Revolution, Part 2: The New Paradigm | Degrowth 2014.
Worried about the shit hitting the fan on climate change and other major crises? Good. Because those crises prove that civilization is in the midst of a phase shift to new forms – and we’ve got the opportunity, right now, to ride the wave of five interlinked revolutions in information, food, energy, finance and ethics, to co-create a new way of being that works for everyone.
In part 1, I pointed to the leading edge work of University of Turin economist Prof Mauro Bonaiuti on the deeper roots of the ongoing crisis of capitalism in a wider environmental crisis, where the ‘endless growth’ model of unlimited material accumulation is increasingly breaching natural and environmental limits of the biosphere.
Bonaiuti’s message though, far from being all doom and gloom, captures how this phenomenon is symptomatic of a shift in the very nature of civilization itself as it transitions to new social and political forms, as the limits of the biosphere enforce human practices to adapt to the consequences of breaching these limits. This ‘phase shift’ means we are on the brink of a fundamental change in the way civilization works, one that could have both positive and negative outcomes – depending on the choices we make as a species.
Here, I round up what I believe to be the five most significant ‘revolutions’ that constitute the positive components of this phase shift, and whose inexorable evolution and proliferation offer profound opportunities for systemic transformation that benefits humanity, and the planet: information, energy, food, finance and ethics.
