Speaker
Description
The firestorms in Los Angeles January 2025 demonstrate how cities, even in the richest of all nations, are increasingly vulnerable. Then it seems this vulnerability is amplified by social extremism (blaming migrants, diversion of social funds, also looting): climate denial (complete rejection of the scientific consensus): financial hijack (price-inflation for emergency accommodation): and political weaponization (blaming the other party for everything).
In this situation the mainstream ‘research-policy-advice’ consensus on urban resilience is near-useless. In response, we are testing methods for ‘real-world-mapping’, by asking the ‘wrong questions’ in a program of guided role-plays: –
- How do I/we make money out of climate disasters / climate policy?
- How do I/we take power from climate disasters / climate policy?
- How do I/we get advantage (ideology, colonization etc) from climate disasters / policy?
The approach is based on the synergistic methods (‘cognitive systems for deeper complexity’), as in the Mind-Lab (www.manchester.ac.uk/synergistics/ ). The full program includes for outreach to alternative communities such as denialists, conspiracy theorists, far-right extremists. Some early results from case studies including Manchester, Chennai, Cairo etc, will be put up for discussion.
References
Ravetz, J, (2020), Deeper City: collective intelligence and the pathways from smart to wise. NY, Routledge: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315765860
Ravetz, J, Neuvonen, A, Mäntysalo, R, (2020) The New Normative: Synergistic Scenario Planning for Carbon-Neutral Cities and Regions. Regional Studies (special issue on regional futures). https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2020.1813881
| Keywords | social extremism; climate denial; financial hijack; political weaponization; |
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