I thought (naively) that getting a masters degree in climate change would provide me with the solutions. Instead, the questions just seem to become more complex. Even those at the international level — NGOS, nonprofits, policymakers — are kind of just working with what’s available and hoping for the best. They too are trapped in an outdated economic and political system. Trapped using a set of tools that many acknowledge are flawed and inadequate in actually solving our world’s biggest problems. There is an authentic desire for radical change yet what can we do when the ability to acquire funding and carry out meaningful work depends on how well we work for “progress” yet still play within the rules of the game. When what we’ve got doesn’t work, but there’s no viable and equitable global-scale alternative that exists …yet.
The desire to maintain the status quo is held by only a minority of the world’s citizens — and it is of course those who benefit the most from the status quo through amassing power and wealth. When power coalesces, when it becomes institutionalized, it is incredibly hard to change it. So we don’t fight the power with the same quality of that power. We do something else that renders it obsolete.
A SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
Our world is made up of complex systems — from the cells in our bodies to our political structures. A system is made up of different elements with a shared purpose, and no one component acts in isolation from the whole. Changing one part of the system affects the rest through various reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. Patterns of behavior are created over time and systems have characteristics unto themselves that determine how it behaves.
For example, we might consider that fossil fuel corporations don’t cause CO2 emissions, but that profitability and energy consumption patterns inherent the economic system do. One can also say that black people don’t commit higher rates of crime and violence, but that institutionalized racism sets up the conditions of inequality for it to happen.
What I like about looking at what shapes our society from a systems perspective is that we can begin to understand what parts of the system we can intervene in to have the most impact. The biggest bang for our buck in terms of transformation. In complex systems, when identifying the “highest points of leverage”, systems scientist Donella Meadows ranks shifting and transcending our paradigms as number one. Paradigms being our mental models. Our most engrained beliefs and narratives about who we are and the way our world works. And not just what we think, but the way we think.
This might not be the most measurable or tangible solution, but our mental models are where the systems we live in are born. And these are not a new perspectives — the idea that our world is made of relationships, that everything is connected, and that we must change ourselves to change our world. It’s in indigenous teachings. It’s in spiritual traditions. And I would also say it’s intuitive. But as André Gide says, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, it needs to be said again.”
HOW TO DREAM
The most impactful change starts with our ability to shift our way of thinking away from the same level of thinking that created the dysfunctional systems in the first place. However, reimagining radically new paradigms is like a fish learning to climb a tree. The map is uncharted and there are no clear answers, only an emerging and adaptive process of learning and ideas. These times call for a stretching of the imagination, an expansion of our consciousness, and a revolution of culture. It requires the willingness to experiment, be wrong, and to not know if what the hell we are doing will ever work out.
So, how to dream. This can look like many things. As just one starting point, here are some questions that I’ve found helpful in breaking down our assumptions and opening up new avenues of thought:
what is the culture I’m creating vs. the culture I’m consuming?
how is the way in which I’m framing the problem informing the solutions I come up with?
what question is worth asking?
what kind of answers can be born out of quietness and stillness?
can two or more seemingly contradictory perspectives be true at the same time?
is there a word that doesn’t exist yet?
and finally, what does embracing uncertainty look like?
This process of dreaming is similar to the process of gestation. And the birthing of a new dream can be painful and chaotic. It can be hard to let go and trust in the process of transformation. Caterpillars do it all the time though, letting go of their old life and everything they’ve ever known to go inside a chrysalis where it uses digestive enzymes to basically eat itself into a mush. Maybe they know they’re going to become a butterfly, and that gives them the courage to do it. Maybe somewhere inside we also know that something beyond our world as we know it is possible.
Hopi elders say “we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves.” When I read this quote I think of two more things to add to the toolbox of dreaming. One is humility. And two is the power of each other. We must get comfortable with not knowing and remaking ourselves over and over. And we are not alone in what seems like a very internal process. In fact, there is power in sharing, connecting, and staying in relationship during these times.
BUILDING THE NEW
The mirror being held up to our society is only getting bigger and more uncomfortable to look at. The fact that billionaires can even exist while promised funding from wealthy countries to poorer nations to adapt to climate change impacts has failed to happen in over a decade is one example of the high level of inequality and ridiculousness we’ve reached as a global community. A dysfunctional system is not sustainable. And it will fall apart on its own through the problems it creates. This presents a catalyst and a precious opportunity to create something in its place.
Friends and allies, this is where we come in. Let’s keep daring to radically reimagine what our world can look like. And let’s not forget that grassroots bottom-up approaches matter too. Thankfully, there are already so many dreamers and change-makers out there redefining our world and laying the foundations. You can check out just a few of them in my last blog that short lists various initiatives and organizations — some of them more on the grassroots end, while others are more established in the mainstream system. Both are important.
I’ve been seeing the words “radical” and “transformation” and “paradigms” in some academic literature and I’m cautious of these terms being co-opted or overused, as other words have been, which can lead to a dilution of it’s actual meaning and potency. What we need nothing short of something truly RADICAL and TRANSFORMATIVE. I’m excited for us to allow ourselves and our world to be fundamentally changed by this emerging process of collective dreaming and building. It’s a messy, chaotic, and scary process — probably not too dissimilar from the pre-butterfly cannibalistic caterpillar soup. But it also feels like an act of love and life to continue to strive for new systems of justice, reciprocity, regeneration, environmental care, fair distribution, equitable livelihoods, and wellbeing. You down?