Does Human Survival Require The Collapse of 90 Companies?
As the first accredited blogger for the United Nations on climate change (UNFCCC – Bali 2007) my stories hit the news media first. Now, I’d focus on this report: Nearly two-thirds of carbon dioxide & methane emissions can be attributed to 90 entities. Of emissions, half has been emitted since 1986. To date, discussion and policy-making (also embed in the UNFCCC structure) is a focus on nation-states. However, when we take a look at who the major carbon producers are, we discover a simple, elegant, useful tool for future social and legal pressure. The entities reported by author Richard Heede hold two important assets—production capacity and proven recoverable reserves. When this is taken together with profit motives and tax and regulatory incentives that encourage them to discover and produce new fossil fuel reserves, hold the key to future fossil fuel production and emissions and thus, arguably, the future of the planetary climate system. Energy companies have strong financial incentives to produce and market their booked reserves and oppose efforts to leave their valuable assets in the ground but social and legal pressures may shift these incentives. Without minimizing the responsibility of developed nations, nor of China and India, Heede’s list includes the role of nations, such Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Iran, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Libya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and other countries that have not been at the center of discussions regarding responsibility for controlling emissions. Viewed in this light, what are the ethical, political, and legal arguments that could be enlisted or made mandatory to require these carbon majors to limit further dangerous interference with the climate system? Alexia Parks...
Global Governance And the Rise of Women
“Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.” Thus declared Secretary of State Henry L. Stimpson in pre-war 1929. He later changed his mind. If war provides a rational for secrets in the world of international politics, what would global governance based on shared economies, values and vision look like? Most of us would agree that in today’s complex, interconnected world, it’s time to shift from a world based on overconsumption, competition, and conflict, to one based on cooperation, collaboration, and sustainability. In this *possible* world – where cooperation is the norm, what role would secrets have, if any? Or should we, collectively, leave this relic from the Age of Wars behind? Alexia Parks is the Founder of the 10 TRAITS Women’s Leadership Development Academy. She is recognized as a thought leader and world expert on women’s leadership and empowerment, based on 10 powerful leadership traits hardwired into the FEMALE...
The Female Brain Is Hardwired for 21st Century Leadership
When a U.S. team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania broke the news that men and women’s brains were “hardwired differently,” I received a flood of congratulatory emails from family and friends who congratulated me with praise similar to that offered to a mother announcing the birth of a new child. The most compelling was from a family member, a junior at Stanford, who was the first to send me the news link via text message. Now vindicated by a team of scientists who did brain scans of over 1,000 men, women, boys and girls, I feel a bit like a trailblazer who now gets to move to the front of the parade. This science-based validation of my work, and Daniel’s text message, gives me hope. Until now, he had never read my book. And over the past year, my public talks have attracted only a handful of people from academia and science including a former president of Babson College, who pronounced it “Terrific! Powerful!” and a medical doctor who proclaimed: “I have attended 100′s, if not 1,000′s of presentations, and this was one of the best!” Now on the threshold of a new era, we are entering the DMZ, a safe zone between the Age of Competition and the Age of Collaboration, where men and women are discovering what I have been saying all along: My comments are based on 40-years worth of research across on a dozen fields of science, In my TED-style talks I use a “Chart of Opposites” to show that the hardwiring of men and women is both opposite AND complementary. Now my...
Today’s Inspirational Moment
If you wake up smiling, take a moment to look in the mirror. Look deeply into your own eyes and refresh yourself. IN THIS very moment, you are harnessing the power of attention to heal your own mind and body. Hold your focus on your face for a moment longer. See anew through the eyes of love, of forgiveness, of transformation. In this moment you are the same, the same person, yet totally...
Purchase Alexia Parks latest book