Fernando Casado, director of CAD, publishes the book We Are Not Ants! in collaboration with Javi Creus, Pablo Juncadella and Doris Obermair, promoting civil society initiatives of social innovation.
By analyzing our beginnings and our evolution to the present day, it is undeniable that we have made substantial progress in improving our life expectancy and our living standards. We enjoy greater access to education, respect for human rights, as well as greater fulfillment of our basic needs and human freedoms. We have also been able to create a society that is becoming more connected and united by the ability to share knowledge globally and to use such knowledge to resolve the principal social challenges facing us today.
But not for all of us. Not even for enough of us. A large part of humanity lives on the dark side of progress without the basic advantages of the developed world that allows people to lead dignified lives. These people are threatened by eradicable diseases and are deprived of water and food. They are also excluded from education opportunities, participation in the economy, and their local communities’ public debates. Meanwhile, the concentration of power and influence in a few (people, countries, and companies) is becoming more alarming and unjustifiable by the day. The Earth is also complaining from the effort: It can’t replace what we consume; clean what we pollute; or rebuild what we destroy in order to maintain our ways of life. We are living on the fringes of our planet’s universal ethics and sustainability. Many believe we have already gone too far and there is no turning back. They believe we are doomed: We are a failed experiment. We don’t see it this way. We believe that our capacity for innovation, creativity, and solidarity have allowed us to resolve and overcome challenges that have risen over the years. In addition, we are immersed in a new technological revolution that permits us to organize ourselves as world citizens and allows us to set more ambitious goals and achieve them without putting additional stress on other human beings and the planet. We can lead sustainable and equitable lives and create new models that produce better opportunities for all.
We Are Not Ants! Is a guide book for the well-informed optimist, a book against the current zeitgeist of pessimism and world-weariness in 3 chapters. The authors presented it in Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao, and it is published in Spanish and English.
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See the presentation video: video
