Oct 20, 2009
Envisioning a sustainable world
Credit: Tess Croner/Solutions
As ecological, economic, and social crises deepen, human societies are seeking new designs for a sustainable and desirable world. Although it is widely recognized that isolated initiatives will not form an adequate response to our interconnected plights, current efforts to promote sustainability rarely pervade all aspects of our lives. Our failure to craft holistic solutions is due, in part, to the lack of a shared vision of what a sustainable world looks like.
Envisioning is a process in which community members collectively identify shared values, describe the future they seek, and develop a plan to achieve common goals.1 Envisioning complements more traditional forms of planning, serving as a tool for determining community desires and initiating the process of change. It generally begins by establishing consensus on a community’s goals and desires through public forums and group discussions.
Our civilization’s challenge is to create a positive and detailed vision of a sustainable and desirable future. This needs to be a future in which living in harmony with nature enhances everyone’s quality of life, a future that can captivate and motivate the public, a future that we are proud to bestow on our grandchildren. Until we create and widely share this vision, we have no hope of achieving it.
The Solutions Journal is initiating an envisioning process among our readers. We encourage you to actively participate in this process. On our website, you can respond to the following questions, which will help us craft a shared vision of the future:
- What does a sustainable and desirable world look like?
- Which worldview, or shared belief system, should predominate?
- How should we design society's physical infrastructure (including our buildings, transportation systems, energy networks, and industries)?
- How should we manage natural capital (the goods and services provided by nature)?
- How should we educate ourselves?
- How should we govern and make decisions?
- What should the economy look like?
- What should characterize our social interactions?
- Which factors should weigh most heavily in our quality of life?
- What should our societal priorities be?
Come to http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/visionaries and contribute to the development of a shared vision!
References
- Meadows, D. Envisioning a sustainable world. In Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics (eds Costanza, R, Segura, O & Martinez-Alier, J) 117-126 (Island Press, Washington DC,1996).
Discussing about a sustainable future
Great idea to discuss this. We just started a website with a forum where exactly these issues and, more importantly, solutions can be discussed. Please visit http://www.discussourfuture.org and http://www.discussourfuture.org/forum to join the discussion! We can regularly post solutions here.
Kind regards,
Bram
CHANGING EDUCATION
Our society and the educational system is at a cross road. The economic and environmental issues are pressing. The new designs for a sustainable world must come from the education institutions. Leaders in these organizations need to promote positive goals which promote living with nature and being part of life's cycle. Educators can help set example for positive change Curriculum needs change to become more real for the teacher and the student. It is doable. I think the Solutions Journal can be a vehicle in this regard.
If we tackle the educational issue many of the questions will be addressed
What a Sustainable World Looks Like
A major, though diminishing part of the sustainability literature (particularly that in the late 80s & 90s) was all about some sort of meaningful definition for sustainability. There were camps of agreement but no agreed-upon "definition." Dr. Costansza's suggestion moves us in the right direction. In the sustainability work that I conduct I begin with the question: "What do you want to sustain?"
How can we embark on a sustainability plan without first having the discussion of what must be sustained? This inquiry works as well in grade school as it does on the municipal or estuary scale.
As the dialogue drills down into supporting institutions and the natural world, the final essence is usually assembled around ecosystem services and the value they provide.
Tracing and reconfiguring networks
Network thinking and network praxis can be useful to envision a political alternative. It could develop collective reflexivity, help to reconfigure these networks and give a political project more suited to our entangled world. This idea is presented in an article available at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a916116619