Climate Capitalism: Dr Yunus offers noted speech of 21st C
St James, Piccadilly, 16 February 2008: The church used by Londoners to bury its richest men was taken over for an afternoon by climate activists – a surprise setting for the last public appearance of Muhammad Yunus on his 3 day tour of London for his new book “Creating a world without poverty- social business, the future of capitalism.”
This speech was unlike any other offered by the man whose faith celebrates humanity in every corner of our earth. For the first 15 minutes, the audience participated in a requiem to Bangladesh… In recent years Bangladeshi’s have had the storm of the decade, then a worse one our people named storm of the century, then the worst of our history- we have run out of names on the scale of bad storms. So while climate crisis may be a subject for debating in London, in Bangladesh it is a population killer- and in our low lying nation of over 150 million people, it is the unnatural weapon of mass destruction we truly ask the world to help prevent
We are a people determined to celebrate humanity. On every other crisis: ending poverty, improving communal healthcare, other millennial rights we wish to open source with the world solutions that the Grameen way perfects at the grassroots before scaling up. Looking at climate, we have already passed a magic number of 100,000 solar homes- and if the price of the photoelectric cells could come down by a half, I feel we could commit to making every Bangladeshi home solar. But that will not be enough to turn the tide on climate given our geographic lot. Only a worldwide collaboration can save us.
Then from minute 16, Yunus walks aside from the pulpit towards the audience to explain how his new book shows how to practice communal collaboration systems. Each major invitation in the book is meticulously designed and tested purposefully to serve vital needs. Much service detailing is contextual, but the common denominators are compounding the end of poverty over time and empowering people to love being their communally most productive through peer to peer action learning circles.
Uniquely, Dr Yunus’ style is both simple and modest. He urges you dare see with him that if this is what one being can do, what could 6.5 billion of us achieve. Why not unite now by prioritising design of social businesses – the future capitalism game that all our generations will depend on. Proposer: Dr Yunus. Seconder: Bill Gates…
Ironically, as the Banker for the Poor moves on to another city, after 3 joyous days in his inspiring company, it is London’s banks that feel very poor indeed.
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