Frank Sesno talks about the upcoming public television program, Fueling Our Future: A Fred Friendly Seminar

Interview by Donna Hardwick
from On and On PR and Marketing Solutions for Fred Friendly Seminars
September 2008

Q: How did you first hear about the Fred Friendly Seminars/Blue Planet Foundation project, FUELING OUR FUTURE?

Sesno: Several months before the Blue Planet Summit, which took place in April 2008, I received a call from Mark Ganguzza, with whom I’d worked before, and the Fred Friendly Seminars. Actually, Mark had been talking about this project for some time and was very excited about it because these are the kind of gatherings and television productions that can bring a subject to life; that can make the choices real; that can force the mind into a very difficult place. And that is a lot of what is going to be involved with our trying to “re-power” the world.

Q: Was it an easy decision, to agree to moderate the public TV special and participate in the Seminar?

Sesno: It was a decision I made in a nanosecond. I love the Fred Friendly Seminar format because it fires the brain by firing the imagination. The 9/11 Commission Report said our biggest failure was the failure of imagination. And in using the imagination to predict that future predicament, that future moment when totally plausible events collide to force agonizing decisions, that’s when you propel people into a different place – you force their imagination to confront their logic and their reason and you make a virtue out of complexity.

I think this is one of the most powerful ways to consider our choices, our issues and our future.

Q: What was the experience during the summit and taping of the program in Hawaii last April? How did you prepare and what was your experience once you arrived?

Sesno: Well, going to Hawaii doesn’t constitute hazardous duty! It was easy emotionally. Intellectually, this is a very complicated topic. I have been working for several years now on the various energy alternatives and have traveled to see some of them first hand, from the deep waters of the Gulf, to the ethanol sugar cane fields of Brazil, to the oil sands of Alberta, Canada.

This project was an opportunity to take that knowledge and build upon it – so I studied up. I spent time with the people at Fred Friendly Seminars, who are expert at posing research and fact based scenarios… the hypothetical. Working together with them and doing my homework – that was the most significant part of the preparations. But I also had to get to know the individual players, even though I didn’t know them personally. I had to know who was going to be on the panel, what role they would be playing, what they do and know in real life. All so I could use this vehicle to try put together a fascinating and even dramatic conversation.

Q: What were some of your impressions of the panelists?

Sesno: These people were real. They are living some of these discussions and issues right now. They were the most qualified to talk about the future because they are contemplating the future in the present and in their real lives. What I think we tried to do for the television program, and what these seminars are all about, is to move the panelists out of their comfort zones and challenge them with events that they may fully contemplate and foresee now but don’t actually have to deal with the event now – to confront them with the future as it is happening in the present tense.

Q: For those not familiar with the Fred Friendly Style – tell us about what is involved?

Sesno: With Fred Friendly Seminars, the goal is to create a conversation where people are role playing – to have very accomplished and knowledgeable people role play their way through an utterly plausible scenario. Through this process, audiences can get a sense of the decision making process, the alternatives they might consider and the horse trading that might go on. Ultimately, this leads us to some form of resolution. Through this dialogue we are made aware of the difficulty, and the agony in many cases, of the trade-offs that need to be made in order to do the right thing.

In this particular case, what are the trade-offs the community might have to make to put alternative energy sources in their area? In FUELING OUR FUTURE, the scenario is wind power on a mountain top. It is going to disrupt people’s views? Is the suggested location sacred land for native tribes? It is expensive and, in this case, may it become even more expensive? Yet, it might also bring important energy independence to the community.

So that’s a big goal – for people to be brought into the decision making process by those who actually have to make similar decisions in the present time. What we want to do is make the hypothetical real – bring the future to some dramatic and plausible reality. So people can get a sense of what’s involved, what the options are, why they are difficult and how these decision makers will try to overcome the difficulty – and even the paralysis – that these sorts of issues present.

Q: What was the most fascinating part of the hypothetical presented in FUELING OUR FUTURE?

Sesno: The most fascinating part of the hypothetical is how hard it is to make a decision, how many factors come into play. Take the case of wind power. Wind is one of the most perfectly natural, infinitely renewable, utterly clean resources. But, as it turns out, wind is fraught with technical and political landmines. There is a backlog of wind turbines. They are visually repugnant to some. They certainly won’t solve the whole problem. So our scenario deals with technology, public opinion, politics and aesthetics. As a dilemma it is delicious; as a part of the response to the energy challenge that we confront it is an imperative. It was a great exercise and truly illustrative of what we confront on a whole host of issues where both political reality and public opinion will play a very large role.

Q: FUELING OUR FUTURE is coming out just in time for the 2008 elections and there has been quite a bit of dialogue about alternative energy and America’s dependence on oil. In an ideal world, how would you like to see real people respond to the real issues presented in this program?

Sesno: We have decisions to make and decisions start at home. In our own towns and communities we have a choice: We can wait until the crisis is upon us – and we’ve had a taste of that crisis with $4 per gallon at the gas tank – or we can try to act proactively. What I hope is that people will see this program and say ‘yes, these are difficult decisions but we can’t let inertia rule the day.’ We actually need to take our future into our own hands and find our way toward a degree of compromise, have open discussions and move past debate and toward decision.

I realize this might be pie in the sky thinking, but the first thing people have to do is talk. And if we are going to talk and take on these issues, we must know what they are talking about. We have to understand where other parties are coming from. We have to have an understanding of the promise of the technologies and how close or how far away some of these things are. And finally, we have to make some political decisions because after all, we are a Democracy. If we were China, this wouldn’t be a problem. Some bureaucrat or government official would just say, ‘we’re going to move three million people out and build the biggest dam in the world.’ That’s not how it works here. We need to have consensus and to have consensus people need to be informed and actually engage with each other.

I hope people will watch this program and have a sense of the tradeoffs and complexities that confront us.

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