Can humanity change in time to prevent global catastrophe?

Sunday. Sitting in the office working on presenting to my colleagues tomorrow the indicators of the UNCCD 10 year-strategic plan. I stare down at the document....Strategic objective 1: To improve the living conditions of affected populations. As I stare at this I keep getting flashbacks of a heated discussion I had with two very good friends at a restaurant last night. It was one of those discussions which gets heads on other tables peaking over to see what the commotion is about. Arms flailing, face blushing and talking passionately in circles without actually listening to eachother. The discussion was very much around the concept that is linked to my work every day. Lets put it simply: humanity is heading on a fast and deadly path towards global catastrophe. We have been populating exponentially, the system we have created is destructive to the planet we depend on for our survival.

Now our argument isn't about this fact. For it is now true for too many people to ignore. I mean, forty years ago a controversial study (published in a book called 'limits of growth') warned that we had to curb growth or risk global meltdown. Back then it was criticised and bashed down heavily. Now slowly people are starting to realise that there is absolute truth in this (or are they?). So, as I said, our argument was not about this. We all agreed that the system we have created is doomed for failure. What we argued about, ultimately, was about whether the global community would realise this in time to make enough changes that would prevent a global catastrophe.

Their argument: No! It will take a global catastrophe, or tipping point, for humans to change (i.e. even as far as a huge cataclysmic event that would destroy more than half the human population, leaving only those left who realise that they need to make a change.). Humanity is too far in the system of greed and capitalism, mass media brainwashing and the like for us to change; there is too little time, and there are too little people who know or care enough to change.

My argument: endlessly hopeful (bordering on naive, as my friend would like to put it).

And so the heated debate went on. I used arguments like "if we have the ability to change the world in just two hundred years for the worse, we have the ability to turn things around just as fast", and "what if Martin Luther King had such a defeatist opinion of humanity". And they used arguments like "global population is the biggest problem" and "small changes will not be enough, what is needed is one massive change in mindset which is not the reality in a world in which mass media is controlled by corporations and the like". And how are change agents of sustainability reaching the masses and the "world controllers" (which are, ultimately, massive corporations only out to get global profit - who cares about the future generations, humanity is selfish, and so on).

In the end no one was able to convince anyone of changing their opinion on this topic, and everyone left it at deadlock. But no one went away without having learnt something. I learnt of my own weaknesses in communication and properly listening (instead of just trying to be heard). And I was left with a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

I am of course still hopeful in ability for humanity to change. Yes, we have reached carrying capacity. Yes, we are destroying Earth at an alarming rate. Yes, humans are greedy. Humans have done some immeasurably bad things for a quick buck. And we are all conditioned in certain ways that hinder us from making a positive change. My friend made a valid point. If the people who know and care are too "scared" or "conditioned by their own convenience" to do anything then what hope do we have ("like you, Justine, could only preach if you were to cycle to work, grow your own, live without electricity....but you drive to work, you buy at big supermarkets, you work on your laptop everyday"). And its true. I myself am the first to admit that I am part of this system.

But. But. But. And I actually need the words of someone much wiser than I am to try and push some inspiration into a seemingly doomed future. I am reading this book currently by Alan Atkisson called "The ISIS Agreement". I am intending to write a short and personal summary of it once I am done. But I feel it imperative to add some of his thoughts into my argument here. In a chapter he calls "The Hope Graph", he jots down a job description for those trying to "save the world". One of them strikes me because it came up in our argument last night:

Meanwhile, the momentum of change in the wrong direction will be immeasurably huge, and will continue to accelerate, in ways that seem unstoppable.

There is hope behind the Tom Atlee quote he uses "Things are getting better and better, and worse and worse, faster and faster". And Alan goes on to say something that I must just quote:

But oddly, there is also hope in this picture (of despair). For if the world can be transformed in troubling or dangerous ways, at speeds that beggar belief, it can also change in positive ways, and at similarly incredible speeds. Do you remember the Berlin Wall? Apartheid? The British Empire's Rule in India? Hardly anyone, living at the time when these artifacts of history were a reality, would have been able to predict with confidence how quickly they would be overturned and replaced by new and highly democratic systems. This is the reality of transformation.



The Hope Graph (taken from Atkisson, A. 2008. The Isis Agreement. Earthscan, UK)



I actually remember reading the last section of this chapter in this great book that struck a personal chord. He mentions somewhere in the chapter that when one becomes aware that the world is genuinely headed for big trouble, and that changing couurse requires tremendous efforts, it is impossible to pretend that one does not have this rather important piece of information. For most people, once they begin to grasp the gravity of the situation, not caring is not an option. For those for whom the struggle to maintain hope is a real one, and whom the feeling of being called to a duty greater than one's capacities feels like a burden, Alan makes the following recommendations: read the Earth Charter, as a common, global reference point, a statement that has touched and united people of all faiths and backgrounds. Then write your own manifesto, your own statement or what you believe to be the case in these times, what you stand for, what you are working for in life. He guarantees that you will find the exercise enormously gratifying - and very likely enormously inspiring too.

I am sure that the debate can go on and on and on. And in the end it boils down to two main things. Hope. And faith in humanity.

Lets watch this space to see what the outcome will be.