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The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.

Geoff Mulgan

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Geoff Mulgan
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: January 1
Economist
Writer
Great
Uncomfortable
Park
Biggest
Shift
Climate
Attachment
Habit
Parks
Choices
Barriers
Ability
Ignore
Change
Habits
Hard
Dealing
Barrier

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Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.
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All real capitalisms are impure hybrids, mongrels mixed with other strains.
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Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.
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I'm not saying [economic] growth is wrong, but throughout the years of growth, many things didn't get better. ... If you look at America, the proportion of Americans with no one to talk to about important things went up from a tenth to a quarter.
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The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.
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Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats promote their welfare deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.
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Spreading an idea is hard work.
Geoff Mulgan
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With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are.
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One of the lessons of history is that even the deepest crises can be moments of opportunity. They bring ideas from the margins into the mainstream.
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A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.
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There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don't necessarily agree with the people.
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The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality.
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So is civil society prepared for the future? Probably not. Most organisations have to live hand to mouth, juggling short-term funding and perpetual minor crises. Even the bigger ones rarely get much time to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Many are on a treadmill chasing after contracts and new funding.
Geoff Mulgan
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By international standards, many of the U.K.'s policies for civil society are exemplary. However, there are concerns about constraints on civil liberties - particularly restrictions on free assembly and about the rising tide of everyday regulation has seriously impeded community activity - from organising street parties to helping children.
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All over the world, social innovation is tackling some of the most pressing problems facing society today - from fair trade, distance learning, hospices, urban farming and waste reduction to restorative justice and zero-carbon housing. But most of these are growing despite, not because of, help from governments.
Geoff Mulgan
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The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.
Geoff Mulgan
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Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.
Geoff Mulgan
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In every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.
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Social innovation thrives on collaboration on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to 'crowdsource' ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services.
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The most important innovators often don't need any technologies - just imagination and acute sensitivity to people's needs.
Geoff Mulgan