Collective Awareness Platforms: Engines for Sustainability and Ethics

The world's wealth, as measured by GDP, has been steadily growing for the last 100 years or so. But today there is more and more evidence of crisis in our world, in all areas: finance, environment, society. The causes are related to the lack of sustainability of our current model for growth and development. Simply put, the natural resources of this planet (Fig. 1) cannot sustain a population of 7+ billion people, on the basis of current modes of living. Infinite and unsustainable growth (economic as well as demographic), which often has been sought to boost the power and near-term prosperity of nations, is now at the root of the multi-faceted crisis of our “knowledge society.” Is there a way to turn this weakness back into an opportunity?