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April 11 - April 17, 2020
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.
Grief can be a powerful, transformative experience for some, and arguably a major reason climate change has continued largely unchecked for so long is that we have failed to truly feel what it will mean. It is important that we all allow ourselves adequate time and space to deeply feel our grief and to openly express it. As we tune in to the raw emotion, many of us will undergo a dark, unsettling period of despair, but we cannot allow it to erode our capacity to courageously mobilize for transformation.
Anger that sinks into despair is powerless to make a change. Anger that evolves into conviction is unstoppable.
Complacency now will lock us into a future of guaranteed scarcity, instability, and strife.
We cannot bring back the extinct species, the melted glaciers, the dead coral reefs, or the destroyed primary forests. The best we can do is keep the changes within a manageable range, staving off total calamity, preventing the disaster that will result from the unchecked rise of emissions. This, at least, might usher us out of the crisis mode. It is the bare minimum that we must do. But we can also do much more.
Today we have the unique chance to create a future where things not only stabilize but actually get better. We can have more efficient and cheaper transportation resulting in less traffic; we can have cleaner air, supporting better health and enhancing the enjoyment of city life; and we can practice smarter use of natural resources, resulting in less pollution of land and water. Achieving the mindset needed to attain this improved environment would signal a maturation of humanity.
By 2050 at the latest, and ideally by 2040, we must have stopped emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than Earth can naturally absorb through its ecosystems (a balance known as net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality). In order to get to this scientifically established goal, our global greenhouse gas emissions must be clearly on the decline by the early 2020s and reduced by at least 50 percent by 2030.
It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.
The effects of climate change do not proceed along a straight line. A bit more doesn’t equate to a bit worse. Several parts of our planet are critically sensitive, such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the ice cover of Greenland, the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the tropical forest cover of the Amazon. They have been maintaining a stable temperature on Earth for millennia.2
The prevailing logic is that nature is suffering, and humans are complicit, therefore we should act. While that sentiment is worthy in many ways, it can also leave us feeling that the problem is “out there” unrelated to our daily life.
The planet will survive, in changed form no doubt, but it will survive. The question is whether we will be here to witness it.
We cannot deny or ignore climate change any longer. We now need to let go of half-hearted attempts and instead act in proportion to the magnitude of the challenge.
When the alarm bells rang in 2020, thanks in large part to the youth movement, we realized that we suffered from too much consumption, competition, and greedy self-interest. Our commitment to these values and our drive for profit and status had led us to steamroll our environment. As a species we were out of control, and the result was the near-collapse of our world. We could no longer avoid seeing on a tangible, geophysical level that when you spurn regeneration, collaboration, and community, the consequence is impending devastation.
Extricating ourselves from self-destruction would have been impossible if we hadn’t changed our mindset and our priorities, if we hadn’t realized that doing what is good for humanity goes hand in hand with doing what is good for the Earth. The most fundamental change was that collectively—as citizens, corporations, and governments—we began adhering to a new bottom line: “Is it good for humanity whether profit is made or not?”
Humanity was only ever as doomed as it believed itself to be. Vanquishing that belief was our true legacy.
Attempting change while we are informed by the same state of mind that has been predominant in the past will lead to insufficient incremental advances. In order to open the space for transformation, we have to change how we think and fundamentally who we perceive ourselves to be.
We believe three mindsets are fundamental to us all in our pursuit to co-create a better world. With intentional provocation, we call them Stubborn Optimism, Endless Abundance, and Radical Regeneration.
Our new intentional direction must move us beyond defeatism to optimism, beyond extraction toward regeneration, beyond linear toward circular economies, beyond individual benefit toward the common good, 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, setting the necessary foundation for us to collectively co-create the world we want.
When it comes to climate change, the vast majority of us have a learned reaction of helplessness. We see the direction the world is headed, and we throw up our hands. Yes, we think, it’s terrible, but it’s so complex and so big and so overwhelming. We can’t do anything to stop it. This learned reaction is not only untrue, it’s become fundamentally irresponsible. If you want to help address climate change, you have to teach yourself a different response.
Three characteristics are generally agreed upon as essential to making this mindset transformative: the intention to see beyond the immediate horizon, the comfort with uncertainty about the final outcome, and the commitment that is fostered by that mindset.
To be optimistic, you must acknowledge the bad news that is all too readily available in scientific reports, your newsfeed, your Twitter account, and kitchen table conversations bemoaning our current state of affairs. More difficult, but necessary for any degree of change to take place, is to recognize the adversities and still be able to see that a different future is not only possible but is already tiptoeing into our daily lives. Without denying the bad news, you must make a point of focusing on all the good news regarding climate change, such as the constantly dropping prices of
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All the measures to address climate change still require further maturation; none guarantee ultimate success. We don’t know which renewables, if any, will predominate, or which are more likely to scale quickly. Problems with the batteries of electric vehicles (weight, cost, recycling) must still be solved, and charging networks still require substantial expansion to succeed. Financial instruments must more effectively manage the risks of new technologies. Market models that shift us from single ownership of homes and cars to shared ownership must gather steam and make peace with regulation.
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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.
Bringing about a complex, large-scale transformation is akin to weaving a tapestry of elaborate design with thousands of people who have never woven anything or even seen the pattern.
We need both systemic transformation and individual behavioral changes. One without the other will not get us to the necessary scale of change at the necessary pace.
Whether it is based on objective reality or not, our fear of scarcity elicits our competitive response, which in turn feeds our fear of scarcity in a self-reinforcing cycle.
The perception of scarcity puts us into a very small mental box. We can expand that box in either of two ways.
Contrary to what we might initially think, in circumstances of real (not only perceived) scarcity, our only viable option is collaboration. Fortunately, contrary to what most of us believe, it is the option we human beings tend to adopt, at least under certain circumstances.
In times of profound suffering and great need, we rise to the occasion, we stand shoulder to shoulder in mutual support. That impulse to gather in a circle of care for one another must be extended to our efforts to address the climate crisis.
Regenerated soils, forests, and oceans can all be wisely managed for endless abundance rather than squandered for imminent depletion. In fact, ecosystems operate from the very principle of abundance—they depend on components within them that are naturally plentiful, such as waste, to provide the food and nutrients for further growth. We can also add creativity, solidarity, innovation, and many other abundant human attributes available to us, endlessly.
We are entering the next phase of human evolution. The human species (and many other animal and plant species) must now adapt to the scarcity of natural resources we have caused, and the rapidly diminishing space left in our global atmosphere for carbon emissions. To do this, we need to prioritize collaboration. Faced with the ultimate scarcity, we must internalize the new zero sum (either we all win or we all lose) and apply a mindset of abundance to that which we have left and that which we can co-create and share.
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. Caring for ourselves and others. Connecting with nature. Working together to replenish what we use and to make sure plenty remains for tomorrow. These tendencies are just as much second nature, but they are less well developed in modern society. It’s time to bring them to the surface.
Every breath we take, every drop of liquid we drink, and every morsel of food we eat comes from nature and connects us profoundly to it. It is a simple basic truth, yet one we often tend to ignore or take for granted.
A regenerative mindset bridges the gap between how nature works (regeneration) and how we humans have organized our lives (extraction).2 It allows us to “redesign human presence on Earth”3 driven by human creativity, problem solving, and fierce love of this planet.
Sir David Attenborough, one of the most renowned naturalists of our time, has warned us that “the Garden of Eden is no more.” We agree. That is why we now have to create a Garden of Intention—a deliberately regenerative Anthropocene.
We will not have a regenerative Anthropocene by default, but we can create it by design. With directional intent, we can shift our aspirations from our current extractive growth to a life-sustaining society of regenerative values, principles, and practices.
We can ignite regenerative human cultures that seek to ensure that humanity becomes a life-sustaining influence on all ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. We will need artists as well as policy experts, farmers as well as leaders of industry, grandmothers as well as inventors, and indigenous leaders as well as scientists.
We can no longer afford the indulgence of feeling powerless.
A linear model of growth rewards extraction and pollution. We need to move from that model toward one that regenerates natural systems. We are going to require a clean economy that operates in harmony with nature, repurposes used resources as much as possible, minimizes waste, and actively replenishes depleted resources.
In the current transition, strictly linear GDP growth can no longer be the priority. More stuff does not mean a better life, and indeed it is contributing to our existential crisis. Moving away from quantity of products that can be purchased, we must reorient our underlying sense of value toward quality of life, including within all of Earth’s ecosystems. Prioritizing growth according to its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would be a good place to start. These seventeen interconnected goals aspire to sustainably increase global prosperity, equality, and well-being.65
The reduction of poverty under the old model may well be temporary, since our structure of prioritizing short-termism and GDP will likely send many people back into unforgiving poverty as climate change accelerates.
Or when a pandemic occurs…
Belief in innovation is no excuse for lack of a plan.
If democracy is to survive and thrive into the twenty-first century, climate change is the one big test that it cannot fail.
We want you to know two things. First, even at this late hour we still have a choice about our future, and therefore every action we take from this moment forward counts. Second, we are capable of making the right choices about our own destiny. We are not doomed to a devastating future, and humanity is not flawed and incapable of responding to big problems, if we act.
Right now, the predominant stories we are telling ourselves about the climate crisis are not very inspiring. But a new story can reinvigorate our efforts. When the story changes, everything changes.
