What do we do to protect our children?

Poll after poll display that the majority of people around the world would like those trusted with governing power, to address the polycrisis we’ve only seen the beginning of. Increasing natural catastrophes, heatwaves, water shortages, failing crops, soaring food prices, economic crisis and rising inequality is getting uncomfortable and life threatening. The outlook is bleak and there’s a lot of anxiety about the complexity and the obvious inability of power holders to lead us to safety.

Sometimes it needs to get worse before it gets better. The tech fixes, CCS, offsetting and greenwashing many hoped for has clearly fail us, so has decades of dedicated climate policy. We’re not on course towards a livable future, we’re on the brink of tipping points and collapse. The only positive thing in this context is that it’s slowly starting to dawn on us, how incredibly severe the situation is and how it’s all connected. We’re rediscovering what’s been known since Limits to growth was published in 1972 and the ecological movement was born.?

Political ideologies on both the left and right side are base their core thinking on extraction, production creating supply, advertising creating demand, accumulation of profits generated by the process that can be invested into either society the pockets of those who run the game and according to some therefor deserve them. As predicted this shortsighted set up only served humanity for a very short amount of time, and now we’re hitting the wall. This system has also concentrated power, wealth, control over information which in turn is eroding democracy and increasing geopolitical instability. All of these negative spirals reinforce each other and drive us towards collapse of civilisation, taking the majority of species and stable conditions for life on planet earth with us.?

What we do to protect our children from the catastrophes that can still can be avoided??

To start with, we must understand that we are nature and we’ve been living in harmony with the rest of the living world for millions of years before we started large scale exploitation and rolled out the disastrous economic model and political ideologies that are now killing us. Most people around the world already live within planetary boundaries and science makes it clear that exceeding doesn't make us any happier, not even the super rich. The absolute opposite is true and on the contrary wellbeing will increase both on a societal and individual level will increase if we act on the polycrisis.?

We need to transition to post-growth economies, through degrowth, steady-state, and doughnut economics. What it means in practical terms is a reduction of production and consumption, localisation and leaving half of the worlds ecosystems untouched to recover. A shift in focus from growth to wellbeing and justice.

Science calls on us to:

1. Leave half of the ecosystems untouched. Our survival is dependent on healthy ecosystems and they’re crucial to help mitigate and adapt to the crisis we're faced with.
2. Nature based principles for all human activities. All industries, land use, agriculture and forestry need to be based on nature based principles, focused on achieving thriving ecosystems. People should be involved in stewardship, restoration, regeneration and adaptation.
3. Introduce a new societal system focused on sufficiency. Leave the linear political and economic system of extraction, production and demand. All human activities must focus on creating wellbeing, not growth. In order to meet people’s needs extractivism must end, exploitation must be banned, caps on resources and energy introduced and business models shifted towards creating wellbeing and an inhabitable future.?
4. Think global act local global governance is important in certain areas, but ecosystem based sustainable solutions are local. That’s how we’ve been organising society for most part of history and that’s where new equilibrium, resilience and wellbeing will be found.?

How do we get there

1. Let science, not corporate interest guide us. We know what nature needs to recover and what the real solutions that create an inhabitable future are.
2. Get beyond false, shortsighted, dangerous distractions and greenwash. The only way to overcome the polycrisis is through honest, holistic science based efforts.
3. Organise to govern. The world need more and better leaders.
4. Be the change, showcase the new, support your local ecosystem. The problems are global but the solutions are local. What needs to happen in your municipality, area, community? What’s your role in the new world? Get involved in ecosystem restoration, adaptation, mico-production of food and energy.?