New Thinking for a New World

Maybe this mess—a resurgent pandemic, collapsing economy, screaming politicians, and deep racial inequalities laid bare—is exactly what the United States needs. Maybe the outcome will be a more normal country, instead of one that thinks it is exceptional. That might be better for Americans as well as for the rest of the world, argues Jorge Castañeda, a Mexican educator, diplomat, author and former Foreign Minister in Tällberg’s latest, New Thinking for a New World conversation with Alan Stoga. In this episode, Castañeda talks about some of the ideas from his latest book, “America Through Foreign Eyes” and explains why he thinks the United States is heading in exactly the right direction.

Looking for silver linings may be an integral part of the human condition. Even during the bleakest moments—like during a global pandemic, a global recession, leadership failures and profound social stress almost everywhere—we try to find bits and pieces of positive energy and new ideas. In this episode of Tällberg’s "New Thinking for a New World” host Alan Stoga leads Juan Enriquez, one of the world’s leading authorities on the economic and political impact of life science technology, and Fiorenzo Omenetto, who works at the cutting edge of living materials engineering, on a search for the upside of the global mess.

American Carnage or American Dream? It matters to everyone everywhere whether or not the United States is in terminal decline or (painfully) resetting the basis of its democracy and its society. If the former, the global order will change in incalculable ways, for better or for worse. If the latter, life after the pandemic could actually be better.

In Tällberg’s New Thinking for a New World podcast series, Alan Stoga asks three global thinkers—a Mexican journalist (Ana Paula Ordorica), a Kenyan poet (Sitawa Namwalie) and a Congolese choreographer (Faustin Linyekula)—what they think is happening in America now. Let us know in our social media channels what YOU think.

Like everywhere else, Morocco must cope with the potentially overwhelming health, economic and political consequences of the pandemic.  But unlike most places, the country has a well-designed, focused strategy to mitigate the worst of what is happening and, possibly, to position itself—and the rest of Africa—for a better future.

In this episode, Ahmed Reda Chami—President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Morocco—discussed the challenges facing his country as well as the rest of Africa. 

In the midst of a global pandemic, many countries, leaders and people have turned local. That is not all bad: some people are working to strengthen their local communities, exploring new grassroots solutions and showing support for local businesses. Could these contribute to a new normal that is more people-oriented and more sustainable? Is it possible to build a new kind of globalism from the ground up?

Listen to Rosario Diaz Garavito, founder of The Millennials Movement, Baiqu Gonkar, founder of Art Represent and David Ross, an environmental entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in waste-energy, discuss the possibilities for a different future to emerge from the Covid crisis in this episode of the Tällberg Foundation’s New Thinking for a New World podcast.

For the first time in 75 years, the whole world is focused on the same problem and, in the process, mobilizing unprecedented political will, state authority and fiscal resources as well as relying on scientists to build evidence-based policies. How do we transfer all of that energy to addressing even the larger, more deadly challenge of climate change?

We invited Tomas Anker Christensen, Denmark’s Climate Ambassador, and Daniel Martinez-Valle, Chief Executive Officer of Orbia, a Mexico based global company, to discuss both the need and opportunity for urgent, positive creative climate activism in the wake of the pandemic. Listen as they discuss the need to develop effective partnerships between government and corporations, to find a better balance between globalism and nationalism, and to innovate solutions that assure the transformation to a low carbon economy creates, rather than destroys, jobs, growth and economic opportunity.

The global Covid-19 pandemic has exposed deep fissures in the global political and economic fabric. For democracy to survive, the social contract needs to be reimagined; economies needs to be re-engineered and climate change - that is now accelerating at a pace that could quickly dwarf the consequences of the pandemic - needs to be confronted. 

In this episode of the Tällberg Foundation’s “New Thinking for a New World” podcast, Danish politician and former President of the UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft argues that these inter-related challenges demand urgent action—and that if humanity moves fast, we could find new paths to a new, shared prosperity.

What is the state of the Union? Has the American dream become American carnage? Covid-19 has laid bare many pre-existing fissures and deep distress in American society. Can the exhausted majority reassert themselves on the back of this crisis?  Will the pandemic allow the emergence of a culture of competence and experience, instead of the deep partisanship and politicization that has characterized US. politics and governance for years? These are some of the questions Scott Miller, CEO of the Core Strategy Group and co-founder of Sawyer/ Miller Strategic Consulting Group, and Josh Steiner, Chairman of Castleton Commodities, Senior Advisor to Bloomberg LP and board member of Yale University among other institutions, address in this episode of New Thinking for a New World.

Christiana Figueres—climate activist, one of the key architects of the Paris Climate Agreement and 2016 Tällberg/Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner—passionately believes that the pandemic offers a unique opportunity to focus on constructive climate action.  In this New Thinking for a New World podcast, she discusses the possibility of leveraging the massive political and economic resources that governments around the world are mobilizing to stimulate the global, regional, national, corporate, and individual actions needed to cut emissions in half by the end of the decade.  Is it possible to overcome “politics as usual” to inject some green into massive recovery spending?  What should business leaders and individuals do to demand their governments act with eyes on the future, instead of the past?

Democracy is under huge pressure everywhere, made worse by the global pandemic. Too many governments in too many places are failing to deliver on the basic social contract with their citizens. In this podcast, celebrated photographer and human rights activist Shahidul Alam of Bangladesh discusses these issues from the perspective of a country which struggles to conduct fair elections, where inequality is extreme and poverty even more so, and where failures of democratic institutions are condoned by great powers.

Alam’s conversation is part of the Tällberg Foundation’s “New Thinking for a New World” series.

The Tällberg Foundation is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF.org)