about us

The Global Vision project was conceived by the Irish information-artist Michael O'Callaghan in 1978. It was formally launched in 1981 in New York under the aegis of Global Vision Corporation, an NGO accredited to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

We moved our base of operations to London in 1996, and to Ireland in 2001. We put our media projects on hold in 2003 to co-ordinate the successful campaign to keep Ireland off-limits to GM (genetically modified) seeds and crops (for details see www.gmfreeireland.org).

We moved to Geneva in 2010 to resume work on the media projects described on our homepage. Please note our new contact details.

Director

Michael O'Callaghan

Michael is a Swiss-born Irish information-artist, film producer / director, environmental campaigner, author, consultant, musician and founder of the Global Vision project. He has a trans-disciplinary background in systems theory, cybernetics, anthropology, psychology, sustainable development, art, music, and media production – and 38 years of engagement in the global movement for a sustainable future. He sees the world as a self-organising system and creates contexts of information or situations which evoke the pattern that connects the world situation to our way of seeing it. • philosophy • CV [Switzerland]

Advisers (recent news of our advisers is available here)

Prof. Richard A. Falk

Former Albert G. Millbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice, Center for International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Former Distinguished Visiting Professor in Global & International Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara. Author or co-author of (20 books), speaker, and activist on world affairs. In 2001 he was appointed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories and is currently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. [USA]

Prof. Herbert Girardet

Herbert Girardet is the Director of Programmes at the World Future Council and Chairman of the Schumacher Society UK. He is an author, consultant and filmmaker, an honorary fellow of Royal Institute for British Architects, a patron of the Soil Association, and a recipient of a UN Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievements. His eight books include Earthrise (1992), The Gaia Atlas of Cities (1992), Creating Sustainable Cities (1999) and Cities, People, Planet (2004). He has produced 50 TV documentaries on sustainable development for broadcasters around the world. In 2003 he was Thinker in Residence in Adelaide, developing sustainability strategies for South Australia. He is visiting professor at the University of Northumbria, Middlesex University, and the University of West of England. [UK]

Prof. Herbert Girardet is co-founder and director of programmes of the World Future Council. He is leading consultant on sustainable development and a recipient of a UN Global 500 Award 'for outstanding environmental achievements'. For many years he has focussed mainly on the challenges of sustainable urban development and he is often called the world's leading urban ecologist. He has been a consultant to UNEP and UN-Habitat and has developed sustainability policies for major cities such as London and Vienna. In 2003 he was 'Thinker in Residence' in Adelaide, developing sustainable development strategies for South Australia. He has also been a senior adviser to the Dongtan Eco-City project on Chongming Island, Shanghai. Herbert is author and co-author of 12 books and 50 TV documentaries for major broadcasters. He is an honorary fellow of Royal Institute of British Architects, a patron of the Soil Association, UK, and a visiting professor at University of the West of England. In 2004 Wiley-Academy published his book, CITIES, PEOPLE, PLANET - Urban Development and Climate Change. In 2007 he edited SURVIVING THE CENTURY - Facing Climate Change and other Global Challenges, published by Earthscan. He has recently completed A Renewable World - Energy, Ecology, Equality, which was published by Green Books. [UK]

Stanislav Grof, M.D.

Stan Grof is a psychiatrist and the Founder and President of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), whose theories have influenced the integration of the transpersonal dimension in contemporary psychiatry. He is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the former Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Centre, former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and former Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He is the author of numerous books including the ground-breaking Realms of the Human Unconscious. Website: www.stanislavgrof.com. [USA]

Joan Halifax Roshi

Founder and Abbot of the Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico USA. Joan is also a medical anthropologist and author of many books including Shamanic Voices. She founded the Ojai Foundation, was an Honorary Research Fellow at Harvard University, and has taught in many universities, monasteries, and medical centres around the world. [USA]

Hazel Henderson

Global development policy analyst, author, TV producer, independent futurist, worldwide syndicated columnist, advocate for and consultant on equitable ecologically sustainable human development and socially responsible business, founder of the Calvert-Henderson Quality-of-Life Indicators, patron of the New Economics Foundation, author of numerous books including Building a Win-Win World and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, and co-editor, The UN: Policy and Financing Alternatives. Website: www.hazelhenderson.com. [USA]

Pamela Lippe

Pamela Lippe is the President and Principal of E4, Inc, a consultancy specialising in high performance (resource efficient) architecture for numerous clients including New York City developers such as the The Durst Organization for whom she was the environmental consultant on the 1.6 million square foot Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square - the first 'green' skyscraper in the USA. Pamela is also the Executive Director of Earth Day New York Inc which targets many of its educational campaigns to the real estate community. Recent accomplishments include three publications: The Costs and Benefits of High Performance Buildings; Lessons Learned: High Performance Buildings and Lessons Learned: Four Times Square - Environmental Information and Resource Guides for the Commercial Real Estate Industry. She also organised Earth Day New York's ground-breaking conferences on The Future of Real Estate is Green in 1996 and on Buildings, Economics and the Environment in 1998 and 2001. Pam is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Rainforest Action Network. [USA]

William A. McDonough

William McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and winner of three U.S. presidential awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the National Design Award (2004); and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003). Time magazine recognized him as a "Hero for the Planet" in 1999, stating that "his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that – in demonstrable and practical ways – is changing the design of the world." He is the founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, Architecture and Community Design, an internationally recognized design firm practicing ecologically, socially, and economically intelligent architecture and planning in the U.S. and abroad. He is also the cofounder and principal, with German chemist Michael Braungart, of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), which employs a comprehensive Cradle to Cradle design protocol to chemical benchmarking, supply-chain integration, energy and materials assessment, clean-production qualification, and sustainability issue management and optimization. William is also a Venture Partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners in San Bruno, California. He is Consulting Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. As of January 2010 he transitioned from U.S. Chairman and member of the Board of Councilors of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development, a position he has held since 2001, to Chairman Emeritus of the U.S. Board of Councilors. He is on the Advisory Board of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership. From 1994-1999, he was the Edward E. Elson Professor of Architecture and Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Mr. McDonough's leadership in sustainable development is recognized widely, both in the U.S. and internationally, and he has written and lectured extensively on his design philosophy and practice. He was commissioned in 1991 to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability as guidelines for the City of Hannover's EXPO 2000, and in 1993 to give the Centennial Sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. More recently, William McDonough and Michael Braungart co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, published in 2002 by North Point Press. [USA]

Marcello Palazzi

Marcello Pallazi is the Founder and Director of the Progessio Foundation, a philanthropic project developer of entrepreneurial solutions [ventures, partnerships, coalitions, events and initiatives or collaborative strategies] that aim at advancing human progress. He is also active on several advisory boards: Avalon Foundation (www.avalon.nl), Encounter of World Views Foundation (www.encounterofworldviews.org), TBLI (www.tbli.org), Business in Development Challenge Foundation (www.bidnetwork.org), the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (www.nftenederland.nl), The Value Agency (www.thevalueagency.com), SNS Reaal CSR Brainstorm Group, the Netherlands; FSG Social Impact (www.fsg-impact.org), Switzerland; Tällberg Foundation (www.tallbergfoundation.org), REWORK (www.reworktheworld.org), Sweden; Dalberg (www.dalberg.com), Denmark; Ethical Markets (www.ethicalmarkets.com), Business as an Agent for World Benefit Global Forum (www.bawbglobalforum.org), NetImpact (www.netimpact.org), the USA; The Lisbon Council (www.lisboncouncil.net), Brussels; the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org) and Shift 2050 (www.shift2050.com) Germany. His past roles also include co-founder and Director of Social Venture Network Europe (www.svneurope.org), Head of Development for The New Academy of Business, founded by Anita Roddick, director/board member/advisor of a number of SMEs, investment funds and non-profit organisations, such as the Andromeda Fund BV, the Robeco-Rabobank Sustainable Fund of Funds and ResponsAbility. [The Netherlands]

Janice E. Perlman

Founder and President, The Megacities Project, a non-profit organisation dedicated to shortening the lag time between ideas and implementation in urban problem-solving by sharing approaches that work among innovative leaders in the world's largest cities. In this capacity she created trans-disciplinary teams of public, private, non-profit and academic leaders in 19 of megacities to collaborate in joint problem-solving and policy-oriented research. The Mega-Cities network meetings have been hosted by local governments in ten of the member cities, resulting in the transfer and adaptation of hundreds of workable solutions across neighborhoods, cities, counties and regions. In 1996 UN Habitat adopted the Mega-Cities approach, methodology and innovations database in creating it "Best Practices Awards." In addition to her academic and non-profit work, Perlman served as Coordinator of President Carter's Neighborhood Task Force on National Urban Policy; Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the New York City Partnership; and Director of Science, Technology and Public Policy at the New York Academy of Sciences. She was as a Visiting Scholar at the World Bank jointly sponsored by the Urban Unit of the Sustainable Development Division for Latin America and the Caribbean and the World Bank Institute. Dr. Perlman has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1989, was a founding Board Member of ICLEI, (the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives), and has served on the Boards of Science and Technology for International Development, the Committee on Infrastructure, and the Task Force on Mega-Cities of the National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences). She was the host and moderator of the Mayor's Summit at the Davos World Economic Forum and at Habitat II - the World Urban Summit in Istanbul where she also served as a non-profit representative on the US official Delegation. She has consulted for numerous non-profit, governmental and international organisations, including UNDP, UN Fund for Population Activities, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Healthy Cities Project of the World Health Organization. [USA]

Prof. William E. Rees

William Rees is an environmental economist and the founder and co-developer of the science of ecological footprint analysis with Mathis Wackernagel (who has since set up the related Global Footprint Network). William is a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and former director of its School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP). His primary interest is in public policy and planning relating to global environmental trends and the ecological conditions for sustainable socioeconomic development. He is a founding member and recent past-President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics, a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and a co-investigator in the Global Integrity Project, aimed at defining the ecological and political requirements for biodiversity preservation. [Canada]

Danny Schechter

Danny Schechter is an award-winning journalist, film producer and media critic. He produced Plunder: The crime of our time in 2009, a hard-hitting investigative documentary film and book which explores how the global financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity. "I used to think of Wall Street as a financial center. I now think of it as a crime scene." Danny is the author of Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror, and the founder of The Media Channel, a global non-profit media issues network offering media news perspectives, education and analysis. He is also the co-founder of Globalvision News Network (no connection with us), a global syndicate of hundreds of independent news organisations that collaborate to provide fresh and intelligent perspectives on global events through the eyes of experienced, professional journalists who are native to the regions about which they report. See also our interview where Danny speaks about the need to hold the media accountable: "There's been a merger between show business and news business in the USA and in other parts of the world, with a shrinking number of informational educational documentary programmes as many broadcasters imitate the American model of broadcasting." [USA]

Robert A. F. Thurman

Bob Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, and the Co-founder and President of Tibet House, in New York. His books include Inner Revolution and Why the Dalai Lama Matters. His special interest is the delusion of imperialism as seen through the exploration of the Indo-Tibetan philosophical and psychological traditions, with a view to their relevance to parallel currents of contemporary thought and science. See his website at http://www.bobthurman.com. [USA]

David A. Woolcombe

David Woolcombe is the President of Peace Child International, a youth-led NGO involving more than 1,500 affiliate groups of teenagers in over 180 countries, whose mission is to empower young people to be the change they want to see in the world. Peace Child co-ordinates hundreds of sustainable development action projects, and produces a world-class series of books about global issues by young people, including Rescue Mission: Planet Earth which sold 500,000 copies in 23 languages. The NGO also produces the series of World Youth Congresses and European Youth Congresses, including the Fifth World Youth Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, from 31 July to 13 August 2010. David is the author of Youth-Led Development: Harnessing the Energy of Youth to Make Poverty History (Schumacher Society briefing no. 14, 2007). See his video interview which we shot at the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.[UK]

Ex-officio Advisers

Medard Gabel

Co-founder of the World Game Institute with the world-renowned visionary and designer R. Buckminster Fuller in 1972. This unique educational research centre produced the World Game Workshop, an interactive educational game which is played on a map of the Earth the size of a basketball court. Over 40,000 people have participated in these workshops at UN agencies, governments, corporations, universities and schools around the world. The project has since been taken over by O.S. Earth's Global Simulation Workshop and is also being played interactively on the World Wide Web. Medard is now the CEO of Big Picture Small World, and is the author of six books on global problems, resources and strategies, the global energy situation, the global food situation, the U.S. food system, planning, and multinational corporations. See his Global Vision interview. [USA]

Danny Goldberg

President of Gold Village Entertainment. Formerly President of Gold Mountain Records, Chairman and CEO of the Mercury Records Group, and Chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Records. In 1980, Goldberg co-produced and co-directed the rock documentary feature No Nukes, starring Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne. In 2004 he was the Executive Producer of the documentary Just An American Boy about Steve Earle. Danny began his career as a music journalist for Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Billboard (for whom he reviewed the 1969 Woodstock Festival). He is author of the book How The Left Lost Teen Spirit. Website: www.dannygoldberg.com [USA]

Prof. John Kallos

Founder & Director, Sustainable Development Initiative, Columbia University Graduate School of Business. [USA]

R.D.Laing

Psychologist; author, The Divided Self. [UK]

Seán Mac Bride

Nobel Peace Laureate. Co-Founder, Amnesty International. [Ireland]

John Weir Perry, M.D.

Jungian Psychiatrist. Author, The Far Side of Madness, and The Heart of History. Download his interview from When The Dream Becomes Real: the inner Apocalypse in mythology, madness and the future by Michael O'Callaghan. [USA]

Robert A. Smith III

Meta-Networker. Organisational Behaviour Consultant, NASA. [USA]

© Global Vision 1981 - 2010 • all rights reserved • privacy policy
URL of this page: www.global-vision.org/about/ • updated 29 May 2010