March 2012 - Alliance magazine

With the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro approaching, this Alliance special feature, guest edited by Alejandro Litovsky of the Earth Security Initiative and Dana Lanza of Confluence Philanthropy, argues that philanthropists and impact investors must begin to think about how to respond to the crisis of ecological limits that humanity faces. This includes supporting new business models to scale, helping to shift basic economic and political fundamentals, and boosting the resilience of oceans, rivers, forests and fertile soils.

This issue of Alliance features interviews with Major General Muniruzzaman of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies on the security impacts of climate change; Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Governor of California and now founder of R20 Regions of Climate Action, a coalition of regional governments determined to take action on climate change now; and Kristian Parker, chair of the Oak Foundation, one of Europe’s largest and most strategic environmental funders.

Also included in the March issue of Alliance: Barry Knight writes about a new generation of community philanthropy initiatives, Lisa Jordan encourages us to be less frightened of failure, and we speak to the founders of the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, plus further opinion, news, letters, conference reports and book reviews.

Special feature

A decade for the Earth’s security

1 March 2012
Alejandro Litovsky and Dana Lanza

As this special issue of Alliance goes to print, record droughts in Mexico and the Horn of Africa are affecting millions of people. The failure of harvests, along with higher food prices, raise fears of famine, mass migration and political instability. 2011 was another year of records for extreme weather events, wreaking havoc in places like Australia, Brazil and Thailand – with up to US$45 billion worth of damage in Thailand alone. Seven countries had …

Caroline Hartnell

Editorial

While we looked the other way

The worst consequence of perhaps the worst recession the world has ever known may be that we were all looking the other way as the world slipped into irreversible global warming and the vital natural resources on which we depend became depleted beyond repair. For governments desperate to cut deficits, cutting green investment programmes and green subsidies may seem like an easy win. The public, increasingly squeezed economically, is putting minimal pressure on their leaders to consider the long-term effects. The recent agreement to negotiate a follow-up treaty to Kyoto has been hailed as a great advance, but binding commitments …