A Vision for a Thrivable Future

It is often said that most people reject change. I don’t believe this is true for all change, only for change where we are not in control, and where the change takes us somewhere else than we want to go.

If we, on the other hand, consider change which takes us where we want to go, and in a way where we feel that we are in control, I am quite sure that most people will do what they can to support that change.

We, humankind, are facing great challenges, possibly bigger than ever before, including social, environmental and economic. They cloud the horizon in very dark colours. The challenges are complex, integrated and, on top of it all, urgent. With the perspective above regarding our attitude to change, it becomes clear that we have to work hard to describe the desirable end state of the change needed, despite all it’s inherent uncertainty. Without a defined end state which is attractive, and in addition, a path which is neither very clear, widespread embrace of the changes needed can hardly be expected.

There are a number of frameworks describing “a sustainable future”, for instance the four system conditions of the Natural Step. These are excellent in many ways, but the drawback is that they primarily describe what we must not do in the future compared to what we do today. So, in essence, what they provide is a more constrained room for humanity compared with today’s society. This is of course not a good starting point for describing an inspiring future.

Other approaches start by describing all the terrible things that will happen if we continue on a business as usual path, such as the book “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas, or some of these scenarios from Forum for the Future . The targeted future is then described as the alternative scenario where we avoid these roadblocks. This is also a defensive approach. We must be able to do better.

A recent collaborative book project curated by Jean Russell, “Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch” , takes its point of departure instead in different aspects of the type of society we would like to create. This is very interesting, and I think we need to do a lot more of this type of work in order to reach the levels of mass mobilization needed for BIG change.

“Thrivability” is indeed a great concept. It is much richer in meaning than  “Sustainability” which defensively means that we, as people, society, businesses, shall survive. Thrivability means that we put in place the prerequisites for humankind to “thrive”, to continue to develop to something better. Thrivability is about  searching, finding and building a flourishing and richer society for tomorrow.

We need to continue to draw better and better maps of what a thrivable society means, so that we get a roadmap which is inspiring and compelling for all of us to follow.

What aspects of a future thrivable society are hardest to describe?

“Thivability: A Collaborative Sketch” makes attempts to describe a number of key themes and concepts from a thrivable perspective. Below are a number of additional concepts that I believe are crucially important to describe and discuss in order to paint an understandable vision of a thrivable future:

Economy, Finance, Business, Citizenship, Relationship, Entrepreneurship, Change, Trust, Empowerment, Freedom, Justice, Equity, Equality, Responsibility, Governance, Stewardship, Time

Would you like to help?

Stopping population growth

In today’s Dagens Nyheter http://www.dn.se/debatt/med-dagens-fodelsetal-ar-vi-snart-134000-miljarder-1.1060811, four scientists make the case that it is unsustainable and inconsequent  that the developed world should continue to aim for population growth in order to stimulate economic growth, while claiming that global overpopulation is a serious issue.

They are right. We have to break free of the logic which requires continued population (and economic) growth in order to avoid the costs of an aging population. Maintaining population growth in developed countries only makes the problem even worse in the future. We are currently overusing our global ecosystem resources by roughly 40% according to WWF.  http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/footprint/ The overuse per capita is naturally highest in developed countries.

The author’s of the DN article propose “institutional reforms” which will lead to voluntary reduction of the number of children, also in developed countries. This is certainly needed – but it is not only a question of a changed behaviour among the fertile population. It is a bigger challenge to reform the financial system to make it less dependent on steady economic growth at 3% or more. We will likely have to adapt to a contracting economy, and this will certainly be painful. It will hit on businesses, pensions, jobs, and consequently, on government. This is something I will write more about another day.

Some blog’s commenting the article claim that the problem of the increasing global population is all in the developing countries. Although the problem is much bigger in many developing regions (in particular in West Asia, South Asia and Africa) the claim is false. Our global overshoot in ecological footprint is a problem everywhere. Fortunately, population growth is slowing down rapidly in most parts, which is illustrated very good by professor Hans Rosling http://www.gapminder.org/videos/what-stops-population-growth/. What he also shows is that there is a very strong inverse correlation between population growth rate and health.

What this means is that the fastest way to stop population growth is to stimulate rapid development of economy and health in the poorest areas of the world.

The Case for Thrivability

Our global human (increasingly conformist!) society is like a huge train running at full speed. There are so many arms shoveling coal to keep the speed up that the changing landscape rushing by outside is hardly discernible. Yet we know, with increasing certainty, that we are running towards a cliff.  We need not only to slow down, but to change course altogether. Not so easy when you are a train on rails. Are we stuck?

We know that the current growth paradigm with growing population, growing economies and even faster growing overuse of our natural resources will leave us with a world deprived of all its natural richness. What used to be abundant are already becoming scarce, from oil, to minerals, fresh water, fish, animals, rainforests, fertile land.

We know where this development leads us, because it is a path followed by many human cultures before, although in smaller scale. The difference is that this time we have all the knowledge. We have the knowledge and power to change. We have to abandon growth for growth’s sake until collapse (which is the logic of the cancer cell) in exchange for a development path based on humanistic values and harmony with our surrounding environment.

A path is needed, where we as a species can thrive in harmony with an environment which gets richer, not just in financial terms, but also including our natural capital.

We need Thrivability.

http://thrivable.wagn.org/wagn/Slideshow