Now we know, what do we do?

It’s pitch black. Looking outside, I see no lights. Going outside, I hear only natural sounds; soft wind rustling the few remaining leaves, slow waves sloshing against the soggy beach and everywhere trickling water after the last few days of heavy rain. And the wind is warm, not summer swimming warm but September soft – but it’s late October…

Darkness is not bad. Sometimes we shy away from the darkness, turning on so many lights that we blind ourselves, loos the ability to se the details, the small changes at dusk and dawn. We need darkness as a contrast to the light. And we need stillness, darkness and silence to slow down long enough to reflect on what we are doing and where we are going.  “Finding more time to do absolutely nothing is perhaps exactly what we all need". Looking at sky and sea as the sun is setting is a great way of doing very little. 

My view of the sea, this evening

It is due time to consider where we are going, as individuals, collectively, as societies and globally. So many grand challenges lie ahead, challenges that are interconnected, making all the “simple” questions hard to answer. To grasp complicated solutions we need time, time to digest and reflect before we act. But most often we are fed morsels of the truth, by media and our political “leaders”, not what we need to understand the reality. That does not make us prepared for the future.

Climate change is a wicked problem. It is wicked because our actions now will affect not primarily us but mostly coming generations. It is wicked because it is complex and interconnected; ”Every wicked problem is a symptom of another problem”. To give but one example, deforestation increases global warming, but also increased the likelihood of the on-going Ebola outbreak.

I recently discussed climate change with a friend of mine. We both had come to the same conclusion; 25 years ago global warming was an intriguing scientific problem. Then, a dozen years ago, it was becoming clear that climate change would be hard on our children. But now, 2014, it is evident that the impact of global warming will be felt severely already in our lifetime. We have fast-forwarded us to a future we don’t want; climate change is becoming personal. It will affect me and limit my possibilities. It will affect the economy, how and where I can travel. The longer we postpone action, the harsher the transition will be.

So what do we do? So far the answer has been that we, as individuals, need to change.

Of course we need do our part; conserve energy, drive less, eat less meat and above all, consume less. It’s easy to blame the Chinese for increasing their emissions, but in reality it is we as consumers in the western world that are causing a big part of these emissions.

We will not be able to “green-shop” us into a sustainable future. If we as global society need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as is needed it will affect me. Regardless of how much any one individual contributes, it will not be enough. That may sound like giving up or defeatism, but to me it gives hope and indicates a path to a better future. "To make personal changes is to do too little. Only great movements, only collective action can save us now".

Creating a more viable future will hurt, there is no escape from that, but sharing the burden makes it easier to carry. More than that, there is an equity side of the responsibility. Many in our part of world certainly feel the hardship of austerity and weakening economy.  Still, compared to most other parts of the world, we are all living in luxury.  We cannot ask of developing countries to abstain from what we consider our given rights. Growth and consumption will not be the solution; we are living on a finite world.

And lately the neo-liberal market and growth paradigm has been challenged. Naomi Klein in her new book “This changes everything” clearly states that it’s an illusion to believe that self-correcting mechanism of the market will solve the climate crisis. Interventions by goverments will be needed to avoid overshoot.

This is really not a new finding. Back in 1972 the book “Limits to growth” was published. Using a system analysis, the authors showed that if we allowed everything to grow, consumption, energy use, population etc, collapse would inevitably follow. But political leaders, corporations and influential academics in economy ridiculed these findings. Now, more than 40 years later many of their predictions have unfortunately been proven correct.

We as humans have a tendency to avoid large problems until it’s to late and then a bit more. For those who see what is coming, it can be hard to be “ahead of time”. Winston

Churchill in 1936 stated that “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”. That did not make him popular…

But when the Second World War was a fact, Churchill’s leadership was needed and he could start the turnaround that saved Britain. In a similar manner we need to start a “One degree war plan” to keep global temperatures at a safe level. It can be done, it has been done before.

Nelson Mandela said “It always seems impossible until it’s done”. Life is full with uncertainties that we have to live with and still move on, mobilise and change. There is no “to late”, because my children will live in that “to late”. We can always choose a better path.

Figure from latest IPCC report, showing that there are always positive alternatives

but the later we wait the harder it will be to achieve a good outcome

Coming back to the personal level, what are we striving for?  “Economic growth in a country whose primary and secondary needs have already been met means developing ever more useless stuff to meet ever fainter desires”. So the really big question remains; what really gives value to life?

Time to play, goals to collaborate around, connection and interaction, curiosity, love, sex to name a few. And dance is a good start, since leadership in dance is not about imposing a direction but to inspire the common movement.