Our future society must be designed to function for thousands of years!
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development is based on three dimensions: social, environmental and economic.
Imagine that our planet is a giant spacecraft with raw materials, amazing nature, ecosystems, water and an advanced climate system that are the basis for the survival of humans, animals and nature. The way humanity has dealt with this spacecraft over the last centuries can best be described as predation, exploitation, extermination, deforestation, land degradation, poisoning, productification, concentration and contamination. It is the opposite of sustainability. With the population increasing about four times over the last hundred years, combined with a huge rise in standards for billions of people, the consequences of human predation have been devastating.
If humanity were to continue like this, there would be no conditions for future generations to live a decent life. Another factor is the complexity of society, which has increased dramatically in recent decades. Quite small disturbances can cause the whole system to collapse, with unpredictable and long-term consequences. Given how unsustainable and non-resilient society is today, the whole system needs to be fundamentally changed, which concerns, among others, the:
- food system
- energy system
- material system
- production system
- product system
- consumption system
- economic system
- education system
- labor market system
Our future society must be designed to function for thousands of years, which means that:
- all people on the planet must have roughly the same standard of living
- materials must come from recycled or regenerative sources
- energy and material use per person must be much lower than today
- nature, biodiversity, ecosystems and many other systems must be built to be resilient
- people must be stimulated to lead healthy lives
- education and personal development must be designed to be appreciated by all, and be free
- wisdom must be greatly valued
- local agroforestry must be the basis for the majority of food, materials, and energy
- society must be based on collaboration
The society described above has little in common with the current system. This means that humanity needs to become insightful and wise enough to design and implement this massive transformation. Given the predation that has been going on for a long time, it is clear that the inner change (wisdom development) in people that is required is very extensive, and should be given extremely high priority.