Manifesto
On this website our mission is solution-based: Though we want you to feel the urgency of the threats our planet is facing, we don’t want you to become overwhelmed or hopeless.
We want this website to become a platform for community engagement. We want you to come here and be inspired by the solutions that individuals have adopted, that communities-however small-have applied, and that are being considered on both a national and international level. And we need you to contribute your ideas, thoughts and knowledge.
Icarus Complex is also a printed magazine. What are the challenges and what are the potential weapons of action from an economic, political, legal and grassroots perspective? We take an in-depth look at the issues surrounding climate change. The aim of the magazine is to dissect humanity’s icarus complex, this idea that we have jumped off a cliff, mid-flight and confident in our own momentum, but in denial about the impending crash if we do not change course. You can find out more in our shop.
We believe that climate change should be recognised as the most essential threat facing humanity today, yet we do not want that recognition to be coupled with a sense of fatalism. We refuse to be complacent. On the contrary, we want to look at the issues and solutions around climate change in a holistic way, and inspire individuals and institutions to not only take, but also demand both institutional and governmental action.
We want to ask the right questions, so that we can help point to the right answers.
We believe that in order to provoke a paradigm shift, people have to tap into their sense of empathy and justice. We believe that viable solutions can only be found in a society that sets itself above the toxic rhetoric of left versus right, us versus them, science versus religion, social responsibility versus business viability. We want to help unify all the disparate voices that are fighting to implement change.
Icarus Complex will attempt to navigate the fine line between rattling your sense of revolt and your propensity to switch off and bury your head in the sand. Through provocative articles we hope to tackle the big questions on all fronts and offer in-depth analysis of the various environmental currents.
We want to talk to the movers and shakers of environmental policy and research about macro level solutions that take into account the economic and social realities of the world we live in. We want to draw attention on all the efforts that have been initiated by various organisations and grassroots movements to affect change.
And finally, we want to understand why there isn’t already a revolution on the way…because let’s face it there should be.
Icarus Complex is a non-profit.