Can humanity overcome global crises and build a sustainable future? Yes, with cooperation.
Commentary by Pete Haug | FāVS News
As a first order of business, our new president has withdrawn our country from the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.
I’ve been tracking environmental issues for half a century, beginning before the 1972 publication of “The Limits to Growth” (LTG), the first report to the Club of Rome on the world problematique. LTG describes the complex of crucial problems (political, social, economic, technological, environmental, psychological and cultural) that humanity faces. LTG was subtitled “A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind.”
Enter climate change
LTG did not consider global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed 16 years later, although ExxonMobil had been tracking climate change internally since the late 1970s.
The original objectives of the LTG study were:
- Gain insight into the limits of our world system and constraints those limits put on human numbers and activities.
- Identify and study the dominant elements, and their interactions, that influence the long-term behavior of world systems
- Warn of the likely outcomes of contemporary economic and industrial policies with a view to influencing transformation to a sustainable lifestyle.
LTG’s 1972 projections suggested, “in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity.” Authors emphasized that these projections of then-current trends were not inevitable; they could be avoided by collective international willpower.
Follow-up studies published in 1992, 2004, 2012 and 2022 corroborated trends, though details varied. Some specific predictions lacked accuracy, but LTG’s basic thesis —”unlimited economic growth on a finite planet is impossible” — was “indisputably correct.”
As this is written, Los Angeles burns, and international agencies strive to blunt other ravages of climate change and resource depletion. Meanwhile, innocent victims of natural disasters continue to lose their properties and their lives.
Another look
Last November a study in Foresight offered a new way of viewing shared global problems. It was written by Nafeez Ahmed, founding director of the System Shift Lab. Ahmed’s paper — “‘Planetary phase shift’ as a new systems framework to navigate the evolutionary transformation of human civilization” — offers a glimpse of positive possibilities emerging from the issues examined in LTG and follow-up studies. Addressing the “lack of unifying theoretical systems frameworks,” Ahmed’s paper offers a new “collective forward intelligence” for making sense of disparate trends.
My understanding: To minimize consequences of trends explored in the LTG and follow-up studies, we must better understand physical, ecological and political forces shaping our future, then develop and implement a unifying systems framework that integrates real-time monitoring of empirical information from interacting ecological, sociopolitical and economic global systems. This approach is known in conservation biology as “adaptive management.”
These efforts, Ahmed writes, could create a new “collective forward intelligence” able to make sense of disparate trends and processes, symptoms of a wider planetary system. It must also construct plausible, accurate future scenarios of possibilities to underpin national and international decision-making. Such efforts require transparent international cooperation and mutual trust to minimize, and eventually mitigate, impending global problems — ecological, political and socioeconomic.
Ahmed suggests Earth is facing a “planetary phase shift,” in which human civilization is currently undergoing a significant and potentially transformative period. The multiple global crises across ecological, social and economic systems suggest this. These could “lead to either a societal collapse or a radical evolution into a new phase of civilization, signifying a fundamental shift in our relationship with the planet.” I would add, “and with each other.”
Coooperative governance
What might it take to recognize and nurture our global interdependencies, to create new international governing institutions to monitor, mobilize and allocate natural and human resources for the betterment of civilization at large?
Ahmed suggests “humanity is at a critical juncture where the current industrial civilization model might be nearing its end, potentially triggering a major societal transformation.” This “planetary phase shift” will require transformation of the current industrial civilization model. And that will require cooperation on a level never before attained.
In 1945 after World War II, major powers created a flawed United Nations to rebuild international trust and cooperation. LTG studies and recent findings suggest that impending catastrophes, undreamt of in 1945 and transcending political boundaries, could bring civilization to its knees. What might it take to recognize and address collectively our shared needs, our common humanity?
A faith-based perspective
Ahmed’s projections provide scientific perspectives on global issues, many addressed since the 19th century in Baha’i teachings. Forty years ago the Baha’i international governing body offered to world leaders and citizens “The Promise of World Peace.” Its conclusion cites “the emphatic promise of Baha’u’llah: These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come.”
A 2020 Cambridge University publication (free online) offers pragmatic suggestions: “Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century.”
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
Not to add to the gloom, but I saw the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their doomsday clock to 89 seconds to ‘midnight’ extinction. It was at 90 seconds to midnight in 2023. We are so close to a precipice that one second indicates extreme danger.
Thank you for your brave writing and urgency. I can’t think of anything more moral than saving life from danger and suffering.
Thank you so much for your comments, Janet. The simple fact that scientists are pursuing problems associated with interacting forces in Earth’s ecosystem is reason for hope. Whether those in power get on board in time remains, sadly, to be seen. We can do it relastively easily by uniting and agreeing on essential facts, then working together on that basis to avoid and mitigate the problems, or we can suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (read “idiocy”) and endure the consequences of our folly. In the game of life, nature always bats last.
Again, thanks for your thoughts.
Pete
“in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity.”
Yes, we were heading for the cliff since the industrial revolution and when we went off the gold standard and started printing fiat currency, the push has been put on steroids.
Every country, in a race to become modern, shoots for an increase of 5 to10% increase in GDP (consumption of resources) or they are penalized by the world’s banks.
We are dumping a billion tons of new and used clothes in Africa every year and sucking 10% of our energy grid to create blockchains of worthless tokens because we have no other place to invest our worthless dollars. During WWII we spoke of “reduce, reuse, repair, recycle. Now we tear down, throw away and destroy the perfectly good to buy and rebuild bigger and better.
Gaza is a perfect analogy of “spiritual” humanity. Neither the Jews, the Christians backing the Jews, or the Muslims of Gaza trust their God to fight for them or bring peace. Like Cain who decided he could offer his choice of sacrifice, then killed his brother because God had respect for his brothers sacrifice and not his. Like Sarai and Abram choosing to “help” God fulfill His promise. Like Rebekah and Jacob choosing to deceive Isaac for the promised blessing, each did not trust God to do what He promised and the result was not good. But who would now vote for a government that said “God is our strength. We will wait on Him. Vengeance is Mine says the Lord. I will repay.” We will only vote for a government that promises to give us what we want, what WE think we deserve or are intitled to.
Since we cannot get families to live in peace, how do you propose to get nations (without the use of force) to bring peace? One who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
I do have hope, but not in humanity figuring it out. My hope is in my God Who has promised that He will bring peace, but only for those who would have “This Man to reign over them.” Luke 19:14 and 27.
(Those that would have a God of love, mercy, forgiveness AND justice reign over them and share that love mercy and forgiveness to others, God can save. His Name is His character. If you know and love His character, you know His Name.)
Thank you, Chuck, for your thoughtful comments. You covered a lot of ground and did it well. As a Baha’i, I believe we’re on the cusp of a new era, a seismic shift in humanity’s collective outlook. That could be represented in part by the “planetary phase shift” I wrote about. But it will require, under the best of circumstances, wholesale coiooperation, and it won’t be easy. the outcome and the future, however, are destined to be bright, as prophesied throughout milennia in holy writings of many religions.
Thanks again for your thoughts and comments.
Pete