OUR WORLD
REVIEW & INTERVIEW
The Turning Point:
Creating Resilience in a Time of Extremes
By Gregg Braden
T
his is a cry from the heart from a scientist who has his feet firmly planted on the
ground and his spiritual roots drawing from
the wisdom of the ages.
Long known as a teacher of ancient wisdom made
relevant for the modern world, Greg looks at our
present society in the context of both the degradation we are inflicting on our environment and the
almost limitless capacity we have for inventive solutions to the thorniest questions facing us today.
Greg’s voice is a refreshing call for honesty in dealing
with the problems facing humanity – an honesty that
is submerged by the voices of self interest, nationalism, and political correctness, as well as the voices
of conspiracy theorists and political journalists who
may be using fear - each for their own ends.
He traces the root of our difficulties in dealing with
our problems to the hierarchy of thinking inherited
from our past, particularly thinking based in the false
assumptions of science. These assumptions suggest
that we can solve all our problems through competition, force, and conflict. Throw enough money at a
problem, and industry will come up with a technological fix for whatever might ail us – in medicine, energy,
in agriculture, and so on. The thinking that he proposes instead is based in cooperation, understanding
and mutual aid. It is only through acknowledging our
mutual interdependence – across the planet – that we
will marshal the best minds and creativity available,
combining them to bring forth the solutions that will
pull us back from the brink of disaster, towards which
we are wrongheadedly advancing.
The good news
is that there is no
shortage of solutions. These solutions are based in
the notion of resilience. Resilience
is something that
used to be built into heavy machinery or electronics to provide redundancy for failure. It was a way to
ensure that if one system failed another one would
take up the slack. Our global systems are teetering
on the brink as are our resources. We do have solutions available both in the short-term and the longterm. The short-term fixes are primarily to buy us
time for the long-term solutions.
The good news is there that there are many individuals and organizations who have been working
with this mindset and making impressive advances.
It is most encouraging to read about them, and it is
hoped that they will that their example will lead the
way to more and more creative innovators. There
will probably never be a consensus as to what a better world will look like. As Greg points out, there will
probably be as many opinions as there are people.
The thing is, that it is in the collective that the pieces
of the puzzle come together – that the contributions
of the individual elements will make a greater, more
coherent and sustainable whole.
This is a call to action, and make no mistake about
it – it is a call that needs to be heeded.
Reviewed by Miriam Knight
A New York Times best-selling author, visionary and futurist, Gregg Braden is the author of The God Code, The Divine Matrix, The
Spontaneous Healing of Belief, and Fractal
Time is his latest book, THE TURNING POINT
Creating Resilience in a Time of EXTREMES,
56 | NEW CONSCIOUSNESS REVIEW