One of the hidden benefits of the recession is that more and more people are starting their own businesses. People are taking this opportunity to pursue industries and ideas that have not previously fit in to the standard business models. Sustainable small businesses that separate recyclables and specialized health food stores are just two examples of the diverse new industries that are popping up everywhere.

From the beginning of time, women have worked at home, as well as outside of the home for the well being of family. Even in colonial America, women worked in the manufacture and sale of goods. In 17th and 18th century America, women worked at home with their husbands. Employment opportunities for women were scarce. When cities and towns emerged, women became shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. Post-revolutionary America found women working at home again.

Society embraced the idea of the ideal woman and diminished the expectation for a woman’s contribution to family financial health. Instead, men assumed the burden of sole provider while women stayed at home more and more. But during World War II, women again entered the workforce in great numbers. In response to a need for new workers and new production, six million women went to work during the war.

Today, women enter business only to encounter the glass ceiling. Women only rise to a certain point. Thankfully, access to higher education and professional programs is changing that. And women have taken their place in accounting, architecture, engineering, medicine, journalism and psychology professional. Still, they remain stymied by the glass ceiling. In medicine, for one, only about 10 percent of women faculty members are full professors while almost a third of their male colleagues are full professors.

The result: by establishing their own businesses, women entrepreneurs can avoid the discrimination that impairs their success in a male business world. Entrepreneurs create their own schedule, work from home, and even restrict the number of projects they take on at one time. These benefits are especially meaningful for working mothers, a particularly fast-growing sector of the entrepreneurs club.

It is big news then to learn that Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington will make her first Cleveland-area speaking engagement April 25 at the inaugural Female Entrepreneur Summit.

The conference, presented by Cleveland Business Connects magazine and Ursuline College, will feature eight prominent businesswomen. Marked by morning and afternoon sessions, the event is scheduled from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 700 Beta Banquet and Conference Center in Mayfield
Village.

Huffington is an entrepreneur extraordinaire. In addition to being the president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group, is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of 13 books. Time magazine named her one of its 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2011. She was declared by Financial Times to be one of the 50 people who shaped the last decade, and she is one of the most influential women in the media, according to Forbes.

There is a crack in the glass ceiling. Nearly 40% percent of all U.S. businesses are women-owned, and by 2025 the Census Bureau projects it will rise to 55%. The trend is new, dating back just to the 1980s, but its impact is already felt. Not only are women achieving empowerment and bettering their lives in many different ways, but the beneficial affect on the economic well-being of the entire country is also clear. Given 85% of young women want a job that can help them “achieve something significant”, we can hope the twice-as-many female founders of the future will not only grow women’s enterprise, but social enterprise.

It all began as one great experiment, at the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and ’40. “Highways and Horizons,” better known as “Futurama,” was overwhelmingly the fair’s most popular exhibit; perhaps 10 percent of the American population saw it. At the heart of the exhibit was a scale model, covering an area about the size of a football field, that showed what American cities and towns might look like in 1960.

E. B. White wrote in Harper’s, “A ride on the Futurama … induces approximately the same emotional response as a trip through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine … I didn’t want to wake up.”

Visitors watched matchbox-sized cars zip down wide highways. Gone were the crowded tenements of the time; 1960s Americans would live in stand-alone houses with spacious yards and attached garages. The exhibit would not impress us today, but at the time, it inspired wonder.
Back then, half of the U.S. population resided in rural, densely populated areas. Following World War II, new prosperity in the economy encouraged suburban growth. With higher wages and lower interest rates, Americans could afford to live in newer residential developments farther away from urban areas.

Suburban sprawl, now the standard North American pattern of growth, ignores historical precedent and human experience. It is an invention, conceived by architects, engineers, and planners, and promoted by developers in the great sweeping aside of the old that occurred after
the Second World War. By the 1950’s buses were disappearing and everyone wanted a car. We dreamed of cars as we dreamed of lovers. They expressed our fantasies; they fulfilled our desires. Our intense love affair with cars began as soon as they were invented. Despite congested traffic, road rage, polluted air, and rising gas prices, Americans have never changed their driving or car ownership patterns.

The anti-urban bias in our history is very old. Thomas Jefferson derided cities as “sores.” Tracing mistrust of cities all the way back to George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the historian Thomas Bender has written: “Are cities American? Yes and no. Cities and their populations have never been completely excluded from the promise of American life, but neither have they yet been wholly accepted.”

New Urbanists view the decentralized, auto-oriented suburb as a recipe for disaster. They blame these suburbs for ever-increasing congestion on arterial roads, a lack of meaningful civic life, the loss of open space, limited opportunities for children and others without cars, and a general discontent among suburbanites. Have we forgotten that the story of our cities is the story of American progress?

Some say it is a grim situation: the environment I mean. They wonder out loud if anyone remembers BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign? In the end, they say BP showed their true colors; improving their image and little else. In the big picture, they say, we are winning a few battles but losing the war.

The is an argument, hard as it might be to accept, that grassroots activism is not a systemic solution. Lobbying to get new regulations passed is not a systemic solution. Laws to get polluters to clean up their act are not systemic solutions. These actions are not systemic solutions because they do not change the system. They do not resolve root causes.

The debate is over whether we could or should take a different approach realizing that all problems come from a root cause. Sustainability is over-used and largely misunderstood. Some argue that so-called sustainable solutions often do not resolve their root causes. Humanity is behaving unsustainably, so the sustainability problem is clearly systemic. Only systemic solutions will resolve root causes.

Where is this all taking us? Simply this. As the problems of the world are complex, the problem of sustainability is complex involving a web of connectedness to psycho-social and ecological issues. The reason for the wide range of opinion everywhere is that complexity places sustainability in a hard to achieve position without the collaboration of many different stakeholders.

‘But what arguement? Going green can be profitable,’ you say. ‘After all, Walmart and Unilever have reduced their costs and improved their environmental impact. The Walmart’s and Unilever’s of the world somehow realized that one-off social or environmental initiatives are not enough. And today, sustainable performance is part of everything they do companies do – from how employees are managed to the overall structure of the organization and how work is designed.’

These companies took an alternative to the profit-above-all approach, instead choosing to focus on the triple bottom line. They took the high road integrating people, planet and profit. Some other organizations have done the same by integrating sustainability into their very DNA as well. What could be wrong with that?

If the naysayers are right, only systemic solutions will resolve root causes. While most of us focus on the positive side of sustainability – its creative and restorative intent – looking at it through a psychodynamic lens serves to surface some of its unconscious dimensions – it has a shadowy side. Even sustainable organizations have a “profit-above-all” mentality. The problem with organizations adopting a bottom line orientation toward sustainability is that, more often than not, they only do those things that are visible. They do the things that will deliver a quick financial payoff. They do not go above and beyond. They do not change the system. They do not resolve the root causes.

Some day someone will figure it all out. They found a way when the world realized that democracy trumped dictatorship. Now, once again, humanity is behaving unsustainably and there has to be a better way. What is it going to take to change that? Democratic environmentalism?

There is a construction boom on the other side of the world that no one really cares about except for a few international players. A $10 billion Hong Kong construction industry that is by 2015. For me, at least, the most interesting news is that Hong Kong has joined the ranks of China’s prime eco-cities. Richard Register first coined the term “ecocity” in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future. By all counts, Hong Kong is a sustainable city.

“Go Green” mania is sweeping the mainland has helped raise the profile of similar projects and enormously lifted the awareness of and support for a cleaner and greener environment in Hong Kong. Still, it is hard to imagine that this is a city that is going green. Vehicles clog roads in every direction. Construction cranes stretch to the horizon. And huge posters displaying locally produced industrial goods show where the city’s exploding economic growth is coming from.

One half of the world’s population lives in cities and urban areas. These large communities provide both challenges and opportunities for environmentally conscious developers. Contrary to common belief, urban systems are often more environmentally sustainable than rural or suburban living. Cities like Hong Kong benefit the economy by locating human capital in one relatively small geographic area where ideas can be generated.

Hong Kong and Guangdong have joined hands to try to drastically cut emissions by major air pollutants in the region. The objective is to transform the Greater PRD region into an exemplary city cluster of green and quality living, characterized by a safe and healthy ecology and environment and low-carbon sustainable economic development.

The Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) was inaugurated a few years ago with its goals – Accreditation, Assessment, Award, and Advocacy. By the end of 2011, there were over 120 projects registered for BEAM Plus assessment. In parallel, they established HKGBC BEAM Faculty to facilitate the BEAM Plus in both technical and procedural enquiries.

They launched BEAM Pro training and examination to grant the “Accreditation” to professionals in supporting the BEAM Plus initiative. There have been over 1,300 BEAM Pro attained the accreditation less than two years later.

The Council stepped up and led the Hong Kong Delegation of about 70 delegates to engage with international green building stakeholders through joining the World Sustainable Building Conference (SB11) in Helsinki, Finland last year. And, in recent months, HKGBC launched the Green Building Award (GBA) 2012 to encourage the industry key stakeholders to participate in this important event.

The theme of this year is “Towards Zero Carbon”; dreaming of a green and sustainable city of Hong Kong that brings an even healthier and rewarding life for our community.

Something else is new to Hong Kong and the once-notorious, pollution-plagued Pearl River Delta; a technology never applied before in this part of the world. It is an integrated civil technology concept – a part of the global green habitat building process – about to take hold on the mainland and finds sufficient steam to spread to other parts of China.

A “Community Under One Roof” indoor city, based on intelligent, high technology construction, is the brainchild of Swiss-born German entrepreneur Daniel Muessli. He is kick starting a $1 billion project on the shores of the scenic Dongting Lake in Hunan Province. Hong Kong has all the credentials to take a leaf from the intended project. “Our concept is based on economical aspects and evaluation of large-scale projects which will eventually replace urbanization in a conventional high-rise city like Hong Kong ,” says Muessli. “We’re talking about a great building concept for the future, and whatever that’s going to find their way into mainland China, we hope it can very well be applied to Hong Kong”.

Community Under One Roof is planned as a low-carbon environmentally friendly project that will one day offer luxury resort and hotel style accommodation as well as comprehensive public amenities. All shaped to fit in with a commercially and economically advanced international metropolis.

Of course, the world is growing smaller every day. The globalization of economies is evolving and then again, electronic communication makes it feasible along with ease of world travel. The global stage is intimidating but the move can pay off for those willing to think beyond their usual boundaries. The global construction industry is a $7.5 trillion market, set to increase to $12.7 trillion by 2020.

For many, establishing foreign branches is an opportunity to create one-of-a-kind, world-class buildings that may never have been built in a developed Western nation. Western designers are sought after in up-and-coming countries. And their budgets often provide designers with a playground-like ability to literally think outside the box.

A few decades ago, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was nothing more than a small fishing village. Today, large numbers of the world’s construction cranes operating in Dubai. Consider the stats. The World Bank estimates that half of the planet’s new construction is expected to occur in China over the next eight years.

The Global Construction 2020 report claims the Chinese construction will overtake the United States by 2018. India is going to overtake Japan to become the third biggest market. Nigeria’s building work is booming. Their emerging 149.1 million population is urbanizing at one of the fastest rates in the world. The Brazilian construction market is expected to double as the country looks forward to hosting the 2014 World Cup. And Eastern Europe is redesigning their cities. Decaying buildings are being replaced. Russia’s construction industry has been going up 25% every year.

So maybe the gamble is worth it event if the first few years takes a major investment yielding a very low return. But it is not easy. Physical borders exist. The more apparent borders in modern global trade and business are the cultural ones. The largest of these is understanding a new culture and language.

Communication barriers are not purely linguistic in nature. Cultural clashes are common. It is inevitable when two cultures coming together. Sometimes they can be humorous, other times, offensive. These clashes are most obvious in business relationships. From verbal to non-verbal communication, from language to attitudes – culture clashes in business are very common.

Every country has different customs, each of which influences spatial design. And business practices vary wherever you go. Some countries like the UK, US and Germany are more interested in getting the work done, while in the Far East, relationships are given more importance even in business dealings. In the U.K., each trade is given a separate tender package where one general contractor manages the trades.

Sometimes non-verbal communication can cause misunderstandings too. In other parts of the world, especially in India, people are not expected to speak up in a meeting unless they are in a position of power. Cultural differences exist. To accept it and acknowledge is the best way to prevent cultural clashes. Operating a business that is able to function in multiple languages is the first step.

Some companies go to the expense of hiring multi-lingual employees from varied cultural backgrounds. Others even work with consultants to create business models that stay current on international events and relationships.
Ultimately, globalization is partially responsible for breaking down doors of ignorance and intolerance as people of all traditions and beliefs are recognizing and functioning with one another.

Is it worth the effort, after all, not every office does well all of the time. It may be that so-called wise companies are not just looking for profits. They are looking for growth, stability and sustainability. Spreading offices across different countries can deliver that. When one market is up and one is down, there is coverage. Those with foreign offices will say that it is not always about the money. It is more about building relationships and better serving existing clients. In time, and it does take time, offices eventually prove viable.

Of course, globalization is not perfect. Greed and the faults of capitalism will take advantage of people especially in developing nations. Corporations will continue to prosper to the point where people fear they can end up ruling the world. Yes. Globalization is flawed but it promotes peace and global interdependency, which leads to a bright future.

Market leadership is precarious; a dubious prize: The correlation between profitability and industry share is slipping. It is difficult for some to clearly identify in what industry and with which companies they are competing. That is because traditional approaches to strategy are often seen as the answer to change and uncertainty. Traditional approaches actually assume a relatively stable and predictable world.

The mental story we construct to explain adversity is recognized by psychologists as a step toward overcoming them. There are certain ingredients the story needs in order to facilitate resilience. But there is no effective technology for teaching feeling good which does not first teach doing well.

It is all about human limitations. No one is completely helpless or all-powerful in any situation. But taking the view that a situation is not hopeless is unlikely to hurt anyone and almost certainly will help. When optimism is firmly rooted in reality, it allows us to acknowledge setbacks and see them as opportunities for growth. Having a mission or goal larger than oneself can also provide a long-term view that helps to overcome adversity.

One goal offered by industrial ecology might be a framework for shifting industrial systems from a linear model to a closed-loop model that resembles the cyclical flows of natural ecosystems. In nature, there is no waste.

Forces of change, such as they are, will inevitably disrupt the cycles of material and energy flows. Therefore, achieving sustainability will arguably require the development of resilient, adaptive industrial and societal systems that mirror the dynamic attributes of ecological systems. The sustainability of living systems – including us – within the changing Earth system will depend on their resilience.

In a business context, enterprise resilience means the capacity for an enterprise to survive, adapt, and grow in the face of turbulent change. When it comes to sustainability and resilience, creativity, relationships, change, growth, optimism, altruism, narrative, a moral compass, goals and missions all demand that we look forward. Together they produce another compelling trait: hope.

Faced with a ‘megatrend’ of growing scarcity, rising prices, and competition for resources, there is evidence that we are in crisis of adversity. Some say it is arguable whether or not focussing on austerity and structural reform will create jobs or restore the economy. But, investment in the ‘green economy’ can connect these two.

The Resilience Alliance proposes a new model to characterize the evolution of complex, non-linear systems in terms of an “adaptive cycle”. Models like these may provide fresh insight, but are unlikely to achieve a rigorous and scientifically defensible predictive capability in a world where certainty has become an anachronism, and decision-making must occur in the context of a wide spectrum of changing possibilities.

Economic expansion raises questions about how existing systems can meet today’s needs without compromising the well-being of future generations. Technology development must be accompanied with the feasibility of eco-efficiency, sustainability, and resilience of these new technologies, providing a sound scientific basis for public policy formulation and research priority setting.

Hope is a future-oriented belief; no matter how bleak the present, we can envision a better future. Now is the time to invest in long-term productive assets. America needs to strengthen innovation to reduce resource imports and exposure to resource shocks.

Great power creates great expectations. Society holds global businesses accountable as the only institutions strong enough to meet the huge long-term challenges facing our planet. Coming to grips with them is more than a corporate responsibility. It is essential for corporate survival. As social, economic and ecological conditions get worse, sustainability is moving towards designing for adaptive capacity.

That does not replace our current state of the art but adds intention and concern to deepen our sustainability efforts. To endure in a changeable world with more limits on resources and less credit, companies must develop and execute a strategy for sustainability. That does not mean a green strategy.

Sustainability is much bigger. It requires expanding adaptive capacity means enabling people and systems to survive in a complex and uncertain planet. Thirty years ago, business considered the word sustainability to mean a company’s ability to increase its earnings steadily. That all changed. A UN report by Norway’s former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who defined sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.”

These days sustainability has a dark side: “greenwashing” that focuses more on communicating corporate green efforts than on the efforts themselves.
The good news is that resources on business adaptation to climate change are available and investment paybacks can be short.

Designers are coming to grips with creating local resilience and self-reliance; resilience that is concerned with cycles of change and positive adaptation. Any proposal for sustainable development that does not focus on system’s resilience will not deliver the “goods”.

Despite regional differences, the world is undeniably becoming more urban. The challenge for sustainability in the 21st century will be won or lost in cities and their larger urban regions. Transition Towns are popping up all over the globe. People are beginning to redesign their cities.

Resilience and resourcefulness are allowing people to create and maintain the necessities of life, to rethink their relationship to “things”. It is a collaborative effort not something that can be bought-and-sold. Resilience requires building an adaptable social infrastructure, something that will ensure meaningful participation and achieve equity. Resilience demands a new way of thinking about sustainability. Resilience depends on being able to adapt to unprecedented and unexpected changes.

We live in an era of risk and instability. Globalization, new technologies, and greater transparency continue to upend the business environment and give CEOs a deep sense of unease. In the new urban world, planners and designers will find new ways to provide for sustainable ecosystems. Look at the Green Streets program in Portland, Oregon, urban stormwater wetlands in Potsdammer Platz in Berlin, Germany, wildlife highway crossings as in Banff National Park, Alberta, and floodplain parks as in Buffalo Bayou, Houston Texas.

Consider multi-scale networks including greenways and ecological networks. The Staten Island Bluebelt is a good example, supporting urban drainage, wildlife habitat and recreational functions in New York City. Planning policies or designs like these can become “experiments” for the sake of knowledge and understanding; knowing all along that if urban planning and design are to be truly innovative and adaptive in its pursuit of sustainability and resilience, those experiments have the potential to fail.

Disaster scenarios are played out by governments periodically to test the capabilities of their emergency response teams. The list of possible disasters has been expanded to include climate change. Changing weather patterns could wreak havoc. Buildings, streets and city infrastructures have been designed to withstand certain types of weather that have been the norm in the past but may be very different in future.

Our biggest cities could be at risk. Imagine Manhattan afflicted by a mega storm. Under the pressure of intense rainfall, the subway would flood and the sewage systems overflow. Water supplies would have to be cut off. Electricity intermittent.

The effects of climate change are a reality. People who experience floods first-hand know the terrible impact flooding has on communities, homes and livelihoods. The worldwide cost of adaptation – including better flood defences, improving transport infrastructure and higher resistance to drought – is likely to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030.

What can we do to “climate-proof” our cities? We might install flood barriers in coastal cities. People are experimenting with floating houses, designed to rise with the waters instead of being overwhelmed by them. Natural measures like the restoration of wetlands and swamps act like a sponge. River courses can be adapted or restored to allow them to flood in a controlled fashion.

Some cities are recreating green spaces like parks and gardens, and installing “green roofs” on buildings. In the case of electricity grids, redundancy might work best. That means more substations and more cables, so that if some go down, others carry on working. On transport networks, such as railways and roads, it means extra lengths of track and alternative routes.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently stated that, compared with previous years, 2010 had seen the largest number of people affected and dying from flooding. A the same time, researchers have been busy working to find out what traits are shared by the people who demonstrate a great capacity to cope hoping that this will help others to become more resilient to stress and trauma.

Some people are born with a naturally positive outlook. Optimism is a key factor in resilience. But building resilience is not a personally heroic an achievement. Building resilience is nearly impossible outside of the protective influence of positive interpersonal relationships. People need nourishing relationships from childhood to develop a healthy mental outlook. In the ideal situation the cradle of resilience is the family unit – an individual’s first source of attachment, affectionate support and positive role models.

Resilience is after all childsplay; an ongoing interaction between nature and nurture, encouraged by supportive relationships that shape neural connections in the emerging mind.

Some say 2012 represents the storm before the calm, that we are about to experience a new era of increased understanding and renewed enlightenment. They say we will enter this new age not only with a complete knowledge of where we have been, but with an increased understanding of where we are going and where we need to be. Our continuing survival will be rooted in our willingness to honor and respect ourselves, our neighbors, our environment.

Global policymakers and strategic planners face difficult choices. Sustainable development and social responsibility have become important strategic issues for companies in virtually every industry. Interface, a leading producer of industrial floor coverings, was an early adopter of sustainability principles. Chevron is incorporating sustainability into its business models by developing profitable approaches for meeting public energy needs without bias toward any particular technology. General Motors (GM) has adopted a corporate-responsibility framework
that combines social responsiveness with corporate values and business goals.

Still, it seems, the more efficient companies become in terms of resource use, the more rapidly the economy grows. This “rebound effect” increase society’s industrial ecological footprint.  Our ecological demands have already exceeded what nature can supply. Progress is being made but the scope and complexity of sustainable energy and mobility issues remains daunting.

There is hope that market-based systems will yield efficient reductions through available technologies, but efforts to develop alternative low-carbon technologies are severely under funded. Perhaps that is because there are a number of pressing ecological issues – soil resilience, biodiversity, water quality, deforestation.

Adaptation to climate change is a serious consideration even though it will take global cooperation, infrastructure investment, and large-scale engineering to assure the level of resilience we need to respond to ecosystem disruptions. Only a coordinated effort will achieve genuine systemic change. That will take improved modeling techniques and a more rigorous science of sustainability.

Progress, at least in theory, must be balanced with policy implementation to enrich our understanding of sustainability issues in real-world systems. But, if the 2012 we are about to experience is the storm before the calm, excessive modeling may become an excuse for delaying political action.

Sustainable development in a changing global environment will require
resilience at every level. By 2030 over 60% of the world’s population will live in cities. Extraordinarily resilient, from 1100 to 1800 only 42 cities worldwide have ever been abandoned after their destruction. Today, natural disasters and deliberate attacks, have increased concern over urban vulnerability.

Resilience is a powerful idea. It is the new enlightened reality. We need adaptive policies and strategies to cope with the challenges of unexpected change.

Some people believe that our brain knows when something bad is going to happen. Maybe you are one of those who have experienced that. If it was an Earthquake, or a Volcano, then there might be an explanation for the butterflies and small earthquake swarms your body feels sometimes. If we go down this path into the unknown, we might ask the question; do our thoughts control the Sun, or does the Sun control our thoughts?

Any surfer will tell you, the 9th wave of the 9th set is the best to surf on, so you wait for the sets until it is upon you. So, considering cycles in nature, economics, business, climate, life, weather, patterns, and complex systems is it possible that we do not know all we think we know.

Some people believe taht this year the solar maximum could cause increases in ambient atmospheric temperatures and expansion of the atmosphere causing droughts, longer hurricane seasons and storms. Changes in the earth in 2012 could irritate the already overdue to erupt Yellowstone super volcano, causing similar catastrophic events as the past. Super volcanoes cause massive amounts of pressure from incoming magma to build up over thousands of years till a stimulus like an earthquake cracks the crust open, releasing an explosion equal to 1,000 atomic bombs.

Yellowstone is at the point where almost anything could cause the massive pressure in the Caldera to break through the surface and explode even as early as this year. Even the interstellar plasma from the galactic alignment, the suns energy from the solar storms, the magnetic fields from the pole reversal and an atom bomb from a nuclear war could be enough.

We have no possible way of knowing when and how our planet will end. But we should be smart enough and intuitive enough to know when sure and imminent danger is near. We can be certain that some very dramatic and devastating changes are coming. We must be willing to recognize and react to signs of coming change. We have already become witness to a gathering storm of events that are slowly and systematically redefining this planet.

Massive floods devastate, extreme heat decimates and intense fires incinerate the ground on which we stand. Tornadoes strike in uncommon places at uncommon times of the year. Severe thunderstorms with intense lighting and uncommonly strong winds are becoming more prevalent.

Something very unusual and unsettling is taking place all around the world. Our social and moral values are in decline. Our global system of socio-economic stability is failing. Our political systems have become increasingly more corrupt and self-serving. In an economically shaken world, there will be fortunes lost and opportunities made as in any crisis. Regardless of whether or not these events happen in the near future or far off future, the reality is they will happen.

All this doom and gloom is not so good but we do need a plan, a real one and not just a run-for-cover chaotic scramble. Some people believe we should think about that.