FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

16/09/09 LONDON, UK: History is being made today at the British Museum where WorldShift 2012, a new global movement dedicated to co-creating the foundations of a peaceful, just and sustainable world by the end of 2012, launches with the help of a powerful alliance of change-focused organizations and committed individuals.

 

WorldShift 2012 draws inspiration from the new book WorldShift 2012: Making Green Business, New Politics, and Higher Consciousness Work Together from the eminent Scientist-Philosopher Dr Ervin Laszlo, who developed integral systems theories and who writes about the Akashic Field that connects us all with each other and with the universe. The book is also being formally launched on 9/9/9 at the British Museum.

 

WorldShift 2012 is an initiative from The Club of Budapest, whose mission is to be a catalyst for the transformation to a sustainable world through promoting the emergence of planetary consciousness; interconnecting generations and cultures; integrating spirituality, science, and the arts and fostering learning communities worldwide.

 

Honorary and Creative Members of the Club of Budapest include Dr Laszlo and living legends such as the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Deepak Chopra, Jane Goodall, Hazel Henderson, Paolo Coelho, Muhammad Yunus, Vaclav Havel, Barbara Marx Hubbard and many other leading thinkers.

 

“It has been said that our generation is the first in history that can decide whether it’s the last in history,” said Dr Laszlo. “We need to add that our generation is also the first in history that can decide whether it will be the first generation of a new phase in history. We have reached a watershed in our social and cultural evolution,” he added.

 

“We need to centre attention on the evolution of human values and consciousness as the crucial factors in changing course — from a race toward degradation, polarization, and disaster to a rethinking of values and priorities so as to navigate today's transformation in the direction of humanism, ethics, and global sustainability," Dr Laszlo explained.

 

“WorldShift 2012 is a handbook for the twenty-first century that speaks to you in person,” said Mikhail Gorbachev, the former President of the Soviet Union and Founder of Green Cross International. “It is written in the hope that you will not only read it, but will also think through the things it tells you. WorldShift 2012 helps us to understand the current situation of our planet and to find the path we must take.  It helps us determine what we must do and how we must do it to ensure our common well-being. Read this handbook, and start thinking! This is important for you, for your family, for your present or future children and grandchildren, for your friends, and for everyone around you," he added.

 

“Beyond crisis-driven news, another world is rising,” said Deepak Chopra, Physician, Spiritual Leader and Author. “Ervin Laszlo maps this new world and its promise. No-one I know is more acutely attuned to it…Laszlo joins a small group of deeply versed thinkers who grasp that all experience occurs in consciousness and nowhere else. WorldShift is about an outer world built on inner realization. Such a world is possible, as this book shows, and indeed is already being born in the hearts of millions of people. Higher consciousness, which has been evolving through human beings for centuries, is seeding a garden of hope and promise,” he added.

 

WorldShift 2012 outlines the two stark choices we face: ‘Business As Usual’ or ‘Timely Transformation’. 

 

“Dr Laszlo concisely describes the effects of unsustainability in the ecology, in the economy and in society,” said Gareth Strangemore-Jones, Co-Initiator of WorldShift 2012. “He then offers us the hope that if we can collectively and consciously decide by the end of 2012 that we want to transition to a sustainable future, this can be achieved with dedicated and committed personal and collective actions,” he added.

 

“WorldShift 2012 is an open and inclusive organization that seeks to unite and harness the conscious efforts of individuals, NGO’s and social enterprises and to focus a collective effort towards meeting that 2012 decision window. We can all take responsibility by proactively and positively engaging in civic, business, media and personal activism,” he explained.

 

WorldShift 2012 seeks to create the conditions to allow us to shift from compulsive consumption to conscious consumption; from having to being; from living on nature to being a harmonious part of the ecosystem; from GM and pesticide-based agriculture to organic agriculture; from work based on ‘having’ to work based on ‘being’; from overcoming others to giving consideration to others; from living superficially to giving meaning to one’s life; from business is business to life is life; from personal interests to the interests of the community; from mutual-interest acquaintances to true friendships exploitation to respect; from conditioning to liberty; from inconsiderate consumption to ethical consumption; from mere formalities to sincerity; from being a spectator to being a participant; from money to love.

 

“The shift of evolution itself from unconscious to conscious choice is to me the signal of the evolution of the species of Homo Sapiens,” says Barbara Marx Hubbard, Founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution once described by the great Buckminster Fuller as ‘the most enlightened being on the planet’ . Quoting Sri Aurobindo, Barbara Marx Hubbard said: “Man is a transitional species.  Transitional toward what is the key question?   We are in transition to a co-creative, planetary, universal species, the fulfillment of the aspiration of the ages, the hearts’ desire of countless millions. We will gain ‘evolutionary eyes,’ and can see ourselves from the ‘Overview Perspective’ as a species emerging toward its birth as a universal humanity,” she explained.

 

The launch event in the evening of 9/9/9 at the British Museum will involve a reading by Actress Rula Lenska of the WorldShift 2012 Declaration – a one page document that calls upon all people to personally engage in the timely transformation required. The Declaration will be endorsed by personal messages from people like Hazel Henderson (Economist & Activist), Raffi (Children’s Singer and Ecoactivist) and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

 

The WorldShift 2012 Declaration will then be discussed by a panel of distinguished thinkers including Dr Laszlo; Dr Jude Currivan (Cosmologist, Healer and Author); Polly Higgins (Founder, The Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights); David Woolfson (President of the Club of Budapest Canada / Co-Initiator of WorldShift 2012); Charlie Gay (CEO, Humanity Unites Brilliance); Hiroo Saionji (Chairman, The Goi Peace Foundation); Lawrence Bloom (Founder of the Global Action Plan / Chair of the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda Council on Urban Management / Chair of the UN Environmental Programme, Green Economy Initiative Panel on Green Cities, Buildings and Transport) and will be hosted by Dr Robin Wood (Author and Founder of Renaissance2) before being opened up the invited audience to debate.

 

WorldShift 2012 will also announce a series of events, activities and partnership programmes designed to raise awareness and funds for the communications required and to seed fund social, economic and environmental solutions.

 

For more information and to sign the WorldShift 2012 Declaration online, visit worldshift2012.org

 

There is no doubt that we are now in a state of global emergency. This unprecedented worldwide crisis is a symptom of a much deeper problem: the current state of our consciousness; how we think about ourselves, and our world. We have the urgent need, and now the opportunity, for a complete rethink: to reconsider our values and priorities, to understand our interconnectedness and to shift to a new direction - living in harmony with nature and each other.

 

Every person, community, and society in the world is already, or will soon be, affected by this global crisis, through climate change, economic breakdown, ecosystem collapse, population pressure, food and water shortages, resource depletion, nuclear and other threats. If we continue on our present unsustainable path, by mid-century the Earth could become largely uninhabitable for human and countless other forms of life. However, total system-collapse could occur much sooner caused by eco-catastrophes or escalating wars triggered by religious, geopolitical or resource conflicts.

 

These threats are real. The underlying causes of the present worldwide crisis have been building momentum for decades and could soon become irreversible. Estimates of when the points of no return will be reached have been reduced from the end of the century, to midcentury, to the next twenty years, and recently to the next five to ten years.

 

The window of opportunity for shifting our current path and breaking through to a peaceful and sustainable world may be no more than a few years from now. This timeline coincides with the many forecasts and prophecies that speak of the ending of the current cycle of human life on this planet, and the possible dawning of a new consciousness, by the end of the year 2012.

 

Today, forward-thinking groups and individuals all over the world are addressing the many opportunities presented at this critical time. Designs for sustainable systems, structures and technologies are being developed and implemented in all sectors, at all levels and in every society. This global awakening is a hopeful sign of the vitality of the human spirit and our ability to respond to the dangers we now face with insight and creativity.

 

The totality of our current efforts does not yet match the scope, scale and urgency of the necessary transformation. But if we collaborate and act with vision, foresight and commitment we can lay the foundations of a global community that is both peaceful and sustainable. We may then ensure our survival and wellbeing, as well as that of future generations. As global citizens, our top priority is to accelerate our evolutionary shift to a planetary consciousness and, together, co-create this new world and a positive future for humanity - while the window of time is still open.

WorldShift 2012 is a new global movement dedicated to co-creating the foundations of a peaceful, just and sustainable world by the end of 2012.

WorldShift 2012 Founding Partners include The WorldShift 2012 Alliance; The Alliance for a New Humanity; Campaign Promotions; Events4Change; Inner Climate Change; First Noosphere World Congress; HUB (Humanity Unites Brilliance); Kosmos Journal; PlanetChange TV; Positive TV; Renaissance2; The Art of Living Foundation; The Goi Peace Foundation; The Institute of Noetic Sciences; The Jane Goodall Institute; The Lifeline; The State of the World Forum; The World Wisdom Council; The WorldWide Fund for Nature (Italy) and many others are joining weekly.

 

For more, see worldshift2012.org

 

The enormous challenges that humanity is currently facing can only be overcome through the development of a global cultural consciousness. The Club of Budapest is a builder of bridges between science and art, ethics and economy, between cognition and realization, between old and young, as well as between the different cultures of the world. 

 

For more, see www.clubofbudapest.org

Ervin Laszlo is Founder and President of The Club of Budapest, President of the WorldShift Network, Founder of the General Evolution Research Group, Co-Chair of the World Wisdom Council, Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member of the International Academy of Philosophy of Science, Senator of the International Medici Academy, and Editor of the international periodical World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution. 

 

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_Laszlo

For more information about WorldShift 2012, to attend the launch or to arrange an interview with Dr Ervin Laszlo or other participants in the launch, please contact

 

Gareth Strangemore-Jones

WorldShift 2012 / Events4Change