Rebooting Humanity: Six likely scenarios

“If you don’t know where you are going,
any road will get you there.”

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

No one can know the future. We can choose a path that will hopefully take us toward a better society or we can slide toward collapse. How are we likely to respond to these increasing pressures for change? Which paths lead to the best results for all? What might that transition look like? Fortunately, the Tellus Institute, Stockholm Environment Institute, and Global Scenario Group worked together to develop these six instructive scenarios.

Six likely scenarios

The Great Transition Initiative has laid out six likely scenarios of how our society might evolve.

Please watch the short 6 min. video that explains the scenarios.

The scenarios are distinguished by distinct responses to the social and environmental challenges. Market Forces relies on the self-correcting logic of competitive markets. Policy Reform depends on government action to seek a sustainable future. In Fortress World it falls to the armed forces to impose order, protect the environment and prevent a collapse into Breakdown. Great Transitions envision a sustainable and desirable future emerging from new values, a revised model of development and the active engagement of civil society.

These six scenarios are explored in The Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead, 2002 essay (95 pages). At the end, the essay provides a vision looking back from 2068.

Discussion questions

• All six scenarios seem to be emerging now. (For example, the European Union has pursued “Policy Reform” whereas the Trump’s slogan, America First, has elements of “Fortress World.”) Where do you see elements of each? How effective are they being in solving our root cause problems? What’s the driving force behind them?
• Which scenario do you think has the best chance of providing a high quality of life within the limits of earth’s systems? And what steps could you take in that direction?

Coming next: How to enhance resilience