Announcement of new and updated content on the globalissues.org
web site. GlobalIssues.org is a web site attempting to look at
various global issues to show they are inter-related.
Almost half the world — over
3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a
day.
The GDP (Gross Domestic
Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (567 million people) is less than the
wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
Nearly a billion people
entered the 21st century unable to read a book
or sign their names.
Less than one per cent of
what the world spent every year on weapons was
needed to put every child into school by the
year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
1 billion children live in
poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640
million live without adequate shelter, 400
million have no access to safe water, 270
million have no access to health services. 10.6
million died in 2003 before they reached the age
of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
Poverty is the state for the majority of
the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to
blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been
lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for
their plight? What about their governments? Have they
pursued policies that actually harm successful development?
Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But
deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less
discussed.
Behind the increasing interconnectedness
promised by globalization are global decisions, policies,
and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or
formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of
rich countries or other global actors such as multinational
corporations, institutions, and influential people.
In the face of such enormous external
influence, the governments of poor nations and their people
are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a
few get wealthy while the majority struggle.
These next few articles and sections
explore various poverty issues in more depth:
Leaders meet to accelerate shift in global
consciousness
On
July 26, 2008 thirty-eight evolutionary leaders whose radical
new ways of thinking and interpreting human experience have
expanded our knowledge of evolving consciousness gathered at the
Chopra Center in California to envision together how their
collective consciousness, creativity, energy and intention could
help accelerate the shift in global consciousness. The retreat,
hosted by the Chopra Foundation, the Source of Synergy
Foundation
www.sourceofsynergyfoundation.org and the Association for
Global New Thought www.agnt.org
included renowned pioneers in the consciousness movement
including Joan Borysenko, Gregg Braden, Deepak Chopra, Duane
Elgin, Debbie Ford, Jean Houston, Bruce Lipton, Barbara Marx
Hubbard, Lynne McTaggart, Peter Russell, Marianne Williamson and
many others.
The participants agreed they would like to
more deeply engage and collaborate as a collective by: exploring
what's on cutting edge of action and thinking in the
consciousness movement by mapping major pieces of the movement;
creating a more concrete sense of collective engagement in the
movement by clarifying the specific roles each
participant/community/larger network is serving in the big
picture; creating a deeper collective ground for new potential
collaborations, sharing of resources, and mutual support among
key players in the field and their organizations; and
contemplating and acting on ideas of how new levels of
consciousness can help address some of the world's global
challenges.
Deepak opened the retreat by leading the group
in a 20-minute period of silence to bring the participants into
a collective field. The deep reflections on what emerged
revealed a tremendous sense of being called to meet what Prof.
Ashok Gangadean referred to as “an incredible moment that has
been long emerging.” Scientist Gregg Braden felt “the field
calling on us as leaders, recognizing that our world is changing
in ways that have not happened in 5,125 years of recorded
history.” He said, “We’ve all been moving to a moment and now is
the time to put into effect what it is that we’ve built and
developed.”
Visionary thinker Jean Houston, a founder of
the human potential movement, remarked:
“There is something else that is trying to come through – that
lure of becoming – and it does come from the realm of spirit, it
does come from the quantum universe, it does come from that
great spark that is the threshold of time and history trying to
emerge and electrify us.”
The group decided to have a second gathering
in approximately six months to achieve greater synergy by
beginning to define its purpose and intention, to mine the
richness of the silent meditations, and to bring forth a
collective vision. Marianne Williamson called it “sharing
molecules.”
The participants also drafted a collective
statement which they are calling A Call to Conscious
Evolution: Our Moment of Choice to collectively
articulate possibilities for the evolution of consciousness at
this crucial moment in time….to create a new story.
Rinaldo Brutoco of the World Business Academy
challenged the group with this question: “How can we assist the
consciousness to shift by our being together in some way, that
solutions are allowed to bubble forward, because they’re there
everywhere.”
Carter Phipps, editor of “What Is
Enlightenment?” Magazine warned, “We may underestimate the
context of the evolution of consciousness and culture.” He
related a story of Barack Obama telling his staff after he
achieved the nomination, “Now we have to succeed; we have no
more choice.” Carter continued, “More may be depending on us
than we realize.” The participants all agreed that at this
critical time in history we must do all we can to succeed in our
mission to support the evolution of consciousness.
In the words of Gregg Braden, “We are being
called to come together and apply what we know. How do we get
things going? We must begin! Then we will flesh out our shadows
and we’ll see.” He referred to “this collection of powerful
minds and beautiful hearts.” “We can give people a context for
why the world is changing. We can cooperate and share and pull
one another through. Let’s do it sooner rather than later.”
Submitted by Deborah Moldow
and Diane Williams
The Source of Synergy Foundation
On
July 26, 2008 thirty-eight evolutionary leaders whose radical
new ways of thinking and interpreting human experience have
expanded our knowledge of evolving consciousness gathered at the
Chopra Center in California to envision together how their
collective consciousness, creativity, energy and intention could
help accelerate the shift in global consciousness. The retreat,
hosted by the Chopra Foundation, the Source of Synergy
Foundation 
