What future will we choose?
Guest post from Paul Raskin and Orion Kriegman of the Great Transition Initiative.
The concept of a human world draws attention to the inextricable link between society and Earth. Recognizing that humanity and the biosphere co–evolve as part of a single global system underscores the reality that all of humanity is bound together in a single community of fate.
We share the need to address mounting ecological challenges, such as climate change, that threaten our collective well–being and even survival. At the same time, we must alleviate poverty, inequality, conflict, and social polarization if we are to build a world community adequate to this challenge. The notion of sustainability carries a double imperative: to reconcile development with the environment in order to pass on a healthy world to future generations and to meet the basic needs of present generations for adequate access to water, housing, healthcare, education and jobs. These challenges call for deep reflection on the ethical implications of our current lifestyles and a transformation of our relations to each other and the Earth.
A recent essay by the Global Scenario Group (GSG), Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead argues that history has entered the planetary phase of civilization.
In other words, we are now in a moment of transition in which “all components of culture will change in the context of a holistic shift in the structure of society and its relation to nature…[transforming] values and knowledge, demography and social relations, economics and governance, and technology and the environment” (p. 54 of the Great Transition essay).
Out of the turbulence of transition, very different forms of global society could emerge. It is not difficult to imagine a gloomy time of social and ecological crises for the coming decades. Yet, it is also possible to turn toward a global society that reflects universal social and ecological values, respects differences, and defeats the scourges of destitution, war, and environmental destruction.
The choices we make over this next critical decade could set the trajectory of global development for generations to come.
Predicting the future is impossible due to three sources of uncertainty: ignorance, surprise, and volition. Our understanding of current conditions and the forces causing change are limited. Furthermore, it is always possible for new phenomena to emerge and for unexpected events to unfold. Finally, in addition to scientific ignorance and the inherent potential for surprise, the future is subject to human choices which have not yet been made.
Although we can not predict the future, we can develop scenarios that clarify our choices and help us act wisely. This has been the task of the GSG, an international body of scientists convened in 1995 by the Tellus Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute to examine the requirements for a transition to a sustainable global society. A scenario is a story rooted in quantitative and qualitative analysis, constructed with detail, rigor, and imagination. The Global Scenario Group organized its alternative scenarios into three broad categories: Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transitions.
Conventional Worlds are futures that evolve gradually from today’s dominant forces of globalization – economic interdependence deepens, dominant values spread and developing regions converge toward rich–country patterns of production and consumption. Two variations are Market Forces, a neo–liberal vision in which powerful global actors advance the priority of economic growth, and Policy Reform, in which governments are able to harmonize economic growth with sustainable development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals.
But if market and policy adaptations are not sufficient to blunt social polarization, environmental degradation, and economic instability, the danger of a deepening global crisis looms. Out of the turbulence, some form of Barbarization scenario could consolidate. One form this could take would be an authoritarian Fortress World scenario, a kind of global apartheid with elites in protected enclaves and an impoverished majority outside. Another is Breakdown, where conflicts and crises spiral out of control, waves of disorder spread across countries and regions, and institutions collapse.
Great Transitions are transformative scenarios. Their defining feature is the ascendancy of a new suite of values – human solidarity, quality–of–life, and respect for nature – that support a revision of the meaning of development.
Human solidarity is the foundation for a more egalitarian social contract, the eradication of poverty, and democratic political engagement at all levels. The emphasis on quality–of–life brings an emphasis on human fulfillment in all its dimensions, rather than the false metric of GDP. Deep respect for nature fosters a sensibility that understands humanity as part of a vibrant community of life, the basis for true sustainability and the healing of the Earth. Finally, this is a pluralistic vision that, within a shared commitment to global citizenship, celebrates diverse regional forms of development and multiple pathways to modernity.
The further development of the Great Transition scenarios, offering visions and pathways to a hopeful future, is carried on by the Great Transition Initiative. A key insight of this work is that scientific and technological improvements are not sufficient to create a just and sustainable world.
Rather, science and technology must be integrally linked with cultural transformation and new ascendant values. In this sense, the emerging science of the coupled human–environment system must incorporate a normative element, understanding human values as a key internal feature of the system. Discussion of the coupled human–environment system must include issues of values, lifestyles, power structures and culture. The implication of the human world is that we, the people of Earth, have the opportunity and responsibility to shape of the global future.
Paul Raskin is founding director of Tellus Institute, founder of the Global Scenario Group, and the Great Transition Initiative. He has published numerous articles, three books, and served as a lead author for such efforts as the International Panel on Climate Change, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, United Nations Environment Program’s Global Environmental Outlook, and the U.S. National Academy of Science Board on Sustainable Development.
Orion Kriegman, the Organizer for the Great Transition Initiative, has a background in conflict transformation and democracy building efforts, and has focused his career on organizing international civil society networks for social change. Kriegman holds a Master in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
It’s interesting to me that humanity’s challenge historically has been to “conquer” nature in order to survive. And we used our fantastically flexible brain to thrive – in fact, to dominate the Earth. Now, it seems, to survive, we need to cooperate with nature, get back in the mix. Hopefully, our collective brain can help us adapt to a new kind of future.
Interesting article. We definitely need to re-focus our lifestyles to survive.
I think you guys draw from some really interesting sources.
The Great Transition Initiative!? Who knew?
Excellent work!
Thanks for the statement that follows, that was taken directly from the report just above.
“We share the need to address mounting ecological challenges, such as climate change, that threaten our collective well-being and even survival. At the same time, we must alleviate poverty, inequality, conflict, and social polarization if we are to build a world community adequate to this challenge.”
Because I am a clinician, it has always been important that an accurate diagnosis to obtained before a treatment is recommended. Global problems have been identified here, but no diagnosis of these problems is provided. At least to me, it seems reasonable and appropriately precautious, that before adequate interventions are developed, we need to understand the root causes of the problems listed above. If I might offer one possible diagnosis for these ‘disorders’: the current scale and rate of growth of the human population worldwide.
Thanks for the GTI. Thank you for what is being done to protect biodiversity from imminent extinction, Earth from reckless resources dissipation and its environs from thoughtless ecosystems degradation, and humanity from potential endangerment.
This has sparked some ideas for a philosophy paper I’m writing about the roots of morality, and ideal criteria for evaluating societal institutions. This is a very digestible distillation of the work of GSG. I look forward to reading about it in more detail when I have some more time.
I’m especially interested in learning more about applications of the idea of a “coupled human-environment system”. This is very much in line with how I tend to think about cognition based on my reading of ecological psychology and cognitive science. I’m glad that this worldview, unfairly deemed controversial for so long, is now picking up the credibility it deserves, despite the inertia of so many years of dualism in science. The scientific side of this social work seems promising to me because it is positioning itself in just the right way to make use of the insights into the structure of experience that are currently developing. I see these insights as also providing a link between the scientific study of humanly-relevant systems, and religious traditions that honor the empiric and stand behind the obvious truth of human signficance in the context of greater significance as a generalizable natural phenomenon. I’m glad to see this forward-thinking reasoning about our place in nature, in a time when both the spiritual “new age” with its quantum idiocy, and most political and social academicians liberal and conservative alike have a disgustingly backward view of humanity.
Wow. I throughly enjoyed this post. The Human World is starting become more clear now.
Imagine there’s no country, religion, or money. That pie-in-the-sky utopia would be great.
On the other hand, realistic expectation based upon previous societies and human nature suggest that Tragedy of the Commons is our fate.
200,000 years ago we were a rare mammal on the plains of Africa. Our jungle genes have had little time to improve. At our present trajectory, we don’t have time for slow genetic improvement, let alone trial and error education.
Beware of false gifts and broken promises. There is much pain, but there is hope. The solution is to believe in truth. The conduit is closing…
Dear Brad, Roy, Robert, Issac, Beth, Lisa and Lesterette,
Thanks for all your comments. I agree with them, and especially enjoyed Roy’s view of the value of discussions like these.
If I may, let me add a question, “In these early years of Century XXI, will humanity be WILLING do what is within its power: save other life and itself from certain of its currently unbridled overgrowth activities now overspreading Earth by humanely regulating these activities?”
I agree. These discussions are valuable and powerful.
What’s needed is a shift in the way people think about our relationship to the Earth. It’s not easy to make that shift. By talking about it, we can help each other understand how hope is, indeed, possible … and necessary.
That’s part of what the Great Transition Initiative is trying to do. They create scenarios – based on logic, clear thinking and scientific principles – of possible future worlds. Some scenarios are utopian, as Brad mentioned above. Some are terrifying. The choices we make in the coming decades will determine which scenarios will come to pass.
I notice in talking to scientists who work on sustainability that many of them are hopeful. I think they’re hopeful because they feel a sense of control. They’re doing something about the problems. They see that solutions are possible.
The new GTI Paper Series is an example of scholars from around the world talking to each other about a hopeful future. I hope you’ll all check it out. It’s fantastic reading.
We can do something, too. We can talk to each other, and learn from each other. We can talk to others around us. Earth & Sky invites you all to continue talking here, as often and as much as you would like.
I respectfully disagree, Brad, that the conduit is closing. I believe it is opening. I believe our world – our time – is a moment of great opportunity. What we are doing here – what we all are doing by reading this post and responding to it – is helping to lay the seeds for an advanced human civilization … where we recognize our human solidarity … where we cherish nature because we are linked to nature. Surely, a first step toward building that civilization is to talk about it!
Deborah
There is much that we can not know about our future—whether we will succeed in creating a better world or collapse into extinction is not something to be predicted. It is up to us to imagine a world worth creating and put our energies toward that effort.
I disagree that the GT scenarios are utopian, although they certainly call upon our highest ideals and aspirations. The formation of a new identity as Global Citizens, with concern for the global commons, is propelled by the objective and subjective conditions of this planetary phase of history. There is the push of necessity, the urgent need to respond to ecological and social challenges. There is also the pull of desire.
In ancient times, the idea that the warring city-states of Italy, for example, would one day combine into a shared national identity was laughable. Yet now, in retrospect, is appears almost inevitable. From where we sit today, we shouldn’t be so fast to judge the limits of “human nature”. These ideas are further discussed in the GTI Paper Series (http://www.gtinitiative.org/default.asp?action=43)—particularly papers #3 and #15.
Brad mentions that hope and “the solution” is to believe in truth. I am curious to hear more.
As a Catholic theologian deeply interested in ecological issues, I really appreciate the discussion that has begun here and the hope for new transitions. I think Robert Levy is right in saying that we should connect to religious traditions, and I believe their wisdom is essential in diagnosing our current problems and offering possible responses. Good luck with your project, and please keep dialoguing with religions and people of faith as we collectively articulate a vision of the Great Transition.
Dear Daniel Scheid,
One day I expect scientists will come to see the value of a spiritual perspective and people of the faiths to appreciate scientific methods.
If you do not mind, could you please comment on the Last Rites Declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP II, Karol Wojtyla, 16.X.1978? At least to me, he is disclosing aspects of human reality; but these aspects are not suitable subjects of scientific inquiry. From what source does such an apprehension of reality come forth?
Thanks so much for your thoughts.
To Daniel and Steve,
The first Great Transition document that we at Earth & Sky read – called Great Transition: the Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead – speaks to the role of religion in the “great transition” to a new kind of civilization on Earth. It says:
Four major agents of change, acting synergistically, could drive a new sustainability paradigm.
Three are global actors—intergovernmental organizations, transnational corporations and civil society acting through non-governmental organizations and spiritual communities. The fourth is less tangible, but is the critical underlying element—wide public awareness of the need for change and the spread of values that underscore quality of life, human solidarity and environmental sustainability.
In other words, civil society acting through spiritual communities can help lead the charge to more just and sustainable world, just as they helped lead the charge for civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Dear Deborah,
The perspective described above is promising. It seems to me that the human population needs to become more aware of itself as members of one species. Hopefully, such a view will make possible individual behavioral changes that can be readily recognized as best for the human community rather than for personal self-interest.
I was taught to recognize my self-interests and assure them. Could it be my conspicuous sucess at ‘flying for the buck,’ accumulating more and more things, and “keeping up the Joneses” is symptomatic of a problem? Perhaps those of us who have much more than we need or could possibly consume, will begin looking beyond ourselves and to sharing our wealth of resources with others who are much less fortunate among us.
Deborah,
Following the post just above, let me elaborate on what appears to be a yawning abyss that is growing between the assets of the rich and poor in the human community.
A few facts from Helsinki, Finland and World Institute for Development Economics Research.
>>>>>the richest 10% of adults account for 85% of assets.
>>>>>the bottom half of the world adult population owns about 1% of the world’s wealth.
>>>>>the top 1% or 37 million people have assets valued at more than $500,000.
>>>>>North America has 6% of the world’s adult population, which accounts for 34% of household wealth.
In the light of economic reports like this one, the pyramid-like structure of the global economic system becomes transparent. Such an unbalanced distribution of wealth bears little, if any, relationship to the realization of democratic principles, equity, justice or decency.
Thanks for considering how sharing resources voluntarily could promote human and environmental health.
As a spiritual being and interested in ecological issues, The problem is Ecological not Theological, I think Robert Levy is wrong in saying that we should connect to religious traditions, and I believe their wisdom would create the same RELIGEOUS bickering, holy wars, molestation, terrorism, and everything else that goes with religeon. Not to offend anyone, but religeon doesn’t necesarily mean spiritual. We need to connect to great ecological and spiritual leaders for guidance.
Dear Richard,
The distinction you make above between the spiritual and the religious is powerful, at least to me.
The problems embedded in the great religions look like a Gordion Knot; nevertheless, I would ask you consider and perhaps comment on what follows.
Although religions appear to be monotheistic, somehow practitioners of each religion seem to believe that they and they alone are special. People in the other religions are not special and have taken the wrong path to doing God’s will, I suppose. Does this not appear to be a core issue in religious thought worldwide?
Please be reminded of the April 2005 words of Pope John Paul II: ” The sins…this earth must confront and overcome…include our church…and other religions which make the spirit of God a divide. ”
Thanks for your clarifying view of something important, I believe.
An idle thought that sometimes occurs to me is that many people in this country believe we are a “Christian” nation (I am also not sure exactly what “nation” means in this context).
Many of these people also state that they take the bible to be the literal truth. As an example, Jesus is said to have said, “it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” Taken literally, we realize that a camel can not pass through the eye of needle, thus a rich man can not get into heaven.
What qualifies as rich? Assets over $500,000?
We Americans are all rich compared to people pretty much anywhere else.
The Ten Richest Americans (according to Forbes):
Rank / Net worth / Name
1. $48 billion Gates, William Henry III
2. $41.0 Buffett, Warren Edward
3. $20.0 Allen, Paul Gardner
4. $18.0 Walton, Alice L
4. $18.0 Walton, Helen R
4. $18.0 Walton, Jim C
4. $18.0 Walton, John T
4. $18.0 Walton, S Robson
9. $14.2 Dell, Michael
10. $13.7 Ellison, Lawrence Joseph
It is worth noting that 5 people on this list are members of one family.
Is it true that 1% of the population holds 40% of the world’s wealth? That’s what I believe I read a day or two ago in the NY Times …
I guess many of us imagine that a more even distribution of the wealth would be better … but without the capitalist incentives, then what? Clearly, the key is a shift in values. As Orion and Paul wrote in their article above: deep reflection on the ethical implications of our current lifestyles and a transformation of our relations to each other and the Earth.
I hear many people now using the words “well-being.” I heard Alex Steffen of WorldChanging say in Austin a week or so ago … we could lead much more stirring lives. It’s a truism that wealth doesn’t buy happiness. But how to convey that message to people … especially those in countries that are only now beginning to develop?
I’m full of questions this morning. I’ve been thinking about the words “advanced human civilization.” I tried googling those words yesterday and found very little. The Great Transition Initiative aside, why are so few people speaking about and thinking about the possibility of an advanced human civilization?
And what would have to happen to get more people thinking about it?
Would an advanced human civilization necessarily be associated with an advance in human understanding regarding the way the world in which we works and the “placement” of humankind within the natural order of living things?
Well, it’s pretty clear what our “placement” in Earth’s natural order is … we completely dominate the Earth. But it’s possible to view that not as a problem … but as an opportunity.
Of course we want an advancing human civilization, not a civilization going in the opposite direction, one that results from a profoundly misguided belief: humankind can defy biophysical reality. Given the scale and rate of growth of human enterprise and human numbers, perhaps our species continuation along the “primrose path” we have been so relentlessly pursuing could unintentionally precipitate the extirpation of biodiversity, the irreversible degradation of the planet, the break down of global ecosystems and the destruction of life as we know it on Earth for our children and coming generations.
It seems to me that we necessarily will lead “different and more stirring lives” by accepting that the human species cannot infinitely produce, consume and propagate in the finite planetary home God has blessed human beings to inhabit. If the masters of the universe are determined to continue with business-as-usual by adamantly insisting upon evermore UNBRIDLED economic globalization, UNCHECKED INCREASE of per-capita consumption and the UNRESTRAINED GROWTH of absolute global human population numbers, assuming incorrectly the human species can actually defy human limits and Earth’s limitations, then a sense of foreboding overtakes me because those people who are leading the not-so-great generation of which I am a member could inadvertently bring forth “hell on Earth” soon.
Deborah, I agree that humankind currently dominates the Earth. Can you imagine what is to come if we continue of same old things that have brought us to the 21st century? What worries me is this: to continue to automatically keep doing what our predominant culture is doing now will result not simply in domination but ultimately in the catastrophic destruction of life as we know it and want it to be for our children and coming generations.
Dear Deborah,
At this moment there are plenty of opportunities to think anew and change our ways. The future is good and open. There are answers to the questions we raise now. There is much to do and we can do all of it. Even so, one question remains: “Will we human creatures use our reason, intelligence, imagination, judgment and will to do what is required of us by our advanced understanding of the way the world in which we live works?”
Dear Deborah,
Consider one of my generation’s many “sirens,” Ms. Mae West. Her words had the same kind of effect on my generation as the words other sirens once had upon Ulysses. Her words that I remember now are these: “TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS WONDERFUL.”
The problems are not what we are doing; the problems are TOO MUCH production by untethered business conglomerations, TOO MUCH consumption by millions of fortunate people, TOO MUCH reproduction by billions of the unfortunate people in the human family. TOO MUCH human enterprise and too many human newborns could soon become patently unsustainable in the small planetary home we inhabit.
Accepting human limits and Earth limitations may give us a foundation for determining what we are to do next in order to assure a good enough future for our children and coming generations, a future based upon respect for limits to the rate of growth of economic expansion, per-capita consumption and human reproduction.
Human and environmental health could well depend upon the decisions made by all of us, here and now, who are ready to look at this day as a new day and to see the day as the first day of the remainder not just of our own lives but of life as we know it on Earth.
Always,
Steve
Please consider that hubris does confuse human reasoning about the “placement” of humanity within the natural order of living things. There is the rub, I suppose. We have learned from God’s great gifts to humanity, natural philosophy and modern science, that Earth is not the center of the universe (Copernicus); that we are set upon a tiny celestial orb among a sea of stars (Galileo); that such things as the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Thermodynamics affect living things equally, including human beings (Newton, et al); that humankind is a part of the general evolutionary process (Darwin); and that people are to a significant degree unconscious, mistake what is illusory for what is real and, therefore, have difficulty both adequately explaining the way the world works and consciously regulating our behavior (Freud). Now come unanticipated and unfortunately unwelcome data from Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel that indicate we have preternaturally and inadequately understood human population dynamics and refused to appreciate the necessity for regulating certain distinctly human activities. That is to say, humanity could soon be presented with a predicament resulting from its “overgrowth” activities: increasing and unchecked per capita consumption of limited resources, seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities in a finite world, and unbridled species propagation…....to the extent these activities unintentionally extirpate biodiversity and degrade the ecosphere.
Extant data indicate that the excessive extinction of biodiversity and creeping environmental degradation as well as the voracious dissipation of limited resources at an accelerating rate, one that substantially exceeds the capacity of Earth to restore the resources, could be overwhelming consequences of human influence and, even now, visible on the far horizon.
From my humble vantage point, it does look as if the challenges posed to humanity by certain unregulated human activities overspreading Earth now are huge ones. Even so, we can take the measure of the looming challenges and find solutions to the problems that are consonant with universally shared values.
Thank you.
I think it was in high school biology when I was taught about the “natural” tendencies of organisms without predators to reproduce to the limit of their resources, at which point their population would “crash.” Bacteria in a glass jar, a closed system, wipe themselves out.
Clearly addressing human population growth is a priority—family planning, birth control, education and empowerment of women, economic development, are all implicated in lower birth rates.
The right of poorer countries to develop is essential. ‘Development’ in the past, and currently in the rapidly growing economy of China, involves industrialization and urbanization—increasing all sorts of environmental impacts (including carbon emissions). As we consider how to address Climate Change, we’ll need to make allowances so that economic development can continue in poorer places. The “polluter pays” principle would argue that those most responsible for the current climate crisis should pay the clean-up costs—meaning industrialized countries need to help finance the “sustainable development” of poorer countries, as well as reduce their own carbon emissions—if we are to be equitable, just and rational.
Those who study well-being note that economic security—access to a basic level of health care, education, housing, good jobs, food and water—is essential. However, beyond a certain point of wealth, additional luxuries do not improve well-being (and actually can decrease it, as the trade-off between time spent accumulating wealth versus other life activities becomes harmful).
Given the need for equity, what is an appropriate level of wealth and luxury? Clearly one of the engines of innovation is the potential to “make it rich”—but just how “rich” do we need to be to provide that incentive? A lot of studies point to the fact that it’s relative wealth that really improves psychological well-being, not absolute wealth. Thus as the rich get richer, the competition to accumulate even more becomes an arms race that ratchets upwards beyond the point of rationality.
Should a single family (Waltons, Gates, etc.) control more resources—and all the decision-making power that entails—than many countries with millions of citizens? What does this imply about “democracy” in our emerging global community?
If that wealth was spread out more, providing people with more economic security, education and opportunity, it seems likely that would also help address the over-population issue.
Dear Orion,
You report on several significant points. Your questions are superb. I value what you have to say in each instance.
And yes, we are talking about what children learn in high school biology when we comment, as you do here, on the population dynamics of the human species. It appears to me that the masters of the universe have uniformly chosen to ‘forget’ what they learned in school in order to widely share, collectively embrace and consensually validate a culturally prescribed view of human beings that is unrealistic, aggrandized and potentially detrimental to human and environmental health in the 21st century.
Despite what the masters of the universe would have us believe, they do not have all the answers, here and now. Perhaps we do not have the best of all possible worlds. This is only a guess, but I imagine that those of us who travel the world have realized that the predominant culture may not be adequately serving humanity, protecting biodiversity, preserving the integrity of Earth, or assuring the long-term health and wellbeing of the human species. The human community can organize life in many different ways that are better than the cultural hegemony of our time and I trust we will.