Rebooting Humanity: An alternative to growth as a goal for society

“Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or and economist.”

David Attenborough

In the last chapter, we examined what makes a system resilient. But that begs the question, what is going to destabilize us, making resilience necessary? There are, of course, an infinite number of things that could go wrong, but it helps to understand that systems go through phases with recognizable triggers.

Four phases of change

Living systems are inherently cyclical, as are societies. They look stable but you’re only looking at a snapshot, not a long movie. All systems, human and otherwise, tend to go through four stages. And growth only belongs in one of them.

CS Holling explained the process as an adaptive cycle. (Image source)

Think about a forest as we start with Exploitation. When the land is cleared (by a natural fire or human intervention), there are a number of species that exploit that open frontier. Plants like fireweed and alder grow rapidly, setting the stage for their own demise within decades as they get shaded out but they also create the conditions for the next wave of tree communities. As the forest moves toward old-growth, it becomes more stable, circulating nutrients carefully. Complicated symbiotic relationships develop. An old-growth forest can last for centuries. Then a disturbance happens: a hurricane, human development or climate change. A lot of the energy and nutrients in the system are released as it falls apart and hopefully reorganizes itself to start the process again. Or sometimes it reaches a tipping point and becomes something different, a meadow or a mall.

A few important things to note about this process:

• There is a phase of growth but it quickly plateaus. Unlimited growth is a figment of our imagination. A baby grows to an optimal size and then stops.
• The Conservation phase can last a long time if circumstances don’t change. But it’s far from stasis. A lot is going on, but when it comes to resources, it’s careful to use and reuse them. Once an adolescent reaches full size, there is still a lot of development. Connections grow and deepen.
• The Release (sometimes referred to as Collapse) phase can happen fast or over a longer timeframe with cascading problems.
• Reorganization doesn’t always return to business as usual.

Which phase are we in?

Western society has continued to act as if we’re still in Exploitation but according to the Global Footprint Network, we are already acting as if we have 1.75 earths. We should have moved into the Conservationist phase a long time ago. Instead some people are talking about mining the Moon and moving to Mars: extending our exploitation to other planetary bodies. Europe has been somewhat more Conservationist in nature, establishing policies to reduce, recover, reuse and recycle waste. But still the paradigm is that GDP must grow.

It appears our time in the Conservationist stage may be short, unless we Do Not Pass Go and go directly to Release, skipping it all together. We’re already seeing signs of decline: over-fishing, forest conflagrations, and climate refugees, to name a few. The pandemic has jarred our complacency about never-ending growth.

It’s inevitable that there will be pressures to ‘get back to normal,’ but that would likely only deepen and lengthen our fall into Collapse. (See the earlier post about what makes societies collapse or adapt.) Better that we reorganize quickly. We are lucky that many of our systems are culturally driven, because we can change norms more quickly that geophysical cycles. But what would that transition look like?

Not More, Better

Annie Leonard with The Story of Stuff (originally the name of a video and now also the name of the non-profit) has developed a short video that explains how we would shift from a growth mentality, what she calls More, to Better. Watch this 9-minute video, the Story of Solutions, to see how we could change the goal of our system from more stuff (and environmental impacts) to a better life.

Watch Story of Solutions.

In the video, Leonard identifies four characteristics of ‘a real solution.’

G: Gives people more power

O: Opens people’s eyes to the truth of happiness

A: Accounts for all the costs

L: Lessens the wealth gap

As examples, she talks about worker owned cooperatives, the circular economy, the sharing economy as disruptive innovations that meet the new GOAL.

Degrowth vs green growth: Which is better?

Experts in the field of new economic thinking are still considering whether we need growth that lives within the limits of nature or if we need to seriously downshift our society, what’s referred to a degrowth. Watch the recent debate hosted by economist Kate Raworth.

Discussion questions

To what degree have you lived under the Growth is Good paradigm? How has it manifested itself in your choices? If you had more time (for example, if cut work hours or contracted out a task you don’t enjoy), what could you do to bring yourself and your loved ones deeper happiness? Or asked a different way, when you’re on your death bed, what will you wish you had done more of or less of?

Which of the puzzle pieces (solution strategies) in the video intrigued you, something that could help your community? Learn more about it. Who also might also be interested in working on it? What’s one thing you could do to start the idea rolling or add value to an existing effort?

What do you think is the more accurate and effective framing: degrowth or green growth? Did you choose the same term or choose one for accuracy and another for being able to affect change? Why?