Speakers
Mr. David Wasdell
Director of the Meridian Programme, Meridian House
A leading analyst and consultant in organizational change with degrees in mathematics, physics and theology, David Wasdell has pioneered the application of psycho-social analysis to the behavior of complex social systems with particular attention to conditions of high stress, low resource and rapid change. Over three decades of consultancy-research he has established links between common early imprinting (pre and peri-natal psychology) and the behavior of large social groups. Working with skills drawn from the fields of complex adaptive systems, organizational learning and complexity science, David has developed strategies of intervention to enable large populations to respond to rapid transition in value systems, lifestyle, and environmental conditions.
The paper “Global Warning” was prepared for the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles. It addressed the three themes of climate change, footprint overshoot and dysfunctional psychological response, and led to the identification of the feedback dynamics in climate change as the most critical threat to global civilization. Applying the skills of soft-systems analysis to the non-linear behavior of the climate feedback processes, integrated to the global level, David has highlighted the pattern of acceleration in global warming leading to uncontrollable, runaway climate change and the existence of a “tipping point” in the system that precipitates a hot-earth solution and triggers a major extinction event. In the light of this understanding, the task of Climate Stabilization takes on a new urgency, while the damping of the feedback dynamics will require far more stringent intervention than had previously been envisaged.
David is currently working with other leading climate scientists to establish the “Manhattan Project of Climate Science.” The preliminary announcement of the initiative is expected to be made at the Washington Summit.
