February 22, 2022
Dear Friends and Family,
The excerpts from this epilogue are all from a book written by the primary people who negotiated the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015 that was signed by 195 countries. The Future We Choose has several passages:
After reading and digesting the authors’ perspective several questions popped to mind for each passage:
Next: The next epilogue will focus on four things: (1). Can we meet the world’s energy needs on renewable energy alone? (2). What other things could be implemented to meet the Paris Climate Accord targets other than the total elimination of fossil fuels? (3). How realistic is it for the U.S. to meet all its energy needs via renewables? and (4). What is the potential for adaptive strategies?
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
The excerpts from this epilogue are all from a book written by the primary people who negotiated the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015 that was signed by 195 countries. The Future We Choose has several passages:
- What We Must Do: This is a summary of what will happen to the world unless we “mend our ways,” per the authors.
- Choosing Our Future: This is a summary of the actions we must take to avoid climate disaster. Note: I supplemented this passage with the source graph from which the graph in the book was derived. Both are contained in the text with some of my comments on the two scientific graphs. This is virtually all the scientific evidence presented in the book.
- The World We Are Creating: This is the authors scenario on what life would be like if the world does not meet the Paris Climate Accord targets.
- The World We Must Create: This is a scenario of what life would be like if the Paris Climate Accord targets are met.
- Who We Choose to Be: Three mindsets the authors are advocating we all adopt.
- Doing What is Necessary: Ten Actions the authors are advocating we take to achieve a better future for the world.
After reading and digesting the authors’ perspective several questions popped to mind for each passage:
- What We Must Do: Are the apocalypses based on science?
- Choosing Our Future: What is the starting global average temperature for the incremental changes being put forward for their incremental warming projections?
- The World We Are Creating: Is the objective of this scenario to project realism or fear?
- 5 and 6: The World We Must Create, Who We Choose to Be, Doing What is Necessary: Is the objective of these three passages to address climate change or to advocate for worldwide socialism?
Next: The next epilogue will focus on four things: (1). Can we meet the world’s energy needs on renewable energy alone? (2). What other things could be implemented to meet the Paris Climate Accord targets other than the total elimination of fossil fuels? (3). How realistic is it for the U.S. to meet all its energy needs via renewables? and (4). What is the potential for adaptive strategies?
Happy Learning,
Harley
CLIMATE CHANGE EPILOGUES – Epilogue 4
THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE – EXCERPTS
NOTE: All the excerpts for this epilogue are from The Future We Choose by Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac (2020)
INTRODUCTION: In The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac – who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015 – have written a cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity. The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. Figueres is the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where Rivett-Carnac served as her political strategist. They are known for a unique form of collaborative diplomacy, which lead to the unanimous signing of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change by 195 countries.
WHAT WE MUST DO: We have known about the possibility of climate change since at least the 1930s and have been certain since 1960. Since then, we have done little to counter climate change, the result being that greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of climate change, are increasing. We continue to pursue economic growth through the unbridled extraction and burning of fossil fuels with a fatal impact on our forests, oceans and rivers, soil, and air.
Moving beyond injustice, restoring nature, eliminating racism, and solving the climate crisis can only be achieved if we recognize that they are all fundamentally the same challenge of how humans live well together on this Earth. Denying climate change is tantamount to saying you don’t believe in gravity. The science of climate change is not a belief, a religion, or a political ideology. It presents facts that are measurable and verifiable. Climate deniers are shamelessly protecting the short-term financial interests of the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of the long-term interests of their own descendants.
Every time we see a report on extreme weather – hurricanes that used to occur once every 500 years in a region now occur twice in a month, droughts that shrivel entire villages off the face of the Earth, heat waves that break record upon record, disasters that illustrate what is really going on – we feel a knot in our stomach.
Today’s decision on energy, transportation, and land use will all have direct and long-term effects on climate change because they lock in their respective emissions levels for decades, and cumulative emissions could push us over tipping points permanently and catastrophically.
Climate change has long been misunderstood as an environmental issue affecting the survival of the planet. The truth is the planet will continue to evolve. The planet will survive, in changed form no doubt, but it will survive. The question is whether we will be here to witness it. That’s why climate change is the mother of all issues. This crisis both dwarfs and encompasses any other issue we may care about.
Superstorms, cyclones, wildfires, droughts, and floods everywhere give us ample evidence of climate change, and those disasters will increase in frequency, scale, and location. We cannot deny or ignore climate change any longer.
CHOOSING OUR FUTURE: If governments, corporations, and individuals make no further efforts than those registered in 2015, we will go to a warming of at least 3.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. Worse yet, if they do not fulfill even the registered commitments, we can expect warming of 4 or 5 degrees (See the graph below). Be forewarned, this picture is dark. Even though many of the worst-case scenarios might not be realized until the second half of the century, it is clear that by midcentury human misery would be high, biodiversity would be decimated, and that we and our children would live in a world that is constantly deteriorating with no possible recuperation.
THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE – EXCERPTS
NOTE: All the excerpts for this epilogue are from The Future We Choose by Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac (2020)
INTRODUCTION: In The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac – who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015 – have written a cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity. The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. Figueres is the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where Rivett-Carnac served as her political strategist. They are known for a unique form of collaborative diplomacy, which lead to the unanimous signing of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change by 195 countries.
WHAT WE MUST DO: We have known about the possibility of climate change since at least the 1930s and have been certain since 1960. Since then, we have done little to counter climate change, the result being that greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of climate change, are increasing. We continue to pursue economic growth through the unbridled extraction and burning of fossil fuels with a fatal impact on our forests, oceans and rivers, soil, and air.
Moving beyond injustice, restoring nature, eliminating racism, and solving the climate crisis can only be achieved if we recognize that they are all fundamentally the same challenge of how humans live well together on this Earth. Denying climate change is tantamount to saying you don’t believe in gravity. The science of climate change is not a belief, a religion, or a political ideology. It presents facts that are measurable and verifiable. Climate deniers are shamelessly protecting the short-term financial interests of the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of the long-term interests of their own descendants.
Every time we see a report on extreme weather – hurricanes that used to occur once every 500 years in a region now occur twice in a month, droughts that shrivel entire villages off the face of the Earth, heat waves that break record upon record, disasters that illustrate what is really going on – we feel a knot in our stomach.
Today’s decision on energy, transportation, and land use will all have direct and long-term effects on climate change because they lock in their respective emissions levels for decades, and cumulative emissions could push us over tipping points permanently and catastrophically.
Climate change has long been misunderstood as an environmental issue affecting the survival of the planet. The truth is the planet will continue to evolve. The planet will survive, in changed form no doubt, but it will survive. The question is whether we will be here to witness it. That’s why climate change is the mother of all issues. This crisis both dwarfs and encompasses any other issue we may care about.
Superstorms, cyclones, wildfires, droughts, and floods everywhere give us ample evidence of climate change, and those disasters will increase in frequency, scale, and location. We cannot deny or ignore climate change any longer.
CHOOSING OUR FUTURE: If governments, corporations, and individuals make no further efforts than those registered in 2015, we will go to a warming of at least 3.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. Worse yet, if they do not fulfill even the registered commitments, we can expect warming of 4 or 5 degrees (See the graph below). Be forewarned, this picture is dark. Even though many of the worst-case scenarios might not be realized until the second half of the century, it is clear that by midcentury human misery would be high, biodiversity would be decimated, and that we and our children would live in a world that is constantly deteriorating with no possible recuperation.
Note: This and the “Tipping Points” model on page 3 of the attached PDF are the only scientific evidence presented in the book The Future We Choose. The next graph was obtained by accessing the parenthetical link above which is the supporting evidence for the graph above.
Note: Comparison of graphs: The colored graph is the source graph for the graph presented in the book (the first uncolored graph). You will note several differences between the two. First, there is no “greater than 4 degrees C No Policy” line on the source graph. It appears the authors just extended and exaggerated the 2005 trend line for Global greenhouse emissions to 90 GtCO2e/year assuming the trend line would be linear. Second, they cut the timeline in half ending it in 2050 vs. 2100.
NOTE #2, The source graph: To achieve a better perspective from which to draw conclusions, it would be good to have a (1). longer historical period than starting in 1990, (2). To have an actual temperature line, history and projection vs. an incremental projection in which there is no reference to total actual temperature.
The world we must create, limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
THE WORLD WE ARE CREATING: It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions of 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. There are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere. The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us, and in five to ten years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans.
More moisture in the air and higher sea surface temperatures have caused a surge in extreme hurricanes and tropical storms. This happens with increasing frequency now. Every day the news, shows images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs, wading through floodwaters, and homes ripped apart by vicious currents that resemble mountain rivers. Because multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it can take weeks or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses, and malnutrition are rampant. As oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide, the water has become more acidic, and the pH levels are now so hostile to marine life that all but a few countries have banned fishing, even in international waters.
If you live in Paris, you endure summer temperatures that regularly rise to 111 degrees F. Everyone stays inside, drinks water, and dreams of air conditioning. You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest parts of the world, where, for upward of 45 days/year temperatures skyrocket to 140 degrees F. – a point at which the human body cannot be outside for longer than 6 hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down. Mass migration to less hot rural areas are beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest, and bloodshed over diminished water availability.
Food supply in general is highly unpredictable. Income inequality has always existed, but it has never been this stark or this dangerous. Reproduction has slowed overall, but most acutely in those countries where food scarcity is dire. Infant mortality has rocketed. Stock markets are crashing, currencies are wildly fluctuating, and the European Union has disbanded. As committed as nations are to keeping wealth and resources within their borders, they’re determined to keep people out. Most countries’ armies are now just highly militarized border patrols. Lockdown is the goal, but it hasn’t been a total success.
Melting permafrost is also releasing ancient microbes that today’s humans have never been exposed to – and as a result have no resistance to. Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks are rampant as these species flourish in the changed climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet, increasingly overwhelming us. Suicides are the most obvious manifestation of the prevailing despair, but there are other indications: a sense of bottomless loss, unbearable guilt, and fierce resentment at previous generations who didn’t do what was necessary to ward off this unstoppable calamity.
THE WORLD WE MUST CREATE: It is 2050. We have been successful at halving emissions every decade since 2020. We are headed for a world that will be no more than 1.5 degrees C. warmer by 2100. The air is cleaner than it has been since before the Industrial Revolution. We have trees to thank for that. They are everywhere. There are still slums, but the trees, largely responsible for countering the temperature rise, have made things far more bearable for all.
We no longer burn fossil fuels – most of our energy now comes from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydro. All homes and buildings produce their own electricity – every available surface is covered with solar paint that contains millions of nanoparticles, which harvest energy from the sunlight and every windy spot has a wind turbine
Entire populations have leaped forward with improved sanitation, education, and health care. Renewable sources of electricity made possible localized desalination, which means clean drinking water can now be produced on demand anywhere in the world.
Resources and responsibilities are shared now. At first you resisted this togetherness – you were used to doing things individually and in the privacy of your own home. But pretty quickly the camaraderie and unexpected new network of support started to feel good, something to be prized. Food production and procurement are a big part of the communal effort. Buildings, neighborhoods, and even large extended families form a food purchase group, which is how most people buy their food now. The most resource-depleting foods of all – animal protein and dairy products – have practically disappeared from our diets. But the plant-based replacements are so good that most of us don’t notice the absence of meat and dairy. Most young children cannot believe we used to kill any animals for food.
Gasoline and diesel cars are also anachronisms. The goal has been to eliminate private ownership of vehicles by 2050 in major metropolitan areas. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re making progress.
The ongoing refugee situation has been escalating for decades, and it is still a major source of strife and discord. But around 15 years ago, we stopped calling it a crisis. Countries agreed on guidelines for managing refugee influxes – how to smoothly assimilate populations, how to distribute aid and resources, and how to share the tasks within particular regions.
The climate change crisis of the beginning of the century jolted us out of our stupor. As we worked to rebuild and care for our environment, it was only natural that we also turned to each other with greater care and concern.
WHO WE CHOOSE TO BE: Three Mindsets This transformation begins with the individual. In the past changing the self and changing the world were regarded as separate endeavors and viewed in either/or terms. That is no longer the case. Scientific understanding and spiritual insights are converging on the reality of human-nature interconnectedness. Our new intentional direction must move us beyond defeatism to optimism, beyond extraction toward regeneration, beyond short-term thinking toward long-term thinking and acting. By cultivating the three mindsets, we give clearer, stronger direction to our lives and to our world.
1. Stubborn Optimism.
This mindset is all the more important once you realize that the habits, practices, and technologies of the past will lead us only to ecological demise and human suffering. Viewing our reality with optimism means recognizing that another future is possible, not promised. In the face of climate change, we all have to be optimistic, not because success is guaranteed but because failure is unthinkable. Market models that shift us from single ownership of homes and cars to shared ownership must gather steam and make peace with regulation.
2. Endless Abundance:
The realization of abundance is not an illusory increase in physical resources, but rather an awareness of a broad array of ways to satisfy needs and wants so that everyone is content. In this way resources will be protected and replenished, and the relationships among us are enriched. Endless abundance. The practice of abundance starts by shifting our minds away from perceived scarcity to what we can collectively make abundant. In so doing, we will become more aware of others, what we can learn from them and share with them. We will be more conscious of our own impulse to compete and, as a corrective, develop a keener interest in how we can all win. We must internalize the new zero sum (either we all win, or we all lose).
3. Radical Regeneration: We have come to the end of humanity’s extraction road. The time for “getting” is over. Extraction is a propensity deeply ingrained in human behavior. To move away from extracting and depleting, we need to concentrate on another equally strong and intrinsic trait: our capacity for supporting regeneration. Regeneration is the capacity of a species or a biosystem to recover on its own, once humans remove the pressure they had been exerting.
It’s our responsibility and in our enlightened self-interest to protect life on this planet. overarching design principle of our lives and our activities. We can restore the resilience of the land and our communities while healing our souls.
DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY: Ten Actions: There are ten necessary actions for the making of a regenerative future, the future we hope you will choose. Changing our mindset is critical but does not suffice We invite you to dive into doing as soon as possible. Focus on doing one or two of the ten actions at first. Choose the areas that make the most sense for you, and then challenge yourself to do more over time.
Action 1: Let Go of the Old World: Change makes us vulnerable to tribalism. In the transition to a regenerative world, one of the biggest risks is that the political center does not hold, and people succumb to the easy promises of populist leaders at either end of the spectrum. We must let go of the fossil-fuel-dominated past without recrimination. The process of letting go is essential.
Action 2: Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future: A compelling vision is like a hook in the future. Hold on to that. Stay firmly fixed to a vision of a world you know is possible. In the end, we are not going to solve this problem by hoping that our democratic systems produce enlightened leadership. They might, but the survival of our species can’t depend on the partisan lines of a divided electorate. Instead, we must all embrace a strong vision for a better future.
Action 3: Defend the Truth: Learn to distinguish between real science and pseudoscience. A pseudoscience book titled Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, began with this statement: “Probably the most widely repeated claim in the debate over global warming is that ‘97% of scientists agree’ that climate change is man-made and dangerous. This claim is not only false, but its presence in the debate is an insult to science.” Facts aren’t enough to change the mind of a climate denier, so presenting statistics and sources won’t help.
Action 4: See Yourself as a Citizen – Not as a Consumer: Dematerialize. One day consumers may come to define themselves not as owners of products but as beneficiaries of systems of service delivery. This shift from ownership to stewardship will fundamentally change our relationship to consumerism. We can help accelerate it by engaging with it and welcoming it with open arms.
Action 5: Move Beyond Fossil Fuels: What would your life look like in 10 years if you were using 60% less fossil fuel than you are now? Most of your current emissions probably come from flying, driving, and heating and cooling your house. The changes that need to be made don’t have to be frightening. Making thoughtful changes to help preserve what we really care about, finding a sense of purpose often improves our quality of life.
Action 6: Reforest the Earth: Plant trees. Vast land areas around the world are potentially available for reforestation and tree planting. One study found that 900 million hectares, about the size of the entire United States, are available for reforestation. That equates to absorption of nearly 70% of all the CO2 released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. In addressing climate change, few actions are as critical, as urgent, or as simple as planting trees.
Go plant based. If you eat less meat and dairy, your carbon footprint will decrease, and your health will be better, and eating none at all is best. By 2040 plant-based meat replacements are expected to make up 60% of the market, up from 10% today. You have a chance to join a food revolution by adopting and normalizing a more plant-based diet.
Action 7: Invest in a Clean Economy: More stuff does not mean a better life, and indeed it is contributing to our existential crisis. Prioritizing growth according to its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would be a good place to start. These 17 interconnected goals aspire to sustainably increase global prosperity, equality, and well-being. [Note: These 17 goals were established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015).
Action 8: Use Technology Responsibly: At present, investment in applying AI to the climate crisis is lower than it should be. In the future, government and corporations around the world will have to carefully support the responsible application of AI and invest quickly in its capacity to deliver material breakthroughs in emission reductions.
Action 9: Build Gender Equality: We must ensure that decision making at all levels of society involves increasing numbers of women, because when women lead, good things happen. That is the unequivocal conclusion of years of research.
Action 10: Engage in Politics: We must see it as one of our most pressing responsibilities, and we must hold every politician to account. We must elect only leaders who see far-reaching action on climate change as their absolute first priority, and who are prepared to act on the first day they assume office. Beyond directly addressing governments, other political actions are needed. Corporations and trade associations fund and engage in political lobbying against citizen action on climate change. We need to remove our consent from these corporations. The simplest way is to vote with your money: stop buying their stocks and buying their products and services where alternatives exist.
Source: The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimists Guide to the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tome Rivett-Carnac.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
NOTE #2, The source graph: To achieve a better perspective from which to draw conclusions, it would be good to have a (1). longer historical period than starting in 1990, (2). To have an actual temperature line, history and projection vs. an incremental projection in which there is no reference to total actual temperature.
The world we must create, limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
THE WORLD WE ARE CREATING: It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions of 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. There are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere. The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us, and in five to ten years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans.
More moisture in the air and higher sea surface temperatures have caused a surge in extreme hurricanes and tropical storms. This happens with increasing frequency now. Every day the news, shows images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs, wading through floodwaters, and homes ripped apart by vicious currents that resemble mountain rivers. Because multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it can take weeks or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses, and malnutrition are rampant. As oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide, the water has become more acidic, and the pH levels are now so hostile to marine life that all but a few countries have banned fishing, even in international waters.
If you live in Paris, you endure summer temperatures that regularly rise to 111 degrees F. Everyone stays inside, drinks water, and dreams of air conditioning. You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest parts of the world, where, for upward of 45 days/year temperatures skyrocket to 140 degrees F. – a point at which the human body cannot be outside for longer than 6 hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down. Mass migration to less hot rural areas are beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest, and bloodshed over diminished water availability.
Food supply in general is highly unpredictable. Income inequality has always existed, but it has never been this stark or this dangerous. Reproduction has slowed overall, but most acutely in those countries where food scarcity is dire. Infant mortality has rocketed. Stock markets are crashing, currencies are wildly fluctuating, and the European Union has disbanded. As committed as nations are to keeping wealth and resources within their borders, they’re determined to keep people out. Most countries’ armies are now just highly militarized border patrols. Lockdown is the goal, but it hasn’t been a total success.
Melting permafrost is also releasing ancient microbes that today’s humans have never been exposed to – and as a result have no resistance to. Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks are rampant as these species flourish in the changed climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet, increasingly overwhelming us. Suicides are the most obvious manifestation of the prevailing despair, but there are other indications: a sense of bottomless loss, unbearable guilt, and fierce resentment at previous generations who didn’t do what was necessary to ward off this unstoppable calamity.
THE WORLD WE MUST CREATE: It is 2050. We have been successful at halving emissions every decade since 2020. We are headed for a world that will be no more than 1.5 degrees C. warmer by 2100. The air is cleaner than it has been since before the Industrial Revolution. We have trees to thank for that. They are everywhere. There are still slums, but the trees, largely responsible for countering the temperature rise, have made things far more bearable for all.
We no longer burn fossil fuels – most of our energy now comes from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydro. All homes and buildings produce their own electricity – every available surface is covered with solar paint that contains millions of nanoparticles, which harvest energy from the sunlight and every windy spot has a wind turbine
Entire populations have leaped forward with improved sanitation, education, and health care. Renewable sources of electricity made possible localized desalination, which means clean drinking water can now be produced on demand anywhere in the world.
Resources and responsibilities are shared now. At first you resisted this togetherness – you were used to doing things individually and in the privacy of your own home. But pretty quickly the camaraderie and unexpected new network of support started to feel good, something to be prized. Food production and procurement are a big part of the communal effort. Buildings, neighborhoods, and even large extended families form a food purchase group, which is how most people buy their food now. The most resource-depleting foods of all – animal protein and dairy products – have practically disappeared from our diets. But the plant-based replacements are so good that most of us don’t notice the absence of meat and dairy. Most young children cannot believe we used to kill any animals for food.
Gasoline and diesel cars are also anachronisms. The goal has been to eliminate private ownership of vehicles by 2050 in major metropolitan areas. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re making progress.
The ongoing refugee situation has been escalating for decades, and it is still a major source of strife and discord. But around 15 years ago, we stopped calling it a crisis. Countries agreed on guidelines for managing refugee influxes – how to smoothly assimilate populations, how to distribute aid and resources, and how to share the tasks within particular regions.
The climate change crisis of the beginning of the century jolted us out of our stupor. As we worked to rebuild and care for our environment, it was only natural that we also turned to each other with greater care and concern.
WHO WE CHOOSE TO BE: Three Mindsets This transformation begins with the individual. In the past changing the self and changing the world were regarded as separate endeavors and viewed in either/or terms. That is no longer the case. Scientific understanding and spiritual insights are converging on the reality of human-nature interconnectedness. Our new intentional direction must move us beyond defeatism to optimism, beyond extraction toward regeneration, beyond short-term thinking toward long-term thinking and acting. By cultivating the three mindsets, we give clearer, stronger direction to our lives and to our world.
1. Stubborn Optimism.
This mindset is all the more important once you realize that the habits, practices, and technologies of the past will lead us only to ecological demise and human suffering. Viewing our reality with optimism means recognizing that another future is possible, not promised. In the face of climate change, we all have to be optimistic, not because success is guaranteed but because failure is unthinkable. Market models that shift us from single ownership of homes and cars to shared ownership must gather steam and make peace with regulation.
2. Endless Abundance:
The realization of abundance is not an illusory increase in physical resources, but rather an awareness of a broad array of ways to satisfy needs and wants so that everyone is content. In this way resources will be protected and replenished, and the relationships among us are enriched. Endless abundance. The practice of abundance starts by shifting our minds away from perceived scarcity to what we can collectively make abundant. In so doing, we will become more aware of others, what we can learn from them and share with them. We will be more conscious of our own impulse to compete and, as a corrective, develop a keener interest in how we can all win. We must internalize the new zero sum (either we all win, or we all lose).
3. Radical Regeneration: We have come to the end of humanity’s extraction road. The time for “getting” is over. Extraction is a propensity deeply ingrained in human behavior. To move away from extracting and depleting, we need to concentrate on another equally strong and intrinsic trait: our capacity for supporting regeneration. Regeneration is the capacity of a species or a biosystem to recover on its own, once humans remove the pressure they had been exerting.
It’s our responsibility and in our enlightened self-interest to protect life on this planet. overarching design principle of our lives and our activities. We can restore the resilience of the land and our communities while healing our souls.
DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY: Ten Actions: There are ten necessary actions for the making of a regenerative future, the future we hope you will choose. Changing our mindset is critical but does not suffice We invite you to dive into doing as soon as possible. Focus on doing one or two of the ten actions at first. Choose the areas that make the most sense for you, and then challenge yourself to do more over time.
Action 1: Let Go of the Old World: Change makes us vulnerable to tribalism. In the transition to a regenerative world, one of the biggest risks is that the political center does not hold, and people succumb to the easy promises of populist leaders at either end of the spectrum. We must let go of the fossil-fuel-dominated past without recrimination. The process of letting go is essential.
Action 2: Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future: A compelling vision is like a hook in the future. Hold on to that. Stay firmly fixed to a vision of a world you know is possible. In the end, we are not going to solve this problem by hoping that our democratic systems produce enlightened leadership. They might, but the survival of our species can’t depend on the partisan lines of a divided electorate. Instead, we must all embrace a strong vision for a better future.
Action 3: Defend the Truth: Learn to distinguish between real science and pseudoscience. A pseudoscience book titled Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, began with this statement: “Probably the most widely repeated claim in the debate over global warming is that ‘97% of scientists agree’ that climate change is man-made and dangerous. This claim is not only false, but its presence in the debate is an insult to science.” Facts aren’t enough to change the mind of a climate denier, so presenting statistics and sources won’t help.
Action 4: See Yourself as a Citizen – Not as a Consumer: Dematerialize. One day consumers may come to define themselves not as owners of products but as beneficiaries of systems of service delivery. This shift from ownership to stewardship will fundamentally change our relationship to consumerism. We can help accelerate it by engaging with it and welcoming it with open arms.
Action 5: Move Beyond Fossil Fuels: What would your life look like in 10 years if you were using 60% less fossil fuel than you are now? Most of your current emissions probably come from flying, driving, and heating and cooling your house. The changes that need to be made don’t have to be frightening. Making thoughtful changes to help preserve what we really care about, finding a sense of purpose often improves our quality of life.
Action 6: Reforest the Earth: Plant trees. Vast land areas around the world are potentially available for reforestation and tree planting. One study found that 900 million hectares, about the size of the entire United States, are available for reforestation. That equates to absorption of nearly 70% of all the CO2 released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. In addressing climate change, few actions are as critical, as urgent, or as simple as planting trees.
Go plant based. If you eat less meat and dairy, your carbon footprint will decrease, and your health will be better, and eating none at all is best. By 2040 plant-based meat replacements are expected to make up 60% of the market, up from 10% today. You have a chance to join a food revolution by adopting and normalizing a more plant-based diet.
Action 7: Invest in a Clean Economy: More stuff does not mean a better life, and indeed it is contributing to our existential crisis. Prioritizing growth according to its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would be a good place to start. These 17 interconnected goals aspire to sustainably increase global prosperity, equality, and well-being. [Note: These 17 goals were established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015).
Action 8: Use Technology Responsibly: At present, investment in applying AI to the climate crisis is lower than it should be. In the future, government and corporations around the world will have to carefully support the responsible application of AI and invest quickly in its capacity to deliver material breakthroughs in emission reductions.
Action 9: Build Gender Equality: We must ensure that decision making at all levels of society involves increasing numbers of women, because when women lead, good things happen. That is the unequivocal conclusion of years of research.
Action 10: Engage in Politics: We must see it as one of our most pressing responsibilities, and we must hold every politician to account. We must elect only leaders who see far-reaching action on climate change as their absolute first priority, and who are prepared to act on the first day they assume office. Beyond directly addressing governments, other political actions are needed. Corporations and trade associations fund and engage in political lobbying against citizen action on climate change. We need to remove our consent from these corporations. The simplest way is to vote with your money: stop buying their stocks and buying their products and services where alternatives exist.
Source: The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimists Guide to the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tome Rivett-Carnac.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| cc_e4l_the_future_we_choose_--_epilogue_4.pdf |