It is springtime. The weather is nice and temperatures are fair. The economy is picking up again. Economy safety umbrellas spread over the world. People are happy again, the economic future looks bright, while the climatic and ecological situation on our planet is worsening. By the way, how sustainable is the newly injected money into the global economy, helping to mitigate systemic financial risk? Leading economists don’t believe that this is actually sustainable. It is just delaying urgent reforms and preventing measures and policy, which would prevent the climate and environment from further degradation. But it seems that we have no choice and alternatives. Still economists and regulators should work hard to come up with more resilient, long-term and sustainable solutions, taking into account the costs caused by further degradation of our planet through climate change, global warming and environmental change. By the way what value should be given to human beings in these computations? The values of their assets? Are there other human values to be considered? Isn’t it scandalous that some consider a value of null for humans? Isn’t that immoral, unjust? What about their skills, their knowledge, should we give it a value?
To come back to our tragic human condition, what can we do if the majority of people only think and focus on the short-term? Nothing. It is tragic, it is the human condition and the majority doesn’t care about sustainability or future generations. Still there is enormous energy globally to move the democratization process forward, globally. I believe in the good, and there is hope, as long as the good can get organized and come up with sustainable solutions.
What about science? We can create new knowledge. But what if nobody makes good use of this knowledge? Why does science not prioritize their funds into the safeguard of humanity? Because we are not able to anticipate, because science has become more of a religion, of group think, professors sticking to their knowledge and competence and mainstream science, rather than challenging their thinking and knowledge creation processes? Instead of science challenging science, science is in a reactive mode, driven by uncertainty of our future, our climate, as well as policy uncertainty. Science has brought us progress and comfort. But only to some of the world’s population. As we have seen through history, science or the way, scientific knowledge has been used, constitutes also a major threat to our civilization.
Science feeds policy makers with new knowledge and information. Besides using it for a purely political purpose, who cares? Climate change skeptics and the oil lobby? Must be the human condition again. Science feeds politics, and politics invests into science and research, in a symbioses, as part of the establishment.
But again there are exceptions. Leading universities and scientists who started investigating about climatic and environmental issues already decades ago from independent minds and visions, who today are at the forefront in scientific research relating to the challenges, humanity is facing today and in the decades to come.
But exactly these scientists have become the victims of industrial lobbying and misleading scientific research, with lobbyists funding the wrong cause. Leading scientists who are part of our global and local solutions should get all the attention and research funding needed. They will set up the foundation for future generations.
So still, there is hope, but scientists are confronted with a legacy of people, who, under the influence of lobbyists try to oppose change and progress in threatening the life of scientists and their families, and in spreading misleading information to the public.
Yes it is sad, but it is typical for a society who lacks good vision, purpose, believes and values, a system and a society of individualists and egoists who have traded their virtues against egoism, greed, money and corruption.
Large multi-national corporations? The big players are in the anti-climate business: producing or using fossil fuel. What can they do? Lobbies use disinformation and tactics against climate and environmental friendly policy, securing short term financial benefits, and benefiting from economic safety umbrella, e.g. industries like the finance sector, presenting the systemic risks to the economy and our society, investing in large legacy enterprise or buying bonds from bankrupt states. So what can we do about it? Nothing. It is just what the mainstream economists think makes sense and is best for our society.
What about sustainability? Why should we care? Even if we are told that our planet’s surface temperature increases by 6° C by the end of the century (or earlier?) the people who really govern our planet today won’t live anymore, so they don’t care. And why should the young generation care? Perhaps at 6°C is an even more fun planet? Probably they find more fun things to do today and party, than thinking about the next 50 years of their life, and bringing their youth and energy to those and the communities who most need it? And what about the newborn and little children? It is normal that mothers are concerned about their little ones. But as long as the cavern and its near environment is cozy and friendly, why worry about such a strange phenomena we call global warming?
It is just too far away, out of reach, a situation, calling us for anticipation and precautionary behavior, we never had to deal with before. This is something, people just don’t want to be bothered. If we don’t get our pay, we should bother about this one first. If we loose our job, what counts most than get a new one? Because it is important for me, my wife, my children? Who cares about future generations, who will live 50 years from now? You should because your children and grandchildren may still be alive.
Why should you worry? Your friends are not worrying, your neighbor isn’t worrying neither. It is getting warmer. So what? Why should we retrofit our houses and flats when after an ice-cold winter period we found ourselves with a 30°C temperature increase and enough heat where we are happy for any fresh breeze, crossing our rooms, or a cool thick stone wall, maintaining nice a fresh temperatures. Because hot, cold and other extremes come and go, more frequently than in the past.
At least we should recognize and perhaps worry that our climate system is out of balance? But who cares? We still see large traffic jams, SUVs and trucks every morning, at noon, every evening. Trucks shipping goods back and forth, for each processing and distribution step. Climate is changing yes, but people don’t care. Why should they? Gasoline prices are low. We can air-travel and city-hop every weekend for less money than the price of a train-ride across Switzerland. Isn’t that beautiful? And we don’t have to worry about having 3 cars in our family, since we can drive around all together at the same time thanks to highly subsidized fossil- and biofuel. Lately on a beautiful warm and sunny day in Bern, I saw a lady with her husband, sitting in a parked Mercedes, with the motor running, doing here make-up, polluting the entire neighborhood. Isn’t that great? And why should we care about the 2 billion, who have to struggle every day in their lives? They never will be a threat to us. And as long you are ok, why should you worry about people living so far away?
And at that point we should ask ourselves, if nobody cares, why should anybody care? Should we care about our civilization? Is there any value in the homo sapiens, homo oikonomikos? My daughter, living in the U.S., told me lately: “Daddy it is great what you are doing and I am really proud of you. But I have to let you know that here, nobody gives a shit about the environment and climate change”. It is sad, but for the majority, she is certainly right. And what if your city or area is hit by a tornado or a hurricane? It hurts. And it just happens. As long as it does not happen to you, in your backyard, you don’t care. But when you are among the victims, there it is or was, and it just happened, and this is why nobody cares whether your home is destroyed, whether you lost a beloved one, it’s because people they never cared, and they never gonna care in the future, neither for you, nor for themselves.
What about disasters that happen at the scale of the planet? Well it just happens in some places, more or less far away. And we don’t know what it is like unless it is here in our backyard, now. And we did not care, why should we care? It just happens. People are drown, swept away by tsunamis, buried alive under a tornado or destroyed through a hurricane, not any type of people, your children, your loved ones, your families, your nearest friends, the living and the material, we emotionally where so attached to. We lost them, they are gone forever. It is the price we accept to pay for not caring. It is the price we negotiated with nature, they price we agree to pay, living as we live today, without caring for anyone else, without caring about our planet. They are gone, our planet is gone, and we can’t bring them back to live. It is the price we agreed to pay in our pact with the Devil, like Faustus and Mephistopheles did. Yes, you decided early to sell your soul to the Devil.
What about the few exotic greenies? The tiny group of nostalgic baby-boomers, Woodstock Generation, of the countercultural (r)evolution? You must have been there to understand what has happened, what it was like. People forget, time passes by and also you will be history soon. The tiny network of those who know that our civilization and its institutions is seriously sick and wrong-minded bringing down our planet and self-destroying the global population?
Let’s take another example to illustrate our helplessness and incapacity. Syria. Although in the western world we are positive that democracy thrives and helps the opposition to build a new government and country, based on the foundation of democracy, the government cannot make the democracy work. Government leads, represents, but it is the citizens who are in charge to fight and institute democracy. As citizen we cannot expect any globally united forces or organization like red cross, medecins sans frontier or United Nations Organizations to change the government of a country in a few hours, even if people are victims of tortures and executions. It is also the disenchantment and disappointing illusion of bohemian revolutions or “soft” evolutions. Revolutionary changes not only cost blood and human sacrifices. Such changes are complex and only possible if they meet the systemic and geopolitical interests of foreign nations and their geopolitical and economic stakes in these countries. Even if such revolutions might appear chaotic and their outcome uncertain, such processes are controlled through a few key stakeholders.
And as we witness, the establishment, dictators, governments together with their armed forces make use of all possible means in their pursuit to stay in power and to destroy the opposition and revolutionary movements.
Politics is a process of building power and strength against opposition, with tactics strongly using media, communication and political information dissemination. In itself polity has no interests and means to change. Politics is the process and representation of the citizen’s wishes and desires, reflected through the political system in place.
We need to differentiate politics in a democratic system from an authoritarian political system under a dictatorship. Democratic and representative politics serve to give national leadership, direction, regulation and diplomacy and conflict solving at the international level. The actors in these processes could be compared to the communication, marketing and sales department of a multinational corporation.
Authoritarian political systems and dictatorship uses disinformation, manipulation, repression and coercion and need intelligence, technology, skilled and creative means to allow transformation to happen.
What about the armed forces? The establishment, basically utilitarian and self-sufficient, is seeking by all means, politically and economically to keep the establishment in place and opposing any change. This is why the armed forces are tightly linked and integrated into the political system and government in place.
There is no illusion that change will ever happen. Change rather occurs slowly, at a time step of decades or centuries, in a “laissez-faire” mode, despite the dramatic evidence of climate and environmental change. Power-words such as change, transformation, innovation are used in corporations to keep a hectic working atmosphere and pressure onto the workforce, pretending that change is happening at a dramatic speed. In fact nothing happens, it is just a means of keeping the pressure high and the workforce under control, and down- and rightsize where needed.
Innovation is a systematic and hard work process, mainly driven through science, research and discovery. Today, there is hardly any help out there. We live in a highly competitive environment and we lack the means to innovate. We are in a deadlock situation, because financial sources do not reach the real world and are drying out.
What about philosophy, the “god” or mother of all thinking and knowledge? Philosophical considerations on human rights or intergenerational justice belong in the field of philosophy, and independent of the real changes, the philosopher will continue to philosophize. Everything is explainable from a philosophical standpoint. It is philosophy for philosophy, art for art. There are only few outstanding philosophers with universal philosophies, views and concepts, able to build knowledge taking into account the different cultures and philosophies worldwide. Most mainstream philosophers are trapped in narrow-minded fields and topics, with narrow fixations on a particular historical time and event and do not contribute to fundamental human philosophical questions and considerations.
If we consider the corporate world from the sustainability perspective, most legacy business and corporations are part of the establishment. Their goal is economic sustainability and shareholder value. If they adhere to sustainability, economic considerations have first and prime priority. To quote the economist Milton Friedman (1970): “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. In other terms, only profit and positive numbers can allow a business to also be socially and environmentally sustainable. We have to clearly separate triple-bottom-line sustainable businesses from businesses that perform “green-washing” in pretending being sustainable.
It is just not happening. Our world keeps spinning. Economies proceed on their unsustainable path because politics is not economics, and society does not care. We can’t claim sustainability for society, if society itself and per definition behaves irresponsible and unsustainable. As such, we have no choice to live in our dreams and illusions of natural beauties that once have been, which only exists in our memories and imaginations of a world that could have been.
Humans have lost their innocence. We have become tough, and we want to do it the tough and hard way, destroying and depleting what is left to be destroyed and depleted. We also don’t know what is happening. Despite technology and networks, our perception of the world is biased. Information provided through media is distorted, biased, we get served what we want to have served, as information consumers. The media presents us a voyeuristic and desolate image of the society we have created and we are living in. We are in denial, we have become uncritical, we run away from reality, we close our eyes, ears, mouths. We are accustomed to live our comfortable lives. It is our fate and we have to make the best out of it unless we reach for paradise or a new frontier in our universe, which would by then be well deserved by our future generations.
Still there remains a tiny group of idealist, keeping the small flame of sustainability alive. Idealists, not to say utopists, trying with all means and forces to turn the ship around, embedded in a slow, inert established system. The Don Quijote and the Wind Mill is a good metaphor, us running and trying to change the inert establishment, whose wind wheels continuously and stubbornly rotate in the wind in the middle of nowhere.
We only can succeed in creating a strong and trusted network of equal minded, ignoring the establishment and being smart enough to identify and mitigate the legacy, its lobbying any tactics that try to divert us from our main objective, to build a better planet for today’s and future generations. And we need to reinvent media where we deliver good information, that reaches everybody online.
To build this network we have to find the equal minded in our societies and different cultures, including men and women from the street, scientists, corporations, politicians, economists, and media, who share our vision, who are ready to lead and take risks.
How can we achieve our mission? It seems that technology and technological progress is one important enabler. And then there is “we” and our belief in democracy. Can we do it? What means have we left? The money of the super rich? Don’t count on it. That would be pure speculation. There is a lot of money shifted around, but I doubt that it reaches the real economy. It is rather a bubble, growing and bursting again at some near future. We have to base our livelihoods not on bubbles to become resilient. We have to knit and glue our societies through new values, believes and purposes, we find perhaps in our local traditions and knowledge, that brings and keeps us again together.
Technology can help us to communicate efficiently at low cost. We could live in public places and Starbucks. We have to put more energy in our livings, live healthier with less money. Sharing things, our time, our personal energy, knowledge and skills. Get back to our essentials like food and shelter. We put our values and believes into useless consumption and wasteful living. These times are gone. We created it, it is all there, and we need to use and share it more consciously in our everyday existence. So it is a combination of sharing and making clever use of new technologies, allowing us to share information and stay connected.
Using and sharing of resources on a local scale to build local resilience is the way to go. Local solutions, making use of networking and communication technology locally. Whether for production, logistics and supply of food and water, the production of new knowledge, art and culture, education and social life. Society will transform itself to previous forms, perhaps Amish like lifestyles, enhanced with technology where we can reasonably make use of it to stay connected. Perhaps with climate change we are entering into an era of modern nomads, technology helping and showing us the roads and paths to follow to sustain our livelihoods. Back to the roots, enhanced through information and communication technology to become more resilient, efficient and networked.
Making smart use of information and communication technology, e.g. in sustainable and ecological agriculture, through minimizing the use of resources like water, making better use of energy, better recycling of natural by-products, better use of renewables. Creating a society based on healthy lifestyles, production and use of renewables locally and sharing knowledge and expertise worldwide to help people to develop consciousness and taking better care of the scarce resources and natural environment, living in fair and right democracies.
