Mark your calendars for Saturday, March 7 at 6:30 p.m at Woodmen Hall when Friends of the Lopez Library and the San Juan Islands National Monument will welcome social change entrepreneur Dr. Merle Lefkoff.
The program, “Can Capitalism be Saved? The New Eco-Economy,” will address challenges to the present economic system which many world leaders are proclaiming is ending as we’ve known it. Do we need reform? Do we need revolution? Do we need restructuring? Do we need to replace an endless growth model that is destroying the planet? How do we stop spiraling economic madness such as potential new drilling schemes to tap a carbon reservoir trapped beneath our oceans? We all know the statistics about rising inequality, stagnant wages and unemployment, open-ended war and corrupted governance. What’s coming next if we don’t take action now? Join Dr. Lefkoff in a discussion on pursuing the new eco-economy. Listen to success stories and non-violent campaigns around the world that can be adopted, nurtured and scaled up as the architecture for a new global eco-economy.
What if wellness, youthful entrepreneurship, creative disruption, networking, biomimicry, humane technology, mindfulness and generosity were just some of the elements of that new architecture? Dr. Lefkoff is a social change entrepreneur whose practice is devoted to the application of nonlinear complex systems thinking to whole system change. She holds a doctorate in political science from Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and has been a mediator, facilitator and leadership trainer in conflict zones around the world.
She is founder and CEO of the Center for Emergent Diplomacy and last year led the planning group of NGO leaders at the United Nations launch of the Gross National Happiness Index. Dr. Lefkoff is also a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network begun at Columbia University in New York.
She was the first environmental lobbyist at the Georgia State Legislature in the early 70s and also worked in the Carter White House helping to write the first public participation regulations as a consultant to the Administrator of EPA. She is a co-founder of Leadership San Juan Islands.
