It was suggested by Perth Business Gateway to rewrite the 2001 proposal to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre, this time relevant for Scotland in 2006. The outline executive summary, Scotland:The World's First Ecological Superpower, was produced. The next stage is to implement it, what do you think?

Wednesday 31 January 2007

The Millennium Dome: Costing the Earth Part 1

The first time it was possible to predict there was going to be a problem with the Millennium Dome was 25th August 1997, the Daily Mail ran a front page headline. Dome: Smell of Doom. There are many ways to assess projects or complex systems. Using various techniques, that would not be employed by project managers engaged in the Millennium Experience (as it was called at the time), it was possible to determine what these problems were and how to correct them. Unfortunately the Dome organisation did not want outside assistance and the project ran into the predictable problems without the solutions.

The greatest thrill and anticipation was knowing there was to be a competition to take over the running of the Dome. The intention was quite simple. Enter the competition, win it and run the Dome as it should be run. Make it the worldwide success it always had the potential to be.

Just like the the recent annoucment of the winner of the Supercasino, with attention focused on a web page, similar took place at the start of 2001, and the awaiting of the announcement of the competition to run the Millennium Dome. In this case it was the website of English Partnerships.

Detailed predictions were made of the future. These showed the environment was going to play an increasingly greater role in determining policy and development. Also that the consequences of the damage we were inflicting on the ecological systems of the planet, those that support and sustain all life, were becoming increasingly critical. In 2006 society would start to be destroyed by them, if the effects were not stopped and started to be reversed by 2012 the extinction horizon would be reached. The point of no return, billions of people dead and the loss of most of the planet's animal and plant species. The 'Mad Max' scenario.

Space had NASA, Defence had the Pentagon. Yet the Earth, the single most important resource on which all life depended had no globally recognised iconic representation to protect and enhance it.

So what could save a planet. What or who could drag a world from the precipice of oblivion, deflect the Earth from it's trajectory of disaster to the path of a safer better future.

The angel sat there, white and beautiful, unloved and unwanted, ridiculed and despised. But she could save a planet. She could be the beacon of light and hope for a world that would soon slide into chaos.

Tony Blair never understood her, didn't get what she was about. So in a speech said the Millennium Dome would be the envy of the world. He says he is a Christian, so should have known envy is a deadly sin. It's all just spin. Just change a word and lift the curse. The Millennium Dome would be for the benefit of the world.

The website was watched, waiting for the process to begin to make the Millennium Dome a centre of excellence in global environmental management.

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