Into the wild

The only thing we can say about the future is: It is unsafe. I am writing this on the hottest day ever recorded on the planet. The consequences of a rapidly changing climate are becoming tangible. Resource scarcity and conflict shake the global economy. Technological development makes the horizon shorter and the societal effects more dangerous. How do we prepare for the era that awaits us?

The report Welcome to the Great Unraveling, recently launched by the Post Carbon Institute, is a challenging, important read. It paints a terrifying picture: We live in a global "metasystem" where destabilizations in many underlying social and ecological subsystems reinforce each other. Many assumptions we have taken for granted for 150 years disintegrate in what the report calls a poly-crisis: The unpredictable interplay between chronic and acute crises is becoming the norm.

An article in Nature recently described how humans establish themselves in "climate niches," areas with the right temperature and sufficient rainfall. Nine percent of the world's population lives outside this niche due to rising sea levels, drought, or extreme heat. Increasing migration provides a basis for anti-democratic forces and xenophobia. Changes in the climate system thus contribute to polarization. And the rise of radical right-wing forces creates a reluctance to cooperate in solving global problems, as George Monbiot recently wrote.

Several interacting systems destabilize simultaneously. How will we manage to retain our sense of direction, in the chaos, for the better? Is it even possible?

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the description of the Bardo - a metaphor for the transitional phase between death and rebirth. Many people experience some transformative process during their lifespan: A crisis crumbles the foundation on which you have built your identity. What happens, then? First comes the pain of letting go. Then a phase of realization and new insights. Then comes the gradual emergence of a new version of yourself. At its best, if you dare to enter into what is painful and learn from it, you are remade - into a better, wiser version of yourself.

Where we are now, as a society: In the confusing and painful transition between what we must leave behind and what we have not yet become. Our time is, in a sense, the dramatic final crescendo in a 150-year period that is now called "The Great Acceleration": Enormous wealth growth fueled by endless amounts of fossil energy, technological and medical breakthroughs - anchored by the delusion that exploitation-driven economic growth can increase exponentially, forever, in a finite world.

Even if there are some positive signs of decoupling between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions, this development is unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming from passing critical levels. It is now hardly theoretically possible to reach the 1.5-degree target. The consequences, the harsh scientific realities, pile up.

The foundation for modernity as we know it is cracking at the joints. The exponential graphs will flatten, and some will collapse, whether we like it or not.

These are harsh realizations to take in. People react differently. It's natural.
Some become dystopian and project apocalypse and doom. Others insist on the potential of new technology and financial incentives. Some people choose to ignore all the red flags; they don't want to acknowledge that there is a problem. All the reactions are various expressions of fight, flight, freeze or fawn - well-known mechanisms in human psychology. The conversation often ends in chatter, a cacophony of insistent hopelessness, optimism, and denial. Some have given up. Others continue to think as before, even though reality has turned upside down completely.

The Norwegian government recently announced they would begin seabed mining to increase access to the minerals we need in the renewable transition. Should we parallel shift the industrial extraction mentality towards marine habitats to keep alive the hope that "green growth" on land is possible?

We must go deeper, not in the sea, but in understanding our challenges. We should embrace an identity as paradigm shifters, the ones asking the difficult questions, probing for new answers.

By defining and solving the problems in isolation, we lose the understanding that the challenge is at a system level. We underplay how deep and fundamental fossil energy is coupled with economic growth as we know it. And the system is also encoded in us as individuals. I wrote in a previous newsletter that we must challenge the structures that create our inner worlds.

The question is whether we should be changed reactively (and painfully) or consciously and proactively train our ability to become changemakers.

Personally, I have put a lot of inner work into transforming despair into curiosity and action. My hope is linked to the unknown, the abundance of uncertainty - to all we have yet to learn and discover. I am neither attached to the past nor the future. I find my hope and community in doubt, not in faith.

The report from the Post Carbon Institute compares the shift we are going through with the biggest turning points in human evolution: Language development, agricultural society, and the industrial revolution. We are leaving the map, entering the unknown.

As a generation, we have a collective purpose in strengthening our resilience and ability to adapt in a world of trembling foundations. To open up. The first step is to realize the scope of the challenge.

• We need a society that plays along with the planet's biophysical processes and a new understanding of the interdependency between civilization and the ecosystem. Decisions must emerge from scientific knowledge, and our strategies should account for uncertainty.

• We must develop models for a reality where limited resources are managed fairly and over time. Individuals and communities should be more conscious of biases - and strengthen the ability to communicate and act in line with principles and values.

• We must create deep shifts across various sectors and systems, and do so within a framework of unpredictability, political tension, and systemic entanglement. It requires upholding creativity, perseverance, curiosity, and, yes, optimism.

Nothing less.

Along the way, we must take care of the most important thing humankind has created: Science. Arts. Universal rights; the principle that everyone is of equal worth.

We, and the generations to come, should embrace the identity as paradigm explorers. What we experience may feel like a void, but we need to remind each other that we live in an historic transition.

The path ahead becomes increasingly winding. No one has walked it before us. But there is a way. We must step into the pain and confusion of a wild reality to find it.

Anders