The warnings around climate change continue to increase in volume and intensity, but with little effect on effecting change in our collective behaviour. Here's that latest, as reported in the Globe and Mail:

If current temperature trends continue to the end of the century, the Earth's climate will be warm enough to cause a massive melting of Greenland's ice sheet and a partial collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet, resulting in a torrent of melt water that will raise global sea levels by up to six metres, according to a pair of new research papers.... ...He said that if serious efforts to limit global warming are not taken soon, "we're committed to four to six metres of sea-level rise in the future."

Four to six metres by the end of this century. This is sobering, to say the least. Meanwhile, at our friendly global hegemon to the south of us, science and scientists are being suppressed. This is remarkable and puzzling. With so much scientific consensus, why is denial such a strong force among some, and why is denial strongest where power is most concentrated? The challenges around the management of complex systems made more complex by past human intervention was a major topic in Thomas Homer-Dixon's The Ingenuity Gap, which was a big influence on my thinking. A call to action for increased creativity, innovation and ingenuity, Homer-Dixon highlighted the dangers of thinking that past performance will predict future results. Complex systems may appear long-run stable and then hit a tipping point that triggers a sudden change to a new stable equilibrium. Economic, political, ecological and social systems all display this kind of behaviour, and the adjustments can be very dangerous. I have a profound respect for the power of human creativity to overcome most any challenge. But I also believe that as a society we need to cultivate, protect and grow that creative spark in order to create much better ideas to address some very serious collective action problems. Complexity and our inability to manage it is challenging our economic and political systems and straining our institutions' capacity to adapt to a rapidly increasing rate of change. This is the challenge of our age, and one that needs to be articulated and discussed.

Technorati Tags: Creativity, Innovation