Ready for Anything: Designing Resilience for a Transforming World

The Mess What kind of trouble is our species and our planet in? What's likely to happen next? How can we think creatively about and understand the interconnected problems (climate, health, energy, governance, economy, etc.) that we face without getting overwhelmed by their complexity and uncertainty? How can we get ready for whatever is coming next? What can we do practically, at local, national and international level, in business and in the community? What sort of help does resilience offer? How can we design resilience? What happens when we do? As we pass the 7 billion mark, we are currently using the resources of about 11/2 Earths to support our collective lifestyle. But we only have one Earth. How can we design and vision one-planet living? Whether you help to run a country, a corporation, an NGO, a public service, a city, a school or a family - these are difficult questions. Particularly difficult when we can't even agree, for example, whether the climate is changing, whether we should build more nuclear power stations or close the ones we've got, and whether the free market offers the best hope or no hope at all for feeding and watering a population of 10 billion. Which is why, rather than face our problems, we too often bury our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is happening. The World System Model and IFF World Game: Working closely with the internationally-renowned International Futures Forum (IFF), futurist Tony Hodgson has developed, tried, tested and fine-tuned a model (The World System Model) and a practical application (The IFF World Game) that have already helped many different groups to ask these questions and generate their own answers. This book describes and explains The World System Model. The model offers the clearest way yet of examining and understanding the interconnected problems we face - and of formulating creative and transformative ways of approaching those problems. This book also explains how to make the model immediately accessible - in the form of The IFF World Game - to any group (school governors, city councillors, health service managers, concerned citizens, boards of directors, UN High Commission). It uses Case Studies to show how it has already been used in eight different situations from a national economics research council to a city school. Ready for Anything offers a clear and honest look at the state of the world today. It introduces The World System Model as a new and holistic way to gain an understanding our particular predicament - and The IFF World Game as a quick and effective way of involving others in the exercise. It goes on to examine the kind of resilient and adaptive solutions that can be most helpful to us - whether they are applied at the level of the school, the city or the Earth. Since so many of us (both human and other beings) have to live on this planet together, it sets out our best hope yet of finding sustainable ways of 'one-planet living'. Best of all, it helps ensure that we keep our heads out of the sand.