We face deep transformations in our lives. It may not be evident as we get along with our everyday lives , but the signs of profound change are around. The so-called financial crisis(a crime in my view) is just a symptom of the deep transformations taking place. Infact the collapse marks for me the "end of the post second World war era". Since the end of the 1939-45 war the dominant paradigm has been that of market capitalism. Sure there have been varients of this model , but the underlying intellectual model has been the same. For me, the crisis signifies the collapse of the intellectual model underpinning post second world war economic development.

The financial crisis is not however, the sole reason for the deep transforlmation taking place. there are in my view a number of deeper structural factors :

• demographic change- not just an older population , but also for Europe a declining popoulation "weight" at global level. Currently the EU constitutes just ove 12% of global population, by 2050 it will be only 7%
• Climate change. Copenhagen has exposed the inability of the current mechanisms and mindsets to address this issue.
• Energy paradigm- its clear that we cannot carry on consuming energy as we do, but the "solutions" being generated are wholly inappropriate, indeed the inappropriateness of the "solutions" is going to lead to a greater development and reliance on nuclear power-the very opposite of what we need.
• Politics is broken. The current model of representative democracy dominated by declining political parties that have huge vested interests in corporate solutions. At local, regional and European levels its the non-voters who are in the majority.
• Our model of education is failing a large section of young people. The scale of the failure is growing and futhermore calls into question the menu currently provided. We have a system that has created a "dumbing down".
• Migration/Intergration. Not a new issue but the scale of what will take place over the next three decades is qualitatively different.

What I am saying is that we need new ways of "seeing" and in this blog, I want to start a discussion about these and other transformations and what we can do in terms of action and mobilising awareness.