The challenges of the 21st century are characterized by five complicating characteristics:

• They emerge from history, and are rooted in decisions beyond our control.
• They are happening now, at a time of unprecedented scientific understanding and technical acumen.
• They reach planetary scale through our globally interconnected industrial society.
• They compound each other’s effects in ways we often cannot observe or measure with precision.
• To succeed in solving them, we will have to invent a future beyond past or present experience.

It very well may be that the optimal route to real solutions will run through the decentralization of technical knowledge, innovation capacity, and decision authority.