6: Scott Williams – Living In Right Relationship In Times of Systemic Risk

Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

Scott Williams joins us for a deep dive into what it means to live in right relationship in times of systemic and accelerating risk. With a “rigorous sense of humility and confusion,” Scott helps us understand some of the underlying drivers which have led the human and social to become separated from the underlying reality of the stochastic vitality of living systems, and the consequences of this separation for human relationship, both human-to-human and to nature. Along the way, we explore the systemic function of money, the power of collective narrative, “ways to reallow humans to meet humans,” including in the corridors of political and institutional power, and the role of knowledge in nourishing ourselves and ensuring the widest possible circle of compassion. Scott is the coordinating lead author for Chapter 2 ‘Systemic Risks, the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda’ of the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction issued by the UN. Scott has a long track record working in the area of disaster risk for the UN and other agencies, in both the public and private sector. This experience has led him to explore what it really means to be a Systems Innovator, with current projects looking at how to accelerate climate innovation to a zero-carbon economy within the EU, as well as applying the insights from the 2019 UNDRR report to COVID-19 – available in a series of articles on preventionweb. Scott tweets @Scott42195