“It looks unlikely that leaders at the climate negotiations at Cancún will get it together to face reality and prevent catastrophe,” says Alan AtKisson, sustainability consultant to governments and business, and author of the bestselling book Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist’s World, a new edition of which is published this month by Earthscan.Yet despite this bleak prognosis, AtKisson makes the case for optimism:
“Cancún is not the whole story. The recent breakthrough on biodiversity (in Nagoya, Japan) proves that we can come together, as a world, to solve our problems.”
AtKisson is well placed to comment on our reasons for optimism. For nearly twenty years, he has worked around the globe with projects that are creating, as he calls them, “the Proof of the Possible.” “I have a fun job,” he says. “I get to watch as whole countries and companies plan and implementsignificant transformations in the way that they run themselves and/or do business. And I am still truly astonished at how fast things can change, once they start changing.”
AtKisson cites recent examples such as South Korea’s massive investment in a ‘Green Economy’, China’s astonishing rise as a major producer of renewable energy, and the accelerated “green turnarounds” in a variety of well-known global companies. His own recent work has included helping the United Nations develop a strategy for accelerating the spread of renewable energy, and working with a high-level council in Egypt that is planning for a “Green Transformation” in that country.
He also works with global companies. “Companies are ahead of governments when it comes to leading change for sustainability,” says AtKisson. “And the NGOs are leading them. Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement, for example, has defied the odds and made inspiring, global-scale impacts, with small amounts of money and huge amounts of people power.”
AtKisson directs The AtKisson Group, a world-leading sustainability consultancy to businesses, international bodies, NGOs and governments, and is the author of a bestselling book on sustainability. In its first edition, Believing Cassandra quickly rose to #1 on Amazon’s environmental list for 1999. The book, now fully revised and updated with the latest scientific assessments and world events, covers:
