Peter Tom Jones

On Thursday the 15th of May I gave two English lectures on sustainability transitions. Below you may find the presentations and further links.

The first presentation was given in the framework of the International Conference of Busisness Schools (hosted by ECHO, the Business Department of KHLeuven). This lecture focussed on the transition towards an ecological economics. The presentation followed a beautiful, highly poetic introduction by Rudy Dhont on the necessity of a planetary perspective. Rudy's text can be found below.

Download NIBS-presentation PT Jones (15/5) here

The second presentation was given for an entirely different audience: liberation theologians from the KULeuven, in the framework of a lecture cycle organised by Prof. Jacques Haers. The public mainly consisted of people from Africa and Asia. The presentation on the problematic character of ecoscepticism was followed by an inspiring discussion with these theologians coming from countries where climate change will have the most severe consequences. An extended blog article was written by Jacques Haers on his website. Here you will also find the presentation and photos of this activity: http://jacqueshaers.blogspot.com/.

A planetary perspective

Rudy Dhont, NIBS Conference, KHLeuven, 15/5/2008

It was many years ago, that villagers in Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river. Some old timers remember how Spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that sort of thing. Sometimes, they say, it would take hours to pull 10 people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.

Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folks of Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is clearly second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within 20 minutes. Many in less than 10. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives - a big improvement from the way it used to be.

Talk to the people of Downstream and they'll speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the waters, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moment's notice, the comprehensive health plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large number of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. Sure it costs a lot, they say, but what else can decent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.

Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what's happening Upstream. It seems there's so much to do to help those in the river that nobody has time to check how all those bodies are getting there in the first place.

(story by Donald B. Ardell)

Dear friends. Whether we like or not, and even, whether we see it or not, we live in a time of consequences. As the story makes clear, it is time to start asking the right questions. It is time to begin to deeply understand what is happening and why it is happening, to be able to understand what should be happening next.

So, what is happening?

Surely, earth is at a tipping point.
An ecological tipping point, first of all. Man made global warming is a fact and severe climate disruption a real possibility. Ecosystems and biodiversity, and with them life itself, are being undermined.
A social tipping point. We are witnessing growing gaps in the population and all sorts of societal problems. The web of solidarity seems to be crumbling down. The potential for conflict is frightening.
An economic tipping point too. With peak oil we are entering the second half of the oil age. Bearing in mind that this is but one of the fossil peaks to come, this is bad news for a fossil fuelled economy. With no alternative on the scale we need in sight, the descent has started.
A financial tipping point. Our money system, in which money basically equals debt and is borrowed from our children and from the planet itself, has become dysfunctional and it can only be saved from collapse by more money, more debt, more growth. On paper, this might work. But not on a finite planet.

The basic facts are quite simple.
You cannot stretch a planet beyond its carrying capacity. That is a much more serious issue than the problem of scarce or limited resources in the warehouse of a global economy. We are talking about our life support system. Stretching the planet beyond what it can bear, is like inflating a balloon. Keep blowing and it will burst. And when it bursts, there is not repairing. Someone who I take a lot of inspiration from, put it like this: if we win the fight against nature, we will find ourselves on the losing side. 
Another basic fact. It doesn’t make sense to go on growing and bet on so-called free market systems if that doesn’t make us happier people or the world a better and safer place. Are we measuring the right things and using the appropriate indicators? Life is more than just collateral. In nature’s economy our growth has become seriously uneconomic.

It is the hard truth - or life-supporting wisdom if you want - that so many cultures learnt through trial and error: that we should take care of our home and family. Because that planet and all that lives on it, is not just the scenery or the setting but the intricately interconnected web that creates and sustains life and that we are part of. Our home. Our family. This is the wisdom of countless indigenous cultures; this might be the kind of scholarship and responsibility we badly need.

To really and deeply understand what’s happening, my hunch is that we need a very broad perspective. In space and in time. It is important to see things in their context and in the right proportion. It is important to see all the connections: my life and family, my school, my business… are parts of ever widening circles. And all these circles should be part of the picture again. Even a globalised perspective is not broad enough. We need an astronaut’s viewpoint or a truly planetary perspective. In all honesty this is one of the very few occasions where I think it helps to think big. A planetary vision helps us to see that the oil age is but a hiccough in the history of mankind. A planetary vision helps us to see that what I eat and wear has repercussions far beyond my little circle. A planetary vision helps us to see that the bottom line is not about money, but about breathing in and breathing out.

Contrary to what one might expect, this planetary perspective is not about distance and detachment, but about connection, involvement, commitment and loving care. Because from the moment you see and understand the connections, you also understand that you yourself are part of what you see. There is only one life. It started about 3 point 8 billion years ago. And it is the most precious thing we have. I’m siding up with whoever wants to manage it sustainably.

The challenges my students and so many young people around the world are facing are huge; in fact, they probably come down to nothing less than to reinvent ourselves, our lifestyles, our economies. A cultural tipping point so to speak.

Do we want to run the risk of organizing basketball practice now, if tomorrow’s game is soccer? Let us turn the exam tables for once. Should we not be brave if we don’t want to fail the test that our young people are setting us? It is becoming clearer by the day. Going on is dangerous, if not impossible. The two remaining options are: change or be changed.

The puzzling thing is that a lot of my students are constantly connected through their cell phones and e-mail accounts, but somehow and at the same time seem to be quite out of touch with the rest of the widening circles. Can they, can we afford to be so tunnel-visioned?

But there is good news too. More and more of my students are open to the massive challenges we face. And they start to be more active when we discuss these issues and explore solution paths. My assumption is that they feel involved and engaged as persons, not just as future marketeers. And I think they deserve lecturers, schools and universities who take the situation seriously, who truly share their worries, and help them shape our common future.

There is even more good news. It can be read in countless mission statements, policy schemes and pledges. It’s the new buzzword: sustainability. And it seems to be a point on which every-one who has not been asleep agrees: the fact that businesses and development should be sustainable. In fact everything should be sustainable: growth, profits, production, building, tourism, personnel management, and countless other things amongst which education. It seems to indicate good manners. Green is the new black, the marketing crowd say… I couldn’t agree more: everything should be sustainable.

But I think we all understand there is sustainable and sustainable.
The fact that the whole sustainability issue is so easily presented as a win-win game, makes me feel a bit suspicious. Really, on average and overall, things have not improved since we first started talking about sustainable development. Quite on the contrary, especially if we realise that our goals should lie way beyond sustainability, which after all is only indicating a liveable minimum.

Is that not an indication that the concerns are so profound that we should totally revise our economic thinking, our management concepts and our educational set-up, rather than just tidying them up a bit, or taking a few new and extra things on board?

The question boils down to the following: are we going to do things better, or to do better things? The first option possibly just speeds up an unsustainable paradigm. The second means a U-turn and a real paradigm shift.

The difference is crucial. If we are doing things better, the irony might indeed be that we are speeding up the problems because we continue the level of thinking that created the problems in the first place. The picture is far more nuanced than the way I paint it now, but a consumerist oil-based market- and growth-driven managerial model that believes that we will solve the problems with more of the same, suffers from severe NPPS, non-planetary-perspective syndrome. Sustaining something unsustainable… it is indeed a weird idea. 

Doing better things can only mean doing different things and it has to be the outcome of far deeper and broader reflection on the whole set of our basic assumptions. And that is a very brave thing to be doing at the moment. Allowing the questions in, allowing deep and critical reflection on the systems that we are keeping in place, also means that we become vulnerable. That is not a sign of cowardice or weakness, it is a sign of courage and bravery. How will we be remembered?

Things don’t have to be the way they are. There are alternative lifestyles. There are alternative economies. There are even alternatives for our present educational systems and curricula.

A colleague of mine - from a different place in Belgium - suggested to bomb the business schools, since in his analysis they “churn out generation after generation of highly skilled, professional criminals that are ready to enhance shareholder value at whatever cost for other people, other living beings, nature and the planet”.

May I suggest a far gentler approach? Let us explain, or even better: let us, together with our students, take a couple of steps back and try to see and understand what is taking place. Let’s learn to see all the connections again. And let us then show courage and imagination and creativity in exploring solution paths. Let’s expand our perspective way beyond globalisation and let us embrace all life. Futures don’t come as surprises, they are usually built and shaped. Why don’t we give our future the shape of this wonderful planet that we live on? For seven generations to come.

Is the future bleak? No it is bright; it is as bright as we make it. It will not be Eden, neither Utopia, it will never be easy and free for all, and at this moment it might be a duty rather than a right. But if we start to change our way to look at things, the things we look at start to change…

Surely, we are at a tipping point.
“This is not the end of civilisation. It is the beginning of intelligent life.” That’s a quote from Herman Daly, one of the founding fathers of ecological economics. But my favourite and final quote is from Arundathi Roy: "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.

Thank you for listening.

Rudy Dhont
May 2008