Awakening to Earth's Call: Navigating a New Future

1. Responding to the Biggest Wake-Up Call in History Richard A Slaughter Foresight International

2. Aims and Purposes • To provide a framing view of the global context • To introduce notions of a ‘wake-up call’ and ‘descent futures’ • To provide an overview of responses, methods, perceptions and tasks • To outline a rationale for developing proactive strategies within local government

3. Overview • Evidence for a ‘wake-up’ call? • What responses are worth exploring? • What methods are available? • Pivotal issues & priority tasks • Re-framing optimism and pessimism • Role of Institutions of Foresight (IoFs) • Implications for local government • Conclusions

4. Evidence? Tip of Iceberg

5. M Berman, Reenchantment of the World, 1981 60 Years of Insight into the Global System J Lovelock, Gaia, 1981 J Saul, Unconscious Civilisation, 1995 J Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren, 2009 H Henderson, Politics of the Solar Age, 1981 K Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Sprituality, 1995 M Lynas, 6 Degrees, 2008 W Catton, Overshoot, 1980 R Hopkins, Transition Handbook, 2008 T Flannery, Future Eaters, 1994 A Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, 1977 D Meadows, Beyond the Limits, 1992 D Meadows, LTG: 30 Yr Update, 2008 C Birch, Confronting the Future, 1976 W McKibbin, End of Nature, 1990 L Mumford, Pentagon of Power, 1968 J Diamond, Collapse, 2005 R Carson, Silent Spring, 1963 R Vacca, The Coming Dark Age, 1974 L Milbrath, Envisaging a Sustainable Society, 1989 W Steffen, Global Change & Earth System, 2004 F Polak, Image of Future, 1961 IF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1974 P Ehrlich, Pop Bomb,1968 P Raskin, Great Transformation, 2002 J Macy, Despair & Personal Power, 1983 G Vickers, Freedom in a Rocking Boat, 1972 V Packard, Waste Makers, 1957 E Leach, Runaway World, 1967 C Weeramantry, Slumbering Sentinals, 1983 E Wilson, The Future of Life, 2002 Hubbert’s Peak, 1956 E Mishan, Costs of Econ Growth, 1967 D Meadows, Limits to Growth, 1972 U Beck, World Risk Society, 1999 C Hamilton, Requiem for a Species, 2010 2010 1950 1965 1980 1995

6. Global Change/Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure • The impact of human activities on the global atmosphere is unmistakable and profound • Human-driven changes are pushing the Earth System well outside its normal operating range • The last 50 years have without doubt seen the most rapid transformation of the human relationship with the natural world in the history of humankind Source Steffen, W (et al), Global Change and the Earth System, IGBP, 2004

7. ‘Overshoot’ from mid 1980s Jackson, R. Occupy World Street, 2012, p 5

8. Beyond the Limits • Limits already exceeded: • Climate change • Biodiversity losses • Nitrogen cycle • Limits likely to be exceeded: • Ozone depletion • Fresh water • Ocean acidification • Land use changes • Unknown: • Atmosphere aerosol loading • Chemical pollution Source: Rockstrom, Nature, 2009

9. Peak Oil and Climate Change • Challenge values & operating assumptions • Early action preferable to managing consequences • Yet lack of social understanding and political will -> poor response Oil Production Source: Heinberg, Powerdown, 2004

10. Generic Ways of Responding Tsunami marker stones in Japan • Deny, disguise or confuse the signals (close to universal) • Respond by alleviating the pressures through technological fixes (common) • Work on underlying causes and change the structure of the system (seldom considered) • Source:Meadows,Limits to Growth: 30 Year Update, 2004

11. Pivotal Issues and Perceptions

12. The Three Economies Source: Floyd & Slaughter, Descent Pathways, Foresight 16,6, 2014

13. Macro Issues Include: • Nature of growth in a finite system • How to adapt economics • The de-materialisation of money • Illegitimate or disruptive use of the new tools: Internet, encryption, surveillance etc. -> new vulnerabilities

14. What Drives Growth? • Inertia – based on centuries of thinking and practice: assumes more = better • Convenience – more wealth = more choices (?) • Fear – alternatives seen as too challenging • Economics – fundamental assumptions: problems of growth ‘solved’ by more growth? • ‘Shorttermism’ – failure of foresight

15. The Digital Revolution • Profoundly disruptive • Radical disintermediation • Loss of professions & a plethora of new ones • Ambiguous – opportunities and threats multiply • Exerting ‘backward adaptation’ on everyone • Rise of the ‘Internet Oligarchs’ • New ‘Panopticon’?

16. The Anthropocene The Anthropocene defines Earth's most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans. The word combines the root ‘anthropo’, meaning ‘human’ with the root ‘-cene’, the standard suffix for ‘epoch’ in geologic time. Source: Eric Ellis http://www.eoearth.org/article/Anthropocene

17. Case Study: Limits to Growth Since the late 1980s the earth’s people have been using more of the planet’s resources each year than could be regenerated … the ecological footprint of global society has overshot the earth’s capacity to provide … The potential consequences of this overshoot are profoundly dangerous. Meadows: LtG 1972; 30-Year Update,2004; Randers: 2052 – Global Forecast, 2012

18. After ‘Limits…’ • Careful, critical re-evaluation • Comparison of ‘standard run’ with reality: a close match • Renewed credibility, interest and relevance of LtG perspective Sources: Turner, G. CSIRO, 2008-9; Bardi, U, Springer, 2011; Higgs, K. MIT, 2014

19. Ways Forward via Emerging Narratives: Collapse to Descent • Collapse: deterministic, de-motivating, largely beyond human and social control • Descent: possibility of intervention at many stages, strategies can be explored, many options available, non-deterministic and hopeful Sources: Holmgren, Future Scenarios, 2009; Greer, The Long Descent, 2008 & The EcotechnicFuture, 2009; Fry, Design Futures, 2009; Jackson, T. Prosperity Without Growth, 2009; Jackson, R. Occupy World Street, 2012; 2052, Randers, 2052 Global Forecast, 2012

20. Holmgren’s Version Holmgren, D. Future Scenarios, Chelsea Green, 2009

21. Priority Tasks

22. Re-examine / revise notions of growth • Meta-goals of equity and sustainability • Balance technical with human & cultural development: • conventional to post-con outlooks • ego-, to socio-& world-centric worldviews • Viable forward views should include: structural, cultural, intentional and behavioural factors (but very few do)

23. Task 1 Tell the truth with clarity, mindfulness, inclusivity…and humour!

24. Task 2 Detailed exploration of, and public involvement in, understanding descent pathways

25. Maintaining Equilibrium • Optimism & pessimism poorly understood – simplistic & limiting • The current global outlook is not merely ‘depressing’- it provides new or renewed sources of motivation • Enormous potential for innovation and constructive change • Future as series of challenges (rather than ‘a disaster that’s already happened’)

26. A Push andPull Dynamic Out of comfort zones Toward expanded awareness & capability

27. ‘Waking Up’ Within Four Worldviews (UL quadrant) • Pre-conventional– Unreflective transition between sleep & wakefulness • Conventional - Becoming aware of new ideas, opportunities & resources • Post-conventional- Opening to new realms of possibility, ways of knowing, • social construction etc • Integral- Radically broader & deeper context. ‘Self’ can be attuned to phenomena on many levels and resonate with them without identifying exclusively with any of them Sources: Wilber, Integral Psychology, 2000; Hayward, Resolving the Moral Impediments to Foresight Action, 2003; Slaughter, Biggest Wake-Up Call, chap. 9.

28. ‘Proto Solutions’ in Four Domains Interior Exterior Individuals need to elevate their consciousness & capacities to more inclusive stages We need to lift our level of competence & performance in a number of areas Individual Organisations and societies need to move on toward more integrated states and stages of development The infrastructure needs to be re-developed for sustainable uses Collective Source: Slaughter, R.The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History, 2010

29. Creating Useful Forward Views • Range of methods • Four quadrant metaperspective (AQAL) • Trained personnel &purpose-built ‘niches’ • Real commitment to foresight at all levels

30. Institutions of Foresight

31. Institute for the Future • Ten year forecast • Technology horizons • Health • Workable futures • Food futures • Future of learning • Future for good fellow ship program • Governance futures lab

32. Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (Singapore)

33. Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning • Advanced data analytics • Systems modelling • Perspective sharing Technology innovation framework

34. Professional Support

35. Implications for Local Govt • Does local govt have access to high quality foresight? If not, why not? • Currently we lack an appropriate infrastructure • Review and evaluate overseas examples from: Finland, France, Singapore, etc. • Balance internal and external expertise

36. Implications Contd • In-house capacity -> stream of intelligence • Support for a foresight culture in local govt • Review current wave of positive social and economic innovations including: • Transition towns, Permaculture, De-growth, Descent pathways etc. • Steps toward re-localisation, de-cent energy etc. • Wayfinding project, conscious evolution (Hames) • Many others …

37. Transformative Options • Deep design, transformative brief (Fry) etc. • Reinvent corporations, remove perverse subsidies, tax ‘Internet Oligarchs’ • Re-localisation, resilienceas social goals • Education facing forward (not back & not just IT) • Active pursuit of social foresight at all levels

38. Transformative Action • Transition towns seek to build resilience in face of peak oil and climate change • Positive visioning - not campaigning against… • Locality based • Process of inner and outer transition • Ideals of openness and inclusion – but… • Low-hanging fruit? Source: Hopkins, Transition Handbook, 2008

39. Conclusions We tend to underestimate the power of change and to stay with the familiar & known… But, the near term future is highly unstable and exceptionally challenging Can deal with it if we engage with the issues and build capacity Business-as-usual as the least credible option

40. The Garfield Option