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 fastest route to real solutions will be through the decentralization of knowledge, innovation capacity, and decision authority.