Paradigm change – How democratic Systemic Greening can work in practice?
“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.” Richard Buckminster Fuller
Paradigm change rather than climate change to realign populations for a coherent action
Considering a paradigm change, many have caught up with the new, more precise and dynamic language of sustainability in their green communication, however there still is a lot to adjust. I think it is time to use the language that matches what’s really happening. What’s more, many would agree that terms such as climate change or climate crisis, including the UN’s latest phrase “global boiling” are simply euphemisms for a worldwide scale environmental destruction and resource depletion. A bad rap that these phrases get due to negative connotations, counter-knowledge and images they conjure up do not serve the humanity at this historically and environmentally pivotal juncture. Psychologically, we have two choices: fight or flight response. To this end, we either become strong together through combating our collective inertia that stops us from acting like we mean it. Or we abandon the idea and flee into the world of technological escapism that has done a great job at dulling our thinking and distorting our perceptions.
Systemic greening in practice – unmatched green growth through climate action centres
I am convinced it is easier and cheaper for us in the long run if we roll our sleeves and get our hands dirty and plant trees en masse whilst creating community forest gardens where we grow healthy organic food. Where we can again share, meet and exchange and grow this new level of consciousness through re-learning and re-designing our green commons and urban scapes together as an empowered community of change makers. Otherwise, we just remain passive digital observers, ferociously consuming a well-documented destruction on our ‘smart’ devices, which heavily pollute our living and working environments with CO2 as we are on the go streaming videos and images 24/7.
I doubt many of us are even aware of this rather conveniently ignored effect of our collectively sanctioned behaviour. In addition, a random stream of digital information, always accessible at our fingertips, cannot equip us to deal with the scale of environmental challenges that we face as humanity. Whereas we could become active makers of this new green age and designers of our regenerative future, if we choose so, irrespective of any indolent governance. It is evident we require different, more tangible and visceral tools that make us again collectively smarter in preparation for Earth changes that are increasingly affecting the way we organise and structure our existence.
How can we stop window dressing and betting against all populations?
This begs the question of our present choice of the development path that makes such process, where perspicuously we move in the right direction as humanity, impossible. We are on the path that breaks community structures down, creates suffering, refugees and inequalities that indirectly or directly lead to social unrest, land grab and (resource) wars. It also means that many countries favour pseudo solutions to climate crisis including carbon removal, without paying close attention to how a new vision of regeneration requires a holistic outlook and thoughtful approaches that go beyond our cognitive understandings. And that they need to factor in the entirety of human experience to be an effective tool against the perfect storm of Gaia’s wrath. If we stay on the current course using the same malfunctioning campus, we will inadvertently keep playing a catch-up with the planet’s might and lose our hardly won civilisation.
Breaking down barriers to achieving a democratic and inclusive green transition
The IPCC report stresses the need for funding –Global North needs to provide $100 billion in annual climate aid —if we chose to live within our means would there be any need for this? Ecoplazas networking with one another across different geographical locations could at first help contribute to this. How? By generating funds from projects that individuals and organisations willingly carry out locally whilst improving the lives of the resident and visiting community. With time, ecoplazas could balance things out systemically in favour of creating ecologically benign economies and wider global enhancements. Thus, gradually they enable us to remove the need to fund disaster clean up and repair and focus on prevention as well as mitigation through deeper systemic adjustments. As a consequence of this maturation process, we would move towards replenishing with its inherent rethinking rather than just recycling, reducing and reusing, which is what we have now.
By updating the way we organise our socio-green structure, we actually create the following:
- Environmental, cultural and economic renewal — multiple levels of enhancements are a by-product of this new community-led greener circular economic activity that this new green infrastructure stimulates,
- Intelligent interplay and purposeful fusion of the two approaches to sustainability; bottom up and top down that we could apply practically on the ground for the first time,
- Focussed resource development that involves everyone’s creativity, whereby intellectual resource development results in practical solutions and modes of acting, not reports!
- Stockpiles of aid and community resources – this is vital especially for regions with climate vulnerability to respond to natural disasters adeptly. Centres also become inventories of all resources that the community has to deal with climate related issues. Though to me a need for this development seems rather obvious, it appears to be of no importance in organising climate emergency,
- Inclusion and trust vs. disconnect and mistrust – ecological renaissance unites deeply divided populations to become active citizens along organisations, thus bolstering everyone’s climate action efforts.
So how do we shake old patterns that hold us back?
No amount of government overreach, whether positive or punitive, will ever have the same effect and leverage. Answers to climate and environmental degradation are part of and can only come directly from the community. This communal bottom-up philosophy, positioning and ownership is what gives the concept of green lifestyle and action centres, that I (re)propose here, its effectiveness and resilience that the right social context enables. This is their unique socio-psychological signature that requires a proper understanding.
And while each lifestyle centre has a choice of linking up to others within a logistical network, it also provides a region or a state with an independent strategic method for addressing issues and co-creating the climate and environment regeneration templates and supporting narratives that work for the 99%. They can function with or without any of the two other mechanisms that form this comprehensive pro-humanity strategy, which I presented at COP15, 2009. I elaborate further on the topics covered here in my previous articles.
This article is the work of the Earthvoice editor Kinga Monica. She is available for consulting on practical instigation of the concept, sustainability, and ecotourism consulting, internationally.
To read more on this topic and the solutions that have helped shift some gears of the climate change action to date, follow me on Medium.
Bibliography
A Big Strategy: In times of Crisis. A Model to Help Regenerate The Environment, Community And Sustainable Economy. Published in 2012.
Featured image: Joined up thinking concept applied to climate action by K. Monica