The oceans are warming! The tundra is melting! Species are going extinct! We are running out of water! Mothers and children are fleeing their countries! Terrorism has brought us endless war! Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We are standing at the edge of chaos, and we must embrace a different way of thinking if we are to avoid falling into the abyss. NATURE shows us the way, by transforming individual intelligence into collective intelligence; by replacing fragmentation with wholeness; by replacing the fear of chaos with spontaneous patterns of order and resilience. This talk will be one of hope for a near future where human beings learn how to reconnect with the web of life that builds and nurtures sustainable communities.
Merle is Founder and CEO of the Center For Emergent Diplomacy, a non-governmental social profit organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She presently devotes her time to applying the science of complexity thinking and nonlinear dynamics to the art of peace building and diplomacy. Merle was appointed Guest Scientist and Affiliate at the Center for Non-Linear Studies, where she spent four years working with computer scientists, physicists and mathematicians exploring in computer simulations how groups form collective identity for coexistence, collaboration, and sustainable community.
Merle holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Taking a leave of absence from teaching, Merle served in the Carter White House in the late ’70s and decided to set up shop in the larger world of policy making and diplomacy.
