon reduction, tree planting.  From there, we can examine the things between the two extremes and create a framework for understanding.  

Back to the original question, who are we to say? The who right now is very important. It is not ethical for the dominant privileged few to determine the ethics of the many.  If we make space for the voices of diverse individuals, hear their stories and do the hard, thoughtful, long-term work of dismantling the moral dictates of the past, and considering what is good for all, we will make headway on building a new ethics.

Why is this important? To generate a world that works for all, we need new systems for economics, governance and new collective and individual rights and responsibilities. And the only way those systems stand a chance to work, to support thriving for all people, for all species and the entire ecosphere, is if we have an ethical framework that gives us a measure of understanding what works for all.  

Who gets to say? ALL LIFE. Full stop. 

If you are passionate about a thriving future, join us for this very important conversation.

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Letter From the Editors:

In this issue of PROOF we are looking at Right and Wrong from the lens of generative futurism.  We have a great podcast with Juan Enriquez on his book, Right/Wrong. In his book and our conversation he helps us to see the temporality of ethics and look forward to how our actions may be judged by future generations.  

The aim is to loosen the grasp of those who champion models of fixed ethics.

Fixed models are by nature reductionist, rendering them prone to getting it wrong against the backdrop of systemic complexity. Every choice we make to benefit or fix one problem impacts all of the other problems – sometimes catastrophically. Take the case of the cane toad in Australia. It was introduced to the continent in 1935 to help control beetle grubs that damaged sugar cane crops – good for sugar cane farmers, right? Unfortunately, in Australia, the cane toad has no natural predators or diseases that control their population. The toad dramatically disrupted the ecosystem and pushed out other native species. Australia is now in an ongoing battle to limit their damage to the ecosystem.

In order to deal with complexity we will need to evolve an ethics that considers impacts to all life. We have really tough questions to consider with such an ethics. One case that has gained a lot of attention is the case for stopping petroleum production, “leave it in the ground”. While this is a powerful rallying cry for those fighting climate change, the ethics of such a decision need to be examined. What harm would come from this action? It is clear that the developing economies of the world, who have little or no access to sustainable sources of energy would be the most impacted, with the standard of living returning to pre-industrial levels. The ethical question is how do we transition to sustainable energy globally as quickly as possible. The privileged countries would have to lead by investing 73 trillion dollars (Stanford University) over the next twenty years. The privileged citizens of these countries will have to sacrifice some of their excesses to make this transition.

It’s clear from this example that we must redesign our economic system as it is impossible to untangle the climate crisis form wealth inequality and social justice. It’s the ethical thing to do. The question is, are we as humanity ready to be ethical in this way?

Enjoy this issue as we look at this topic from the theoretical to examples of ethical actions and projects in the world.

Proof 37 – The Ethics of the Future

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: Afrotectopia

Afrotectopia is a social institution creating at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture, and activism. They cultivate spaces for Black radical imagination through annual festivals, think tanks, international fellowships, alternative schools, and more. Their work is rooted in collaborative research practices and outputs for Black agency and empowerment.

We are moved by the passion and purpose of Afrotectopia. Check them out at https://www.afrotectopia.org/

What We’re Watching: Future Ethics with Cennydd Bowles

Technology was never neutral; its social, political, and moral impacts have become painfully clear. But the stakes will only get higher as connected cameras will watch over the city, algorithms oversee society’s most critical decisions, and transport, jobs, and even war will become automated. The tech industry hasn’t yet earned the trust that these technologies demand. Drawing on years of research for his new book “Future Ethics”, designer Cennydd Bowles will illuminate the moral challenges that lie ahead for technologists, and discuss how practitioners and companies can create more thoughtful, ethical products for future generations.

What We’re Reading: Right/Wrong

Most people have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they aren’t shy about expressing their opinions. But when we take a polarizing stand on something we regard as an eternal truth, we often forget that ethics evolve over time. Many shifts in the right versus wrong pendulum are driven by advances in technology. Our great-grandparents might be shocked by in vitro fertilization; our great-grandchildren might be shocked by the messiness of pregnancy, childbirth, and unedited genes. In Right/Wrong, Juan Enriquez reflects on what happens to our ethics as technology makes the once unimaginable a commonplace occurrence.

What We’re Listening to – The Bold.ly NOW Show with Bio-Futurist Juan Enriquez

Perhaps the biggest challenge looking forward to the future is to see our future selves. How will we change our biology & genetics? How will we make decisions about what we should alter? It’s important because technology constantly changes our perceptions of right and wrong. So, what are ethics in regards to human life? Why are making strong ethical and moral considerations bad? What are some of the important ethical fights today that will impact the quality of life of our future generations? And what are some of the things we should be doing today to avoid being judged harshly by our future generations? In this episode of the Boldly NOW Show, academic, author, and futurist Juan Enriquez answers all these questions. He gives us new viewpoints and tools to make choices more wisely in the face of the neo-biological revolution.  

PROOF in ACTION 37 – 10 Steps to Being Ethical

There is no civil society without a working set of ethics. Over the past 50 years since the Watergate scandal, we have experienced the decoherence of ethics. It’s not that we don’t personally have ethics, but rather ethics has become politicized and weaponized. Take the case of our former president Trump. He clearly takes unethical actions by almost all ethical standards, but his followers ascribe a higher order of ethics that somehow supersede his individual actions. With this level of decoherence we cannot collectively make good decisions for the future. Thus we must work back towards a coherent ethical framework.

Our challenge is to evolve this ethics of the future while living and acting ethically today. Here are some steps you can take personally to do so.

We can no longer depend on our governments or our leaders to dictate what is right and wrong. Here’s what we need to do instead:

The thriving future is going to be an ethical future. We will not have any kind of desirable future if we cannot collectively be ethical. We all have a role to play in evolving our ethics, in creating the ethics of the future.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

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Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post The Ethics of the Future appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

December 17, 2021

We are in the midst of a cultural revolution with people and orgainzations orienting themselves to making a positive impact on the planet. This revolution is being carried out at cyber-speed, leaving some left out if they haven’t discovered their purpose and their massively transformative project. With our desire to make an impact, there is one looming question:

How do I (we) make the greatest impact given our resources and time?

The first part of the answer to this question from the perspective of Generative Futurism is to look at investments that make that pay off over time. In the year 1790, Benjamin Franklin left $2000 sterling to Philadelphia and Boston with the stipulation that after 100 years 75% of the gift could be used to help educate young trades workers. After 200 years the remainder could be withdrawn. In the late 1990’s the value of that gift was $6,500,000. Over the past 130 years many people in these cities have benefited from the education programs provided for by these gifts. Through compound interest over a long time the gift was 3,250 times more valuable not including the value of grants given. Take away, investing in impact that grows over time is incredibly powerful.

The second part of the answer is in the mathematics of generations. Currently there are about 8 billion people on the planet. Those 8 billion will have 8 billion children at a minimum not including population growth. So with every generation of those unborn you have 8 billion more people’s live you can impact. At the 200 year timeframe that Benjamin Franklin chose, you will have 7 generations of descendants with 57 billion lives you can impact. Going out a thousand years you can reach 8 trillion 160 billion people lives. A bit of a mind blowing math here is that at about 900 years you will personally have 1 billion direct descendants. Take away, if you focus your work at long timeframes the mathematics of generations will exponentially amplify your impact.

The most effective way to impact the lives of billions of people is to work at multi-generational timescales.

Combining the two aspects, compounding interest and the mathematics of generations we can get some guidance on what kinds of projects we should focus on or how we might reshape our current projects and businesses to the long term future. This means moving goals beyond the typical 1 to 5 year timeframes to 25 to 100 year timeframes. That might sound daunting to most given the extreme short term thinking we grew up with. In my work with social ventures I’ve discovered that it is far easier to imagine a long time frame than to get short term strategy right. At a long enough term we become free from the current circumstances, and can invent powerful outcomes and solutions. Standing in that future the current steps are much clearer.

This is a competency that we are all building. Climate change alone is forcing this shift to long term thinking. We have to imagine desirable futures to realize them. We call this Future Searching. You can learn more here.

Being a good ancestor includes the question of making the greatest impact but it’s really much more. We need to ask ourselves at every decision point: What would a good ancestor do? or How would a good ancestor do this thing? In return for a life lived as a good ancestor we gain a profoundly fulfilling life, secure in the knowledge that we are leaving this world better than we found it.

Just imagine for a moment – if everyone redefined success to mean being a good ancestor -how then would our world be? I think you know the answer. And just being able conceive of such a future is indeed PROOF of a Thriving Future.

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Letter From the Editors:

In this issue we explore the idea of being a good ancestor. The modern idea has it’s roots in a quote from polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk,

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

Jonas Salk

It’s clear that the impact of the polio vaccine with only 140 cases world wide in 2020 down from a high of nearly 58,000 in the US alone. The disease’s crippling effects are no longer a worry for most of us today. Salk, we can say, is a good ancestor. Moreover Salk refused to patent his vaccine or make any money from it, believing that the vaccine should be a gift to all humanity.

In this issue we have contributions from PROOF writers, Samantha Sweetwater and Lucian Tarnowski to help us learn more about good ancestoring. We have a podcast with Adah Parris and her Ted Talk looking at Cyborg Shamanism, her model for being a good ancestor. And we have a book recommendation, “The Good Ancestor”, by Roman Krznaric.

Please enjoy the issue and put the information here to work in your life so that you too are a good ancestor.

What does it mean to be a Good Ancestor?

Samantha Sweetwater

Contributing Writer

December 17, 2021

We think of ancestors as those who have gone before – as the progenitors of the lives we live now. I prefer to think of ancestors in a continuum of time that includes both the past and the future. Because, we live in a continuum of generations. One generation builds on the next and on the next and so-on. In a very real way, we are the ancestors of the future. This is not a romantic notion. It’s a fact. Whether we are conscious of it or not, the lives we are now living are laying down cultural and ecological tracks that will define the lives of future generations. How will future generations look back on us? Will they say we were good? 

When we ask what it means to be a good ancestor, we are asking how to be a person whose ways of knowing and living effectively participate in creating a future that could be called good by those looking back from that future. We are asking how to be the kind of person that future generations will smile back at with gratitude for the wisdom of our choices. We are asking to resuscitate qualities of intergenerational, ecological and mythic memory that have been buried in the forgetfulness of colonization, slavery, genocide, emmigration, assimilation and appropriation. And, we are asking how to effectively manage our humanness in relationship to each other, technology and nature. 

The question asks us to reverse engineer life-centric worldviews that were and are embedded in all Original Cultures. What are the fundaments of a culture that can sustain harmonious reciprocity and complementarity within a human community and between humans and nature over an arc of 7, 20 or even hundreds of generations? 

And, now that we live in a transglobal, technological civilization, our map must  integrate capacity to steward not just the human relationship with nature, but the human-managed relationship between technology and our biosphere in ways that supports the perpetuation and wellbeing of humans and nature, for the very existence of future human generations lies in the balance. 

Additionally, being a good ancestor implies the capacity to navigate discontinuity. Since discontinuities are inevitable, a good ancestor must carry with them the stories and seeds that can reboot culture when things go dark. 

Let’s imagine ourselves as good ancestors. 

To be a “good ancestor” is a sort of meta-purpose. We don’t wake up one morning saying, “I want to be a good ancestor.” We wake slowly to the implications of our actions and to the immense, transpersonal project of sublimating personal choices, actions and desires in service to a project that transcends one’s own lifetime. We wake to the vacuity of living only for the benefit “I, me and mine.” Instead, we learn to contain both Me and We in the sense of self. We find deeper pleasure and meaning in tending the both-and through our choices and narratives. 

To be a good ancestor means holding the wellbeing of future generations as an ongoing, living question. What is for the greater good? What do I need to let go of or restrain in order to create greater potential harmony? What do I need to create to guarantee greater possibility for others? What stories help empower and inspire participation, co-creation, gratitude, magic, belonging and safety? What pathways restore the experience of the sacred connection with the natural world?

A good ancestor remembers her or his place in the Circle of Life. Humans are part of a Circle and members of a Web, not the top of any pyramid. As members of that Circle, our ecological role is to tend the harmony and abundance of the ecologies we occupy – not just for ourselves but for all species. It is the role of those at the top of the Trophic Cascade. We embrace that leonine role, and we re-cognize our organismic and spiritual membership in the Web. We know our interdependence and interbeing with all other beings. Our practices and storeis are oriented to expand our experience of Communion with nature and the cosmos. We exist in a continuum of living memory. We come from all bloodlines. We remember that we were once Indigenous People, and we know that we are indigenous to this one planet. 

A good ancestor plays to perpetuate the Infinite Game. We are actively engaged in a shift from finite, zero-sum game dynamics to infinite game playing. We understand that the collective project playing to win zero sum games always ends in all-lose. So, we seek to live from generosity and to enact systems change towards win-win game dynamics. 

A good ancestor seeks to align technology with nature’s logic. The word I use to describe this is bionoetic: of the mind of nature. We understand that technology itself is neutral. We build technologies that support good sense-making and democratic process and restore human attention to real relationships with other humans and nature. We work to restrain technologies that extract attention and vitality from life. We use technology to restore and regenerate living systems and human consciousness. 

A good ancestor understands that all life is dependent on place. Food, water, shelter, power – all the atoms that make up our bodies – come from place. We are grounded in place-based consciousness. We tend our local home ecologies, our watersheds, and our planet as homes. We are aware of the chains of causality that bring us our water, our food, our building supplies, our clothes, our technologies and our power. We work to engage right-relationship and reciprocity with all aspects of the supply chain from cradle to grave. We work to heal multi-generational histories of trauma in relationship to land, place and culture. 

A good ancestor works collaboratively with all that wishes humans well to bring health, happiness, peace and abundance to all beings. We work not just human beings but the more-than-human animals, plants and forces of nature that co-inhabit this earth. We think of medicine as that which restores and increases harmony and health in individuals and communities. We work with sacred plant medicines as allies to heal and elevate human souls and bodies.

Our lives are grounded in daily, seasonal, cyclical and stage-based practices that allow for circulation of human consciousness with the rest of Creation. We dance, we meditate, we make music, we pray, we build things of beauty, we plant and harvest. We welcome the souls of children at conception and birth. We initiate our youth into adulthood through rites of passage. We initiate our elders as trusted wisdom keepers. And we hold death as a sacred passage into deathlessness. 

We love and embrace death. Death and life are one Circle. A good ancestor welcomes death as our great teacher in the fullness of the Circle of life and death and the wisdom of death’s gate to the deathless as a foundation to living in balance. 

A good ancestor stitches stories of the past and the future in a vital fabric of gratitude, praise, celebration and wisdom that applies to present-tense choices. We welcome grief as praise for what we loose and grieve boldly to release the manna of what was for future generations. Above all, a good ancestor loves strong and bold and true, unashamed to stand for what is true.

If you have asked this question with me, I thank you.

You are a part of a Great Remembering that is beginning to happen all over the planet – an organismic and soul remembering that I believe to be a natural re-knowing of our true nature as Humans.

We are all indigenous to this planet. We are beginning to remember that we are Creator Beings nested within a larger organismic intelligence of the Creator Being called Gaia and that by re-learning how to harmonize with Her intelligence over the arc of many generations we will find our way Home to ourselves.

From Family Karma to Planetary Dharma

Lucian Tarnowski

Contributing Writer

December 17, 2021

Family Karma is a reaction from your past. Planetary Dharma is taking action on your purpose.

Back in 2019 at the Family Office Association annual gathering I gave a talk titled ‘From Family Karma to Planetary Dharma’. I shared a story of when I had knelt at the feet of Native American Chief White Eagle in Burning Man in 2017. I learnt that he was the descendant of Crazy Horse and Raging Bull, two bright lights of history. We walked together and stood side by side singing as the sun rose before us. As we began to be bathed in golden sunlight I turned to Chief White Eagle, looked deep into his eyes and got down on my knees on the playa. I said to him ‘I am Lucian Tarnowski. Son of Count Arthur Tarnowski and Bridget Astor and Seventh Generation Grandson of John Jacob Astor. The man who became the richest man in America by profiting off the backs of your ancestors. I kneel before you, on my own and my ancestors’ behalf, and ask for your forgiveness for the sins of my ancestors towards yours.” I looked into Chief White Eagle’s eyes as tears rolled down his face. Both of us felt the world around us shaking. It was as if healing energy was being sent through time and space. He looked at me with that of a loving gaze of a father and said “You are forgiven. I love you”.

I share this story with the belief that when we take the inner journey into the impact of our families actions we can access a redemption story for ourselves and our families. We are not responsible for the choices and impact of our ancestors. However, we can take response-ability – taking up our ability to respond. It is in acts such as this that I believe we can transmute our family karma and dedicate our lives to our dharma – our deepest purpose, virtue and righteousness – Our Soul Purpose.

I invite you to consider the premise that the actions of our ancestors are interdependent with our actions. What if there are stories being played through families generation after generation? Perhaps our own individual Soul Purpose is closely tied to the completion of our families purpose in ways that can go beyond our own capacity of awareness.
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Connection to our ancestors is a universal language in every indigenous tradition. They each hold a ritualized reverence for their ancestors. However, this practice is largely forgotten in mainstream modern society. I understand there to be deep collective trauma caused by the actions of our own and our collective ancestors. This is an understandable response to the reality that many of our ancestors created destruction. Despite this, I am going to make the case in this article that our connection to our ancestors is a key element in transitioning from a polarized world in the midst of a meta-crisis of meaning into a planetary civilization in harmony with all life. In this moment of crisis many of us are doing work to heal our past in order to give the greatest potentiality to a thriving future.

Our world is lost in left/right identity politics. Othering is rife. Some believe a path through this rift in society lies in finding common ground in the center and making compromises. I believe another dimension is essential. To go backwards and forwards through time. What if we were able to transition through the troubles of our present moment by listening to the wisdom of our individual and collective ancestry. What if by listening to the language of our ancestors as if dancing to an intergenerational melody, we were able to more accurately plot a path towards our thriving future. What if the technology to be able to actively receive the wisdom of our ancestors was the reverse gear of the capacity to communicate with our future selves. Potent wisdom can be found in the healing of intergenerational traumas. This gives us the confidence to know the ground upon which we stand. Learning to communicate with our ancestors may enable us to communicate with the future. We are them, then, now.

Einstein said ‘we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’. I believe he was describing the dimensional perspective of time in this statement. If we take time into our perspective toolkit we are able to consider problems not only from the present moment but through the timeless perspective of our ancestors – both individual and collective. In the very act of going backwards, we discover new ways to go forwards into the best possible vision of our future.

My personal enquiry into the nature of reality often leads me back to my ancestors and forwards to my future self. I believe our connection to our ancestors is a powerful spiritual technology – a language if you like. The more one can understand and invoke our ancestors in our presence the deeper one can tap into their wisdom and healing. Our intuition is the communication channel for this wisdom and healing. I believe our intuition is a timeless instinct.

Among the many ways I am fortunate, one is in the memories I have of my ancestors. I descend from over 700 documented years of Polish nobility on my father’s side. My paternal families include the Tarnowski, Potocki and Zamoyski families. My grandparents are known 28 generations back to 1290. Many were military and academic leaders and close advisors to Kings. Many of my grandfathers led some of the most famous battles in European history such as the Siege of Vienna. On my mother’s side, I am the Great-Grandson of Field Marshal Earl Haig, Commander in Chief of the British Forces during the First World War. Given a million men died under his command I have reflected deeply on the concept of family karma. I am also the Seventh-Generation Grandson of John Jacob Astor, America’s first millionaire. John Jacob Astor amassed a fortune through the American Fur Trade and real estate investments in New York which gave the springboard for Astors to become the wealthiest family in the world. My mother grew up in Hever Castle, the childhood home of Queen Anne Boleyn, while my Grandfather was the owner and Chairman of the Times of London. My ancestry shaped the world I was born into and instilled in me the meaning of nobility – how one shows up in the time of a crisis. My father once said to me that what makes a Tarnowski is when others run away from a fire we run towards it. This was demonstrated by the bravery shown by my grandmother, Wanda Zamoyska, protecting Jews in Poland as well as my fathers service in the underground army during the Second World War.

I am on my own journey towards transmuting my family karma in my devotion to the vision of a United Planet and the UP Game to accelerate a thriving civilization in harmony with all life. I see my dharma as a storyteller and ambassador to the planetary regenaissance. I focus on creating a unifying narrative for our shared future as I believe the story is the front line of transformation.

We all have a unique role to play and our role might well be informed by the actions of our families past.

This perspective has been prophesied in various indigenous and especially Native American traditions. A good example is Black Elk’s prophecy of the Hoop of All Hoops – A vision for the uniting of the planet.

In one of the early UP Game experiments, Chief Phil Lane and I came together to prototype a concept we called the Intergenerational Leadership Alliance. The goal was and will be to convene hereditary indigenous leaders from around the world and the descendants of some of the most powerful families in the world. I believe many of the families that created great wealth from the extractive system of capitalism will play a crucial role in transforming industries into a regenerative win for all system. In fact, the largest wealth transfer in history represented by more than $60 trillion is moving from one generation to the next by 2052 and 70% of this inheritance is going to women. The vast majority wish to differentiate from the investing practices of the past and only focus their investments of this capital on impact. I see this community of wealth holders as critical to funding transition solutions.

The meme of ‘From Family Karma, to Planetary Dharma’ is an iconic story for the regenaissance. It is for this reason that I am passionate about the emergence of a decentralized Planetary Bank that can move the trillions necessary to fund the new world collective and give birth to a planetary civilization in harmony with all life. As the existing extractive financial system comes to its inevitable end this decade it will become obvious that instead of the pitchforks coming, the better story will be that the key holders of planetary dharma are taking response-ability. This will become the story of the transition from billionaires to billions of heirs. This could be a line in the redemption song in the story of the new world collective.

Proof 36 – The Good Ancestor

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: The Long Now Foundation

The long now foundation’s mission is to encourage the imagination at the timescale of civilisation — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan called the long now. The foundation, established in 1996, seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today’s “faster/cheaper” mindset and to promote “slower/better” thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to “creatively foster responsibility” in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

The foundation has several ongoing projects, including a 10,000-year clock known as the Clock of the Long Now, the Rosetta Project, the Long Bet Project, the open source Timeline Tool (also known as Longviewer), the Long Server and an ongoing talk series.

The Long Now Foundation has established an approach to define and promote longterm thinking that PROOF is a direct beneficiary, a descendant if you will.

What We’re Watching: TEDx Amsterdam, Adah Parris

To date, most of the development of and investment into scaled technology, especially digital technology, has been for and by the WEIRD (western educated industrialized, rich and democratic). Cyborg Shamanism is a way to empathetically subvert that status quo. Cyborg Shamanism is a philosophy designed to spark a global movement that examines what could happen to innovation if we combine ‘other ways of knowing’ in the design of new technologies. Cyborg Shamanism, words that reach into our deep past and deep future.

What We’re Reading: The Good Ancestor

In The Good Ancestor, leading public philosopher Roman Krznaric delves into history and the human mind to show that we can be good ancestors. From the pyramids to the NHS, humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to be good ancestors and be remembered well by the generations who follow us, now is the time to recover and enrich this imaginative skill.

In The Good Ancestor, Krznaric reveals six practical ways we can retrain our brains to think of the long view, including Deep-Time Humility (recognizing our lives as a cosmic eyeblink) and Cathedral Thinking (starting projects that will take more than one lifetime to complete). His aim is to inspire more “time rebels” like Greta Thunberg—to shift our allegiance from this generation to all humanity—in short, to save our planet and our future.

What We’re Listening to – The Bold.ly NOW Show with Futurist Adah Parris

How do we learn lessons from the past? How can we leave behind our global problems and create a new era for humanity? What are the technologies and behaviors we need to adapt to make sustainable change, and how do we bring all that back to the people who can take action to change the world? These are the questions polymath tech futurist Adah Parris has been grappling with in the face of the challenges we have today. In this episode of the Boldly NOW show, Adah shines a light on these questions and gives us ways to recognize new patterns that can lead to a better future.

PROOF in ACTION 36

Being a Good Ancestor should by now seem like a good idea. The question you might be asking right now is, how do I do that? Here are some practical steps you can take to start being a good ancestor today.

Beyond the practical there are some shifts in your thinking and being that will orient you towards being a good ancestor.

If you have additional thoughts on actions we can all take, please post them in the conversation below.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post The Good Ancestor appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

November 10, 2021

COP26 – a heady melange of triumphant world leaders, angry dissatisfied sign hoisting activists, fat-cat-petro-lobbyists, back room meeting system changers, groupies and real working diplomats and scientists who know that this should be much easier than this, considering that the house is on fire.

It’s enough to give you the worst hangover of your life in exchange for a party that never really seems to get started.

The 26th edition of the UN Climate Change Conference is an ongoing global exercise in cognitive bias. For 26 years scientists have been giving us accurate models of the impact of climate change and how to avoid the most catastrophic of those impacts – CUT CARBON AND METHANE NOW! It’s dead simple, still we get timelines and commitments from leaders that kick the can down the road in terms of making hard choices and getting humanity on the road to regeneration. Politicians and diplomats “do what they can” never diverging from the limited scope of actions. If their hands aren’t tied then they act as if they are.

Every year the conference has laid bare the brutal politics of tribalism. Each country represented works to get the best deal it can. It’s like negotiating where to put your chair on the deck of the Titanic to get the best view of the sea. And worse yet it’s a slow rolled stage play, scripted months before the actual event. We learned this week that the US and China are going to “ramp up cooperation tackling climate change”. This surprise announcement came at the end of ten months of negotiating. No commitments to targets or policies or well anything but the afore mentioned ramping up of cooperation. Ten months to agree to announce that they had an agreement to cooperate, something that any rational person might have assumed given wide scale distraction the climate crisis is bringing to us all.

It’s both clear that the UN and the Climate Change Conference are inadequate tools to help us deal with the climate crisis, and that the UN and the Climate Change Conference are the only global tools that we have to do the job. It’s enough to have you running stark naked and mad over the Scottish Highlands looking for way out of the hall of mirrors.

This editorial is being released a few days before the closing of the conference and I hope that I will be proved wrong and lambasted for my lack of belief in the process. But none of that really matters. We have no choice but to get this right and take the clear steps that must be taken. The only question is what will the cost of inaction or inadequate coordinated global action be? The answer to that ranges from human extinction to a rough hundred years on the planet.

Now that that is cleared up, I want to acknowledge the scientists, diplomats, bureaucrats, activists, indigenous youth leaders, press agents, celebrities, CEOs and anyone who has had a hand in creating policy, targets or actions that lead us to achieving the agreed upon 2016 Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° C. Thank you for your work and service on behalf of the rest of us who are trying to figure it all out.

This issue is dedicated to helping you do just that, figure it out. You will get an idea of what is needed, what is being done and what might help us bridge the gap. We are very excited by our podcast interview with Kim Stanley Robinson who lays out a futuristic vision of a UN based agency that is responsible for the rights of future generations in regards to global climate policy, The Ministry for the Future.

We hope that in our new PROOF in ACTION feature will help you to move beyond understanding into action in your own life, oriented to ending the climate crisis and generating a thriving future for humanity.

We believe it’s the only game in town, and the best ever cure for a COP26 hangover.

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Letter From the Editors:

Welcome to the new home of PROOF at proofzine.com.  PROOF of a Thriving Future started one year ago as an email update on news that provided proof that there are people and projects that are taking action that are generating a thriving future. At Issue number 16 we moved the newsletter onto the internet as Bold.ly NOW’s blog.  By issue 34 it was clear that you, our readers wanted more, so we set about building PROOF as a standalone magazine – hence proofzine.com.

Over the coming months we will be adding more content areas and guest writers.  We are very excited about our new column PROOF in ACTION where in every issue we give you a concise list of actions you can take to align with and bring about a thriving future.

The Bold.ly NOW Show, our podcast series has also grown both in audience and ambition.  We now have three sub-brands to the show so you can tune into the conversations that matter most to you.  The Bold.ly NOW Show name will continue with conversations with thought leaders, businesses and organizations that contribute to a thriving future. 

Generative Futures Initiative (GFI) conversations is a series of conversations that directly relate to Generative Futurism.  We will be hosting fellow futurists and those who are leading long-term to multi-generational impact projects.  Look for our second episode of this series with Sci-Fi author and futurist Kim Stanley Robinson. We will be digging deep into his new book The Ministry for the Future.  

We will also begin a series of transformational/educational conversations with the name Bold.ly YOU, reflecting on how to see and realize a future.  Tune into these conversations if you are looking to discover your purpose, design a thriving future project or get into action on an area of life that is important to you.  

With all these projects we are looking into reliable ways to financially support the work.  You can become a subscriber to PROOF by clicking on subscribe in the menu or scrolling to the bottom of this page.  As practitioners of the Gift Economy, PROOF is our gift to you.  If you are moved to give a gift to us, a subscription or one time donation would be greatly appreciated. By the way, you can become a subscriber with a $0 gift to us. Your time to connect with us by subscribing at this level is appreciated and keeps us going. 

Our transformational and educational courses are available for members of Bold.ly YOU, our app.  Be sure and check out our three-course program, Do What You Love Change the World.  The three courses are: Burning Desire, Big Idea and Bold Action.  Each course features 9 hours of highly interactive content designed to move you in action from one level to the next.  These programs are all unlocked for a monthly membership of $17. 

We value you no matter how you choose to connect with the Bold.ly NOW Movement. If you have ideas or input, you can email us at bebold@bold.ly.

Proof 35 – What’s Up COP26?

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: The Gambia

The Gambia is a small West African country, bounded by Senegal, with a narrow Atlantic coastline. It’s known for its diverse ecosystems around the central Gambia River. It is the only one of the 39 countries being tracked by the climate action tracker whose policies, targets and actions are fully in alignment with the Paris Agreement of limiting warming to 1.5° C

See the the climate action tracker click here.

What We’re Watching: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

In his 93 years, Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of the planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. But during his lifetime, Attenborough has also seen first-hand the monumental scale of humanity’s impact on nature. With stunning cinematography and a story that exposes the impact that man has had on the natural world, this is a must watch film for anyone who cares about the planet.

What We’re Reading: ReGeneration

Paul Hawken’s Regeneration is a radical new approach to the climate crisis, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world.

The purpose of the book and the project is to end the climate crisis in one generation. Ending the crisis does not complete the challenge of global warming. That is a century-long commitment. Ending the crisis means that by 2030 collective action by humanity will have reduced total greenhouse gas emissions by 45 to 50 percent. At this time, we are going backward and increasing emissions. Regeneration is an inclusive and effective strategy compared to combating, fighting, or mitigating climate change. Regeneration creates, builds, and heals. Regeneration is what life has always done, we are life, and that is our focus. It includes how we live and what we do—everywhere. We have a common interest and that interest can only be served when we come together.

What We’re Listening to –  The Bold.ly NOW Show with Kim Stanley Robinson

Tune in to the Boldy Now Show featuring Kim Stanley Robinson, the Hugo and Nebula-winning author of the Mars Trilogy. He is known as a realistic, science-based highly-literary science fiction author with over 20 books published. Stan’s work often focuses on themes like sustainability, economic & social justice, climate change, and speculative futures.

In this podcast, we discuss these themes covered in Stan’s atypical sci-fi novel, The Ministry for the Future. Stan uses the book to demonstrate a vision of a new future for humanity and investigates what it might take to survive and transcend the climate crisis. 

PROOF in ACTION 35

This issue we have been looking in on COP26. That this UN led conference deals at the level of nations can leave you wondering what is there to do at the personal level.  We’re going to break that down into two parts, the political and the practical.

At the political level here’s what you can do:

At the practical level we can all make an impact on reaching our targets.  Here are a few simple steps:

If you have additional thoughts on actions we can all take, please post them in the conversation below.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post What’s Up COP26? appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Doug Fisher

Publishing Editor

July 8, 2021

You may recall in PROOF #25 Michael Shaun asked us all to speak about what’s happening as a climate crisis rather than “climate change” or “global warming”. In the news in the last few weeks there have been stories about the highest recorded temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the world, and the lowest recorded water levels in reservoirs in the Western US.  Powerful evidence for accepting Michael Shaun’s request.

At Bold.ly NOW we’re dedicated to you, me, all of us taking action to generate a thriving future for humanity and thriving lives for ourselves. In the face of situations as dire as the climate crisis, this can be daunting.  How can we remain optimistic and take bold action rather than get resigned or defeated? How we respond to this challenge will make all the difference in addressing the climate crisis and all the other significant challenges we face.

If we get daunted, it’s easy to avoid the news about what’s happening. Yet, to have any power with our actions to address the issues we face, it is important to know what’s going on.  That’s one action that can help generate a new future – being informed about the current state. In that light, in this issue of PROOF we are offering news and information about what is happening regarding the climate. We are also including news of some innovative things people are doing to address the climate crisis.  

As Michael Shaun has also written about, the shocking news is what gets the most press; for example the record high temperatures and wildfires. What’s harder to find are practical actions you and I can take as individuals to turn the tide on the climate crisis.  

One of our fundamental beliefs at Bold.ly NOW is that you and I, each of us, can take meaningful action to address the significant issues in front of us.  It’s up to each of us to do the work to identify what’s important to us, what are we passionate about, and what are our gifts. From there we can imagine what’s possible and take action to make that possibility real.

Why am I saying all this? Well, the news is pretty daunting! As I have been preparing this issue of PROOF I have found out the current climate situation is more grim than I thought. I am writing to prepare you, and me, to look at what’s happening with open eyes, without looking away. And then, take a deep breath, consider what’s possible, and take action.  

What action? Well, that’s for you to determine.  Maybe it’s contacting someone you know who is actively working on addressing the climate crisis.  Maybe it’s starting a project in your community to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Maybe it’s merely informing others about what you are learning.  There is no action that is too small.  

Right now, no one knows what will resolve the climate crisis. There are many people doing many things to address it, some profiled in this issue of PROOF.  What’s most likely is there will be many different approaches by many different people and there will be breakthroughs in the future that we can barely even imagine right now.

It’s said that we overestimate what can be done in one year and underestimate what can be done in five or ten years.

What makes the difference is taking action today. Some of the actions will produce beneficial results, and some won’t. However, it is in action that the way forward will be discovered by us.

And, your action makes a difference, regardless how big or how small.

We invite you to read this issue of PROOF (and, well, every issue) to provoke yourself to consider: What action will I take today to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for myself?

We hope you enjoy this weeks PROOF.  Please share it with your friends.

Thank you for joining us and other like-minded adventurers in discovering what it takes to generate a thriving future. We’re grateful to be on the path with you!

Doug

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast and subscribe to us on Youtube

Proof 34 – The Climate Crisis

In the News:

What We’re Watching : Hands On: Women, Climate, Change

Hands On demonstrates what’s possible when we begin to take action on the large challenges we face. The film profiles five women from four continents tackling climate change through policy, protest, education and innovation. The film powerfully demonstrates how women are transferring knowledge and local networks into hands-on strategies.

This collaborative doc offers unique perspectives across cultures and generations; A young woman challenges the expansion of oil rigs in the North Sea while a seasoned community organizer interprets satellite weather reports for fisherman struggling to survive on India’s increasingly volatile coast.

What We’re Reading – The Uninhabitable Earth

In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await–food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe.

The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation – today’s.

What We’re Listening to –  TILclimate Podcast

Understanding climate change can be confusing. TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate) is an award-winning MIT podcast that breaks down the science, technologies, and policies behind climate change, how it’s impacting us, and what we can do about it. Each quick episode gives you the what, why, and how on climate change — from real scientists and experts — to help us make informed decisions for our future.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post The Climate Crisis appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Micheal Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

July 8, 2021

“A la mode”, “modisch”, “alla moda”, “fashionable” – up to date with current style or trend. FASHION. We have all been trained to try and keep up with the current colors, cuts and styles. We feel good when we are in fashion and awkward at best when we are out.

We’ve been taught to never judge a book by its cover, while trying to adopt coverings that “make a good impression”, quite the contradiction. So we dress, we dress well, we dress down and we dress for the occasion.

The fashion industry knows that the more we care about our looks the more clothing they sell. They trained us to seasonal looks, and then they revved up the cycle and created fast fashion where style changes every few weeks. And we consume and consume and consume mountains of inexpensive clothing that makes us feel great for a moment.

Dancing on the end of this string we lose our ability to be confident in the indelible self, the enduring self.

If this is not bad enough, fast and cheap clothing has created mountains of waste by over production and disposal of out of date styles.

Our obsession with fast fashion is toxic.

Still, we all do want to express ourselves, to celebrate our uniqueness with our clothes and costumes. There is nothing wrong with that but it’s a fundamental fallacy that we need to follow a brand to do that. The rise of second hand fashion shows us that we can engage in our personal style and expression without being on the fashion hamster wheel.

Thinking through the idea of a growing second hand fashion industry, it’s clear that unlike the products of fast fashion where clothes are made as cheaply as possible, a well made, good wearing piece of clothing can be resold again and again, creating a cycle of earnings for second hand clothing retailers without the negative environmental impacts.

Who knew that one of the ways to fight the climate crisis would be to buy quality second hand clothing, and then sell it on when we are done with it. The good news is that many people are waking up to this idea. Quality and sustainability are suddenly fashionable and that is a trend we all should follow.

In this weeks PROOF we will explore sustainable fashion and the ways that you can shift your dollars from toxic consumption to a closed loop cycle of virtue that gives us a vast amount of freedom to really be yourself.

We hope you enjoy this weeks PROOF. Please share it with your friends.

Join us as we help to invent and invest in a sustainable future.

Michael Shaun

P.S.  I would love you to follow our Podcast, subscribe to us on Youtube, sign up for the PROOF email and subscribe if you love reading PROOF

Proof 33 – The Future of Fashion

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: Candiani Denim

Candiani Denim was established in 1938 in a tiny town near Milano and is a family-run company ever since.

In 75 years of experience the enterprise grew to become the World’s finest and most sustainable denim mill creating the fabrics that gave birth to the Premium Denim Industry.

Today Candiani is known as the greenest textile company in the blue World and produces for the most prestigious names in the market, such as Levi’s, Lucky Brand, Hugo Boss, Madewell and J. Crew.

See the company’s website here, and read more about the company here.

What We’re Watching : Where the future of fashion is headed

What is the future of fashion and where is the fashion industry heading to? What kind of future do fashion pioneers think of and how do they try to change the way of thinking about fashion? A documentary about the future and a new way of approach to fashion.

Backlight shows five future fashion pioneers who make their industry future-proof by experimenting with new fabrics, reuse and hi-tech design. Their ‘fashion of the future’ goes far beyond sustainability alone. They also force us to look differently at beauty and the role that clothing plays in our lives.

(Note – turn on subtitles to understand the people speaking in Dutch.)

What We’re Reading – Unraveled

A groundbreaking chronicle of the birth–and death–of a pair of jeans, that exposes the fractures in our global supply chains, and our relationships to each other, ourselves, and the planet.

A sprawling, deeply researched, and provocative tour-de-force, Unraveled is not just the story of a pair of pants, but also the story of our global economy and our role in it. Told with piercing insight and unprecedented reporting, Unraveled challenges us to use our relationship with our jeans–and all that we wear–to reclaim our central role as citizens to refashion a society in which all people can thrive and preserve the planet for generations to come.

You can read an excerpt here, and listen to a discussion with author Maxine Bédat here.

What We’re Listening to –  Conscious Chatter

Conscious Chatter opens the door to conversations about our clothing + the layers of stories, meaning and potential impact connected to what we wear.  It reimagines the narrative around sustainability, explores the importance of resourcefulness, questions conscious consumerism, and works to deconstruct how oppressive systems impact the sustainable fashion space.

In Episode 237 listen to a discussion with Ben Mead, the Managing Director of Hohenstein Institute USA, about green chemistry and the OEKO-TEX® Association which attempts to certify green practices in the textile supply chain.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.org

The post The Future of Fashion appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Doug Fisher

Publishing Editor

June 21, 2021

I’ve been thinking a lot about our – Bold.ly NOW – responsibility for the things we share in the pages of PROOF. We do our best to make sure that the articles we post are truthful and lead to a thriving future for humanity, the heart of our purpose.  Yet, if we were to take a hard look at almost any article, company, film or podcast here, I am sure we would discover shortcomings. That likely is human nature.

Not only is it hard to assess the projects and ideas of others, it is also a hard challenge to say what thriving would look like, or better said, what the numerous possible successful versions of thriving might look like. So rather than tell you what thriving is, we simply show things that point in that direction. 

The Buddha said,

“A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”

Likewise an article in PROOF points at thriving and is not thriving.  Following the Buddha’s teaching here: Don’t look at the finger or you will miss the moon. Don’t think the finger is the moon.  And realize that although we don’t really know what the moon is we can move towards it and as we do, it will become clearer.

This week in PROOF 32 we look at the future of food with some stories, films and companies who are pointing the way.  Food is an incredibly personal topic. It seems that there are a million different philosophies on the food we grow and eat and that they all claim to be the one true way of food.

Regardless of your philosophy of food, there is a shift in perspective that we feel is fundamental to the shift we need to make in regard to how we grow our food and the food by which we nourish ourselves and that is to move beyond seeing ourselves as separate from our ecosystems.  You’ve heard it said that:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT!

This has a common sense clarity. We all know it to be true. And yet we eat all kinds of things we might not want to “be”. If we break this down a little further even if we believe this statement, there is still a separation, a dualism between the food and the one eating the food, “I”. If we are what we eat then there is no distinction between me and what I eat. 

Extending this further we come to, You are “the land/ecosystem that produces the food” you eat. And ultimately we get to:

You are the Earth!

Given all that, it’s time that we reconsider the way we grow and eat our food. Fortunately for us there are a number of large movements exploring what the future of food will look like. You can participate by getting involved with food production, waste reduction and sustainable and regenerative growing practices.

We hope you enjoy this weeks PROOF.  Please share it with your friends.

Join us in generating the future of food!

Proof 32 – The Future of Food

In the News:

What We’re Watching : The Need to Grow

In a race against the end of farmable soil, three individuals fight for change in the industry of agricultural food production, calling for a revolution.
“The Need to GROW” delivers alarming evidence on the importance of healthy soil — revealing not only the potential of localized food production working with nature, but our opportunity as individuals to help regenerate our planet’s dying soils and participate in the restoration of the Earth.

And, if that’s not enough, The Need to Grow is one of 8 Must-Watch New Sustainable Agriculture Documentaries as compiled by the New York City Food Policy Center.  Check out the entire list here.

What We’re Reading – The Zero Waste Chef

There is an enormous amount of waste in our food systems.  Now, there is some guidance about what we all can do to reduce the amount of food waste.

In her debut book, Anne-Marie Bonneau gives us the facts to motivate us to do better, the simple (and usually free) fixes to ease us into wasting less–you can, for example, banish plastic wrap by simply inverting a plate over your leftovers–and, finally, the recipes and strategies to turn us into more sustainable, money-saving cooks.

What We’re Listening to –  Down To Earth – The Planet to Plate Podcast

Listen to a discussion with Jesse Smith, director of stewardship at the White Buffalo Land Trust, discussing designing agricultural systems that improve as they age.

Down to Earth is a podcast about hope. As climate change collides with our industrial food system, the podcast focuses on people who are developing practical, innovative solutions.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post The Future of Food appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Doug Fisher

Publishing Editor

June 14, 2021

The future according to mainstream media is bleak . Our menu for future options has us being killed by machines, eaten by zombies, and generally facing the end of humanity as we know it through some other calamity like a new plague. According to them, the future is dystopic and not very pretty.

What’s the impact of this? Well, how we imagine the future has an impact on our actions today. After all, if the only future we imagine is grim, why bother doing anything to change it?

We need solutions for all the issues we are challenged by – climate crisis, social and economic disparities, pollution, waste – the list goes on and on. Where are those solutions going to come from? We at Bold.ly NOW are clear that it comes from the imagination. The needed solutions will not come from small tweaks to the current conditions. While ongoing improvement is needed, radical new ideas are required to overcome the major threats facing us today.

The human capacity of imagination, the divine spark of creativity, is the essential ingredient for all of us to thrive. If you look at any great advance in society or technology, it started with someone imagining a new future. And then others refine that imagination, and others prototype and test until the imagined future has become a reality. All of the stories we have published in the many issues of this e-magazine of PROOF of a Thriving Future are the outcomes that started with someone imagining a new future.

But why is imagination so important?

Our brain will only act on what it can see. And, the brain doesn’t discern between what comes in through our eyes and what we imagine. If we want to take action on generating a new future, the brain has to see it in our imagination. If it can’t see it, it won’t take any action to bring it about. If we’re not imagining new futures, our actions are then limited by what’s come before, from our past including all of the limitation and failings of our past. Only when we imagine a new future, a thriving future, can we take action and make it real.

In that light, imagining a thriving future for humanity and taking action to realizing that future is the essential element creating a world that works for everyone.

In my dream, the angel shrugged and said, if we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination. And then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand

-Brian Andreas

This is where you come in. Your imagined vision of a thriving future for humanity, and a thriving life for yourself, provides significant leverage in bringing about that future.

You may ask: “Why me? Aren’t there people working on all the things that need to be fixed?”

To answer that, let’s imagine something. Imagine that everyone on the planet spends time each day imagining what a thriving future for humanity looks like, and what their life looks like inside that thriving future. Imagine how that would influence and shape how they interact with their families, their work, their communities. Imagine the conversations they would have with the people in their lives, including random strangers who are also imagining a thriving future.

Now, imagine yourself in that future. How would you see the world? What would you be talking about?

You see, you are important and even essential to a thriving future for humanity.

For example, if you imagine a solution for sustainable energy, that imagining provides fertile ground for a sustainable energy future to sprout and blossom, whether or not you are the one that imagines the solution. You taking the time to imagine a thriving future for humanity (and yourself) creates that fertile ground. And if we all do this, then solutions become exponential.

We can do no great things – only small things with great love.

– Mother Theresa

Thankfully, there are people around the world at work on the critical issues facing us. And, it takes all of us. If you and I merely take a few minutes each week imagining what a thriving future looks like, engage others in that imagining, we are contributing to that thriving future becoming a reality. That imagining will begin to shape our actions and the actions of people we speak to.

In this issue of PROOF we highlight people who are using the power of imagination to generate a thriving future and provide resources for how we can all up-level our own imagination.

Join us in imagining (and acting on and making real) a thriving future for humanity.

Proof 31 – The Power of Imagination

In the News:

What We’re Watching : The Future of Imagination

Thinking about the far-off future isn’t just an exercise in intellectual curiosity. It’s a practical skill that, as new research reveals, has a direct neurological link to greater creativity, empathy, and optimism. In this session from master game designer and acclaimed futurist Jane McGonigal, you’ll learn three practical habits that will increase the power of your imagination in a way that can shape your actions to bringing about a new future.

What We’re Reading – The World Could Be Otherwise

In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a spark of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling, twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding—can help us reconfigure the world we live in. Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.

What We’re Listening to –  Pure Imagination

Want to change the world?  There’s nothing to it!

Yes, Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka takes us into the world of imagination and what we can create.  It may be that the freedom provided by imagination is exactly what we need to change the world.  Take a listen!

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post The Power of Imagination appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

June 8, 2021

Net zero waste sounds great and from the many articles that we are bringing you this week it seems to be both in reach and a matter of instrumentalization – all we have to do is design processes to reduce, reuse, recycle, and ultimately eliminate waste.

From where we stand at PROOF this is only a part of the equation and likely of less importance than the real problem of consumption. The past 25 years of online retailing has proven to lower the barriers to consumption. While there were numerous negative economic downturns in the pandemic, online retail flourished with a 44% increase in year over year sales for 2020. We went indoors and shopped until we dropped.

The consumption / waste connection is clear. The more we consume the more waste we produce in packaging, transportation and eventual disposal of the items we purchase. No matter how good we become at reducing, reusing and recycling, if the quantity of products we are consuming is increasing, we will never reach net zero waste.

The question then is how do we reduce consumption? The technocratic answers usually have to do with eliminating low quality, rapidly replaced consumables and producing products that have both high utility and the kind of quality that makes them last a long time. I have mountaineering and cycling clothes that are 10+ years old and with a little upkeep may never need to be replaced. These kinds of items are more expensive than the disposable ones, which leads to less frequent shopping, which means that retailers would see a drop in the volume of products sold, which is not something that they would likely want to see. Most retailers want us to shop until we drop.

The bigger issue is that many of us want to shop and shop and shop. If you look at this closely, you can clearly see that a part of our identity comes from the things we consume. We associate who we are with the brands we buy, the stores we buy them from and the kinds of things we consume. Others see the things we consume and that becomes a part of who we are for them as well.

Why do we consume so much? If consumption is a part – and for many of us a big part – of our identity, then when our sense of self is threatened, or our self confidence wanes or we just feel down, we often turn to buying things to lift ourselves up. This is a never ending cycle with a seemingly endless number of things to consume. The bad news is:

Things will never fill us up.

Rather, after the first rush of accomplishment, they leave us feeling hollowed out and empty. Our consumer culture reduces our humanity to a never ending cycle of craving. Suffering becomes an ever present part of who we fundamentally are. We have to reinvent our culture with new ways to ease our discomfort in life. It’s time for us to turn our ability to hunt and gather to the pursuit of a good life, with a healthy community and thriving global commons.

When feeling good is decoupled from consumption, then and only then will we be free from our waste and achieve net zero.

So the next time you are feeling down, or unloved, or simply unfulfilled, go take a walk with friends or call a family member or work in your garden for a while. We promise that you will feel better and you won’t be left with things to throw away when the party’s over.

Join us in generating a zero waste world with thriving for all.

Proof 30 – The Future of Waste

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: Sea Cleaners

Created in 2016 by the French-Swiss navigator and explorer Yvan Bourgnon, the NGO The SeaCleaners acts against plastic pollution, both at sea and on land, through corrective and preventive missions. An Observer Member of the United Nations Environment Programme and supported by the Albert II Foundation of Monaco and the CCI France International, The SeaCleaners has set itself four main objectives:

·     Protection of the environment with the collection of floating waste
·     Promotion of the circular economy
·     Scientific research
·     Education and pedagogy, with the development of awareness-raising activities for the populations affected, the general public and decision-makers.

For more information click here.

What We’re Watching : Trashed

Trashed follows actor Jeremy Irons as he investigates the global scale and impact of humanity’s modern wasteful consumerism and pollution. The film is a call for urgent action to resolve the issue of existing deposits and drastically reduce our consumption towards sustainable levels and zero waste, but also demonstrates how this is already being achieved successfully in many communities around the world.

What We’re Reading – Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash

The average American produces 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime and $50 billion in squandered riches are rolled to the curb each year. But our bins are just the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century.

In Garbology, Edward Humes investigates trash—what’s in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity.

Garbology reveals not just what we throw away, but who we are and where our society is headed. Waste is the one environmental and economic harm that ordinary working Americans have the power to change—and prosper in the process.

What We’re Listening to –  The Zero Waste Countdown Podcast – #131 – Zero Waste in India

Sahar Mansoor and Tim de Ridder are the co-authors of Bare Necessities: How to Live a Zero-Waste Life. Sahar is also the founder and CEO of Bare Necessities and joined the conversation from her home in India.

The Zero Waste Countdown Project and host Laura Nash discuss their new book, and how the Indian entrepreneurial spirit is tackling waste. For example, spent flowers from temples and river beds are upcycled into powdered colors to celebrate Holi festival each year.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

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Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post The Future of Waste appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

May 30, 2021

The Earth is finite. And for the vast majority of human history this has not been a problem. With our small population, we could collect and consume only a small fraction of the wealth of the planet. We spread out and the population grew. Still there was no problem. Then we technologized our means of extraction and means of production and our ability to extract and consume has grown exponentially. Petrochemicals provided cheap energy and we industrialized and supersized growth. Simultaneously we invented new materials like plastics that were easy to manufacture and almost impossible to destroy.

The word pollution comes from the latin polluere, which means to soil or defile. Plastics have polluted even the most pristine ecosystems. Microplastics have even been found at the top of the world in the ice on Mt. Everest. The products we produce are soiling and defiling the planet. This toxicity comes from extraction, with damage to the natural environment and on site waste and spillage, from transport and from disposal, dumping and burning products and packaging. It works in a linear fashion: we extract, we produce, we consume, we dispose. On a finite planet, this equation will run until everything that is extractable becomes garbage.

Our waste will eventually overcome us.

To escape this linear equation of extraction, consumption and waste, scientists and engineers are turning to the natural world. In an ecosystem the waste from one life form is food for the next life form. A tree falls to the forest floor which then becomes a home for small animals and food for insects, fungi and bacteria who in turn enrich the soil with their waste providing a good place for a new tree to grow. This simple model of a circular system, is the evolutionary leap that humanity must make to avoid the life extinguishing folly of our current linear system.

We must learn to transform every molecule of one product into a new product without needing to extract more resources. Products and materials will need to be invented and designed to be a part of a circular system, rather than just serving a single utility. These circular cycles require energy. In the natural ecosystem, the sun’s energy is harvested by photosynthesis. Again we must discover how to harvest energy with low or no toxic accumulation.

The Circular Economy looks at this from the system level. How do we design a human civilization that operates in circular cycles where the waste of one process provides the resources of the next?

In this week’s PROOF, we learn about the circular economy and some leading innovators in this drive to transform our life on the planet. If you are interested in becoming a part of this movement you can take a few simple actions:

  1. Reduce your consumption.
  2. Buy products that come with minimal packaging.
  3. Reuse or hand down products you no longer want.
  4. Aim to reduce the waste you send to the landfill to zero.
  5. Join a circular economy business or a project.

Please join us in creating a zero waste world that provides for all.

Proof 29 – The Circular Economy

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, develops and promotes the idea of a circular economy. It works with, and inspire, business, academia, policymakers, and institutions to mobilize systems solutions at scale, globally.

In addition to learning about the Foundation, consider participating in their free Summit 21, June 8-10. This free online event explores how we collaborate to connect government and industry to tackle our biggest global challenges while creating resilience and wellbeing. For more information click here.

What We’re Watching : Closing the Loop

Closing the Loop is the world’s first feature length documentary on the circular economy. It features five key strategies for going from a take-make-waste linear economy to a borrow-use-return circular economy.  Despite what can seem like dire warnings, it is an optimistic film about innovative solutions.

What We’re Reading – Circular Economy for Dummies

A circular economy is an economic system designed to save money, eliminate waste, and achieve deep sustainability. No-brainer, right? Circular Economy For Dummies explains why the old way of doing things (the take-make-waste model of a linear economy) is fast going the way of the dinosaurs, and it gets you ready to think circular. From business processes and material lifecycles to circular design in just about every industry, this book is a fascinating glimpse into the sustainable future we urgently need.

What We’re Listening to –  The Circular Economy Podcast

The Circular Economy Podcast interviews inspiring people who are making the circular economy happen.  They explore how the circular economy makes a better business (and a better world): for you, your partners, and your customers.

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

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PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post The Circular Economy appeared first on PROOFZINE.

Michael Shaun Conaway

Publishing Editor

May 19, 2021

We live in a material world, a built world, an endlessly changing world. The cycle between material desires and fulfillment of those desires has shortened from weeks to days to “same day delivery”.  We consume, therefore we are. Full stop until the world stops.

It’s no mystery how we got here.  The invisible hand of the market has propelled growth, some of it producing profound benefits for humanity, some of it producing illness, heartache and darkness and much of it producing nothing more than excess and waste. Producing a product or service and then psychologically manipulating people to want that product or service with smart learning algorithms, is not a free market.  It is anything but free as we see the costs literally piling up around us as we bury ourselves in waste.

This cannot go on.

But what would a future without waste, or extraction toxicity look like? Would we have to go back to a preindustrial way of life? Or can we invent new ways of living in a material world that is sane and balanced for the benefit of all?  Can we design completely closed loop systems that recycle every bit of material into new products?  Can we harvest energy without toxicity? Can we let go of the impulse to consume and fan the flames of the impulse to connect?

I say that if we can imagine it then we can do it.

We are already off to a new start on the materials side.  Recycling rather than new extraction is gaining momentum.  Sharing is becoming more fashionable than ownership.  Experiences more fulfilling than a growing pile of stuff.  

In this week’s PROOF we will see some of the steps being taken to explore a new relationship to our material world.  In between the articles you will catch a glimpse of what we are becoming.  This reinvention is perhaps the most important investment we will ever make in the future of humanity.  We will innovate what it means to live a good, sustainable, fulfilling life – not just for you and me, but for every one of us, all life on the planet and the planet itself down to the last molecule.  

Please join us as we reimagine the future for humanity. 

Proof 28-  Generating Our Sustainable Future

In the News:

Organizations Generating a Thriving Future: Recycling Technologies

Recycling Technologies Ltd is a UK-based company founded in 2011. Through a decade of research, engineering and collaboration with academia, it has developed a proprietary, patented technology to recycle mixed plastic waste.With a uniquely collaborative approach and innovative industry expertise, Recycling Technologies has managed to establish itself as a prominent player in the chemical recycling sector at both a national and global level.

What We’re Watching : Sustainable

A vital investigation of the economic and environmental instability of America’s food system, from the agricultural issues we face — soil loss, water depletion, climate change, pesticide use — to the community of leaders who are determined to fix it. Sustainable is a film about the land, the people who work it and what must be done to sustain it for future generations.

What We’re Reading – Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again

Journalist, broadcaster and eco lifestyle expert Lucy Siegle provides a powerful call to arms to end the plastic pandemic along with the tools we need to make decisive change. It is a clear-eyed, authoritative and accessible guide to help us to take decisive and effective personal action. So now is the time to speak up, take action and demand the change you want to see in the ocean, in the supermarket aisles and on the streets. It’s time to turn the tide on plastic, and this book will show you how.

What We’re Listening to –  Turning the Tide on Plastic

Do you want to leave a lasting mark on the world? Throw a plastic bottle into the sea – and chances are that it will still be there well after you are gone.

In this podcast, we discuss our global plastic addiction and what we can do about it. The Natural Resources Podcast by Highgrade Media speaks with Denise Hardesty, an expert on plastic pollution at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

May this information inspire you to generate a thriving future for humanity and a thriving life for yourself. For more resources please check out our Podcast and Youtube channel.

-The Bold.ly Now Team

BOLD.LY NOW is a movement of co-creative up-levelers who have a burning desire to step free of our collapsing world & take the most daring leap forward to a thriving world.

Follow us

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

PROOF is a Generative Futures Initiative Project

The Generative Futures Initiative
Generating a Thriving Future for All
generativefutures.life

The post Generating Our Sustainable Future appeared first on PROOFZINE.