We need a new story

Every culture, epoch and civilisation has a grand narrative that defines it. A grand narrative is a flash way of talking about a story. Humans are defined by the stories we tell about ourselves, the language we use, the way we weave words and ideas into large conceptual maps that help give us meaning. These stories help provide a sense or purpose that guides the way we live on the planet. 

When God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion over the earth, it was about the only commandment that humans actually obeyed! This story has provided a powerful collective understanding sense of humans place on the planet for some millennia, but most recently since the industrial revolution when dominion over nature actually became possible.

Or at least so it seemed! This myth of continued abundance is being challenged by the increasing evidence that we have overreached in our desire for more and more material consumption. In much the same way as Prometheus overreached his power and place in the cosmos, to his eternal regret, we have been exploiting the earth's resources without pausing to consider where the limits are. Our collective story of abundance for all and ongoing material well-being as natural is now highly problematic.

This grand narrative has a number of dimensions. It assumes that we will not run up against material limits in present or future development, or if we do, we can substitute through human ingenuity. It assumes that we are clever enough to figure out answers to all the technological challenges we face. It assumes that material consumption will provide happiness. Each of these assumptions fail.

We have already run up against significant material resource challenges, particularly when looked at in light of an expanding human community of at least 9 billion by 2050, all who want a share of the materially defined good life. The end of cheap oil is clearly on the horizon, and with it not just energy but the manufacturer of plastics and nitrogen fertiliser.

Our intellectual capacity to resolve the major challenge of climate change is highly suspect. We are very clever in technological developments, and our species is genuinely remarkable at discovery and innovation. But the challenges we face pose unprecedented challenges in their very scope and scale. We have to be integrationists now, and that is hard. Our brains struggle to deal with he complex interconnections, because the scale of our problems goes way beyond what we can easily intuit or understand.

As to happiness, there is a significant body of research now that clearly shows that above a certain amount of material well-being, more stuff does not make us happier. It doesn't, by any measure, except on a very short term basis (the high of shopping! Though the buzz we get from the released dopamine in our system only happens when we are anticipating an exciting opportunity. It has less to do with the end result, so we are tricked, in effect, by our brain chemistry). 


As in our personal lives, if childhood stories (internalised beliefs about ourselves and our roles in life) no longer serve us well, then we do well to replace them with more useful stories. It is time for our civilisation to create a new story that drives us forward into an uncharted future. The old story, like the Emperor's new clothes, has lost its way. The world into which it spoke no longer exists. There is coming a new heaven and a new eaarth (sic), and we need a story that is up to the task.

I will explore this idea in my next blog.

     

Between earth and eaarth

It is becoming much clearer to me that we are now living on a planet that is quite different from the one on which I was born. Let me elaborate.

First, I did the WWF environmental footprint calculator (again) the other day to discover that no matter what I do, I need at least 1.4 earths to provide enough resources for everyone on the planet to live like I do. And that is by going vegan, no car, walking or riding my bike, living on a farm (no food miles) and no grid connection. The life styles we enjoy are literally unsustainable by many metrics. This simply means we will run out of key resources and not have alternatives.

Second, the speed of change we need to make from an oil based economy and society is simply too slow to seriously limit changes to the global climate system. For example, the world's current investment in oil infrastructure is worth around 10 trillion dollars and needs between 10 and 50 years before the capital costs are paid off. Who is going to pay for this? There is tremendous inertia in the investment system and even on the best case scenario this asset investment will not be given up without a major fight.

Third, how long will it take to replace the transport fleet? We are seeing hybrids and electric vehicles enter the market place (hybrids are ahead of electrics in Australia), but it will probably take 20 years to replace the stock. In the meantime, we continue to pollute.

Fourth, the alterations in the climate system due to historically unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases will be very hard to pull back. But this is no longer a future scenario, as it was when concerns about climate change first emerge over 30 years ago. We have increasingly frequent extreme storm events from drought to forest fires. We have always had these but there is clear evidence that these events are increasing. This is not a future impact of climate change, it is a current impact.

I am not sure our political systems are up to the task. I simply cannot see a clear pathway through the complex policy, economic, and political landscapes. We will make some progress, and I do think there will be unprecedented innovation and technological development. We may be able to hold the climate system to a limited temperature increase overall. But we not only cannot stop change, change is here, now.

Bill McKibben states this most powerfully in his new book, 'Eaarth; Making a life on a tough new planet'. The old earth we grew up with has actually gone, and we now live on a new eaarth.

For more on McKibben

For another interesting take on this see The Dark Mountain Project