Solving knotty problems

Another item from the program I listened to yesterday that really resonated was a conversation about geo-engineering & global warming.  Author Oliver Morton, who wrote “The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World” , was asked whether it was a good idea to bet the future of mankind on this kind of technology.  [For the benefit of those, who like me, have never heard the term geoengineering it is the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.]  They were discussing whether the kind of project which affected the whole globe would require some kind of planetary leadership and safeguards, and if these might be more  challenging than the engineering required.  He said that rather than proceeding with the blind optimism and just hoping it all worked out, we needed to go forward with caution and awareness of all the challenges but with the possibility of success in our minds and hearts too.  This enabled us to at least consider how we might succeed. 

Twice today, when faced with a client who was wrestling with some very knotty problems that had so far defied all efforts to resolved them, I referred them to this statement, and suggested that in order to succeed, they at least needed to accept that the problem was soluble.  Famously, Alexander the Great, when faced with the Gordian knot, found one radical way to solve it…..

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