Energy and Sustainability

[Stephen Wehrenberg stephen.wehre]

Posted by Stephen Wehrenberg <stephen.wehrenberg@verizon.net> Colleagues,

I am an alumnus of MIT Seminar XXI, which (as posted on the web site at http://web.mit.edu/semxxi/ ) is ""an educational program for senior military officers, government and NGO officials, and executives in the national security policy community. The program's objective is to provide future leaders of that community with enhanced analytic skills for understanding foreign countries and the relations among them."" I believe Ken Oye, Barry Posen, and Suzanne Berger (MIT) are on the Executive Committee, and Bob Art is the current program Director.

A colleague and friend, Mitzi Wertheim (CNAC), is one of the founders of the program, which just completed its 20th year. She and I, along with many alumni, are deeply concerned about energy security, and by extension about sustainability. We have formed another group, The Energy Consensus (http://energy.telascience.org/), members of which are exploring funding from various agencies (e.g., DOD, DOS, DHS) to start up a new Seminar series devoted to energy security and sustainability. The group is working on ""The Idiot's Guide to Energy"" right now, and has plans and champions to get the message of sustainability into a wide array of media.

As you can see from the Seminar XXI link above, the annual selection of fellows is highly competitive. The format is to have the fellows meet for short evening sessions punctuated by very intense, weekend long sessions where current experts from all over the world are brought in to interact with group.

We envision the same basic format for Seminar XXII (National and International Energy Security and Sustainability). We have access to experts in various aspects of energy (fossil and renewable) and sustainability. Each is quite able to tell the story -- from their particular point of view. What we have concluded after nearly a year of study is that (no surprise to the readers of this listserv) everything is connected to everything else, and ""emergent properties"" begin to predominate in the debate when various aspects of the complex energy situation are considered jointly. Energy is relatively straightforward (just physics, after all), but solutions to problems become elusive when economic, social, and political implications are brought into the fray.

What we don't have is someone who has national or even international stature, who is conversant in the broad dimensions of energy and sustainability, and who can speak to the big picture, helping the fellows expand their thinking to consider all the dimensions of the problem simultaneously.

I immediately thought of all the papers I've read over the years produced by SD practitioners, related to the topics at hand. If we are ever to find a true ""integrator"" to speak to these prospective Seminar XXII fellows, he or she will likely be found in the society of SD modelers.

So ... who should we contact to begin the process of arm twisting? Who is our ""energy issues integration expert?""

Collegially,

Steve

-- Stephen B. Wehrenberg, Ph.D.
/ /Human Resource Strategy and Capability Development, and Director, Future Force, US Coast Guard Organizational Sciences, The George Washington University stephen.wehrenberg@verizon.net Posted by Stephen Wehrenberg <stephen.wehrenberg@verizon.net> posting date Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:33:11 -0500