Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 
Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus is a fortnightly series of articles on the role of art in public policymaking. This series invites WPI fellows and project leaders as well as external practitioners to contribute pieces on how artists have led policy change and how policymakers can use creative strategies.
In Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Ian Bremmer illustrates a historic shift in the international system and the world economy—and an unprecedented moment of global uncertainty.
Michele Wucker: Immigration Reform and Climate Change: Two Hot-Button Issues Intersect
In the days following the earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince and killed over 200,000 people, the United States granted temporary protected status (TPS) to those undocumented immigrants from Haiti who were living in the Unite
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Tags: Climate change, climate change refugees, Devin Steward Carnegie Council, falling crop yields, German Marshall Fund, Haiti earthquake, Honduras, Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Mitch, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Organization for Migration, man-made disasters, mountain ecosystems, natural disasters, Nicaragua, rising sea levels, Sofia University, Temporary Protected Status, TPS, Tropical Storm Fay William Powers: Snowflakes in Copenhagen
It’s a little ironic. The world has gathered at the climate conference in Copenhagen to talk about the weather, but few people are aware of, well, the weather. Not weather trends, mind you. There’s plenty of discussion about that. I’m talking about the fact that it’s snowing now in the Danish capital—lightly, beautifully.
This is more than poetic musing. Both Freud and Jung said that the world’s problems can’t be solved with the same type of thinking that created them. Recent psychological studies suggest that humans cannot solve environmental problems through logic alone, divorced from the environment we’re trying to protect. We have to also feel ourselves to be part of nature.
Take the example of one Latin American delegate I met here. She has been working until 2am every night; and she wakes up at 5am to begin work every day. “Can she make good decisions without any sleep?” a colleague asked, rhetorically, to a group of us here in the gargantuan, windowless media room.
An ethos of total work reigns in Copenhagen—not unlike the one that’s consuming the world’s finite resources at unsustainable rates and spewing out tons of greenhouse gasses. Blackberrys vibrate away as participants race from meeting to meeting, stopping only to gulp down a double espresso.
Meanwhile, I discovered a “meditation and prayer room” here, and walked inside today. Of the 40,000 participants, only one was there in the silent space, amid a half dozen potted trees. In a business suit, he was stretched out of the floor, asleep.
I'm not suggesting delegates chant “ohm” all day or hug trees instead of hammering out solutions to climate change. Global warming is already contributing to floods and hurricanes, severe droughts, and spreading diseases like dengue fever and malaria. The need for work is urgent—the world must act.
But if we’re to achieve equilibrium in our ecosystem, shouldn’t we also foster equilibrium in our lives? Here’s a modest suggestion for the delegates: work hard, but also step outside once in a while and catch a snowflake on your tongue.
I know at least four leaders from Bhutan who are probably doing just that. 