Events

Sponsored by the OMEGA Collaborative, a joint project of:

• OMEGA – The Resilience Funders Network
• The Resilience Project (TRP)
• Foresight Analysis Nexus (FAN)
• The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB)

More webinars are being planned. Check back for updates.

COVID-19: Learning from the crisis and reimaging the future for environment and climate challenges.

Sunita Narain in conversation with Michael Lerner.

May 27, 2020

The Omega Collaborative hosted a webinar with Sunita Narain, a leading Indian activist and environmentalist on May 27th.  Narain is a world-renowned Indian writer and environmentalist, known for using knowledge and compassion for social transformation. She is recognized as one of the leading voices for fundamental science-based humanitarian change, valued for her honesty and ability to work with tribal communities in India, senior government officials, and international leaders. Her influence is welcomed throughout the global south, across Asia and the western world. In 2016, Time magazine included her in their list of the most influential people in the world.

Are we in the omega phase of the adaptive cycle? with Thomas Homer Dixon

May 13, 2020

The Omega Collaborative hosted a webinar with Thomas Homer Dixon on May 13, 2020. Homer Dixon is a Canadian professor of political science and one of the world’s widest read public intellectuals in the field of the global security. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, has influenced millions, appealing to senior thought leaders and millennials alike. Recently he launched the Cascade Institute “..a centre addressing the full range of humanity’s converging environmental, economic, political and technological crises.”

His talk addresses the Upside of Down, his forthcoming book Commanding Hope, and the Cascade Institute.

Anticipatory Preparedness and Resilience in a Time of Escalating Risk with David Korowicz

April 9, 2020

Dr. David Korowicz is a physicist and human systems ecologist. He has over a decade of experience working on large-scale and catastrophic risk. This has included work on the socio-economic impacts of pandemics and constraints on oil production, financial system failure, and integrated analysis of civilizational risk. Until recently he worked with the Geneva Global Initiative; he is now working on preparedness and resilience planning arising from the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

COVID-19 Crisis Webinar with Nafeez Ahmed

April 1, 2020

Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed addressed a framework by which we can understand and respond to the COVID-19 crisis while anticipating its consequences and preparing for what’s next. OMEGA Advisory Board members engaged Dr. Ahmed in conversation.

Dr. Ahmed is an award-winning investigative journalist, systems theorist and change strategist. He is ‘system shift’ columnist at VICE where he reports on global system transformation and founding editor of the crowdfunded platform INSURGE-intelligence. He previously reported on the interconnections of global environment, energy and economic crises for The Guardian via his ‘Earth insight’ Guardian blog. His reporting can also be found in The Times, The Independent, The Atlantic, Quartz, Foreign Policy, New York Observer, Prospect, Le Monde diplomatique, and elsewhere. He is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization (Pluto, 2010), the first peer-reviewed social science study integrating a systems approach to climate, energy, food, economy, war, terror and state-militarisation, and Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence (Springer-Nature, 2017). Nafeez is a research fellow at the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems and a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts. The Evening Standard has twice include him on its list of the top 1,000 most influential Londoners.

Richard Heinberg – Real Community Resilience 2020 – 2040

March 16, 2020
Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute is one of the visionary thinkers of our time on community resilience. The New School host Michael Lerner chatted with Richard in a searching exploration of building community resilience for the coming turbulent decades.

The Resilience Gathering

June 6, 2019

The New School at Commonweal hosted The Resilience Gathering, including keynote speakers Nate Hagens and Joanna Macy, leading authorities in the field. They engaged several dozen participants on these questions:

• Can we avoid civilizational collapse?
• Can we “bend” and not “break”?
• We face a “perfect storm” of interacting global stressors. Is resilience a possible response?
• What does real resilience look like?

We continue to host and participate in resilience gatherings with our partners.

Regrettably, our planned November 1, 2019, gathering was cancelled due to wildfires and power outages in Northern California. The irony is not lost on us.