Visioning the future in a full earth
For some years it has been clear that environmental
doom-saying, because it is a poor motivator, is a dead end. However true the
prediction of global overheating, climate chaos, resource wars, pollution and
disease (with consequent mass death or displacement), it leads most people to
despair and denial rather than hope and resilience. Only a spiritual and
emotional grounding (a transformation) gives humans the power to change our
ways. This not only moral teaching, but sound neuroscience.
The "full earth" invalidates all previous human
experience. No longer can we migrate or innovate our way out of the dilemma
posed by infinite economic growth on a finite planet. A number of the planetary
boundaries have already been breached. The "developed" world of our
generation is eating its way through the equivalent of 3 1/2 earths. If pond
scum doubles every hour, at the last hour (when we could intervene) the pond
still seems half clear. Apparently, not a problem.
And a peculiar limit of the human mind makes it harder to
develop an overall vision of future, than to recall an (often imaginary) past
Eden. Hard, but not impossible. Some of the worlds' best scientists,
eco-activists, ethical thinkers and artists have been doing just that. This is
a rough guide to their work.
One slogan should be discarded: "sustainable
development", still a staple of United Nations and business thinking. But its
elements are self-contradictory. A necessary compromise in the UN's Our Common
Future, the 1992 Rio and subsequent Kyoto treaty, it is now outdated. Infinite
growth is not sustainable. Quality of life, climate justice and right sharing
are. The much-touted "green economy" of Rio+20 failed because it
proposed to build the future on commodifying the Earth's commons; in fact it
would finance climate action, and better life for the world's poor, by selling
licenses to pollute.
The new watchword is "resilience", the ability of
biodiversity to repair the web of life. In time it may become overused and
shopworn, but at this point it is a helpful guide.
Eco-economics was invented by Herman Daly (and others)
emphasizing that production should serve social need, and human society within
the planet. This blog has reported the astonishing variety of eco-economic
thought (tagged EE) that has developed in event decades. Much was simply a
critique of standard economics -- a critique of which Adbusters and Occupy have
now made a protest movement. But some has been positive and transformatory.
