The Hames Report

The Thunberg Effect

Mohandas Gandhi said that when trying to make any change that challenges the morality of the status quo, your opponents will at first ignore you, laugh at you, then fight you, before you eventually win.

Over the past three years much has been made of the attention Greta Thunberg has been getting through the clarity and provocative tone of her message. Her adversaries are fighting back. The scorn and vitriol poured on this reluctant hero - mostly by ultra-right-wing shock jocks genuflecting to a bunch of old white men trying to preserve their fragile grasp on power in a world already shifting beyond their control - reached fever pitch prior to the pandemic.

In a little over a year Thunberg went from an unassuming lone crusader to a global muse for climate activism. The movement she has inspired appears to be unstoppable. International institutions like the UN, instruments of state, and of law and order, have been taken aback and are baffled by how best to deal with such an unprecedented uprising.

On the face of it we are dealing with a very straightforward issue. A majority of citizens, in most countries, want unified, consistent, urgent action to deal with the climate crisis. This is based upon irrefutable scientific evidence that Earth's climate is heating up and will become inimical to human life if something is not done about it. For the past three decades we have dragged our feet. Demands for action have been half-hearted, and the political appetite for a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, almost non-existent, given the power of the oil, coal and gas lobby. But now we are rapidly reaching a flashpoint that will change the course of human history.

One of the problems for all of us is that this issue is far more complicated than we assume. The dilemma Thunberg and her generation faces is profoundly frustrating, emotionally exhausting, and exists on several levels...

1. Although the science is explicit, the plurality of extant beliefs in the modern world means there can be no easy accord on fundamentals, least of all what action should be taken. All the evidence points to the need for a prompt response if we are to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to levels conducive to human wellbeing, introduce regenerative projects to heal the damage done by decades of industrial farming and fishing. We have known this for at least 40 years. Yet the enduring response from governments, including those most culpable, remains lethargically bureaucratic and cautious.

2. The need for immediate action, compels Thunberg and other activists to meet and interact with incumbent leaders. Many, like Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison, Jair Bolsanaro, and Donald Trump when he was in office, share convictions absolving them from the 'needlessly anxious' entreaties of an18-year-old teenager with Asperger's Syndrome. Their deep-seated self-righteousness, steeled by a neo-liberal code, ultra-conservative values, and the entitlement culture into which they were born, permits them to dismiss the message and the messenger with contempt.

Trying to persuade these individuals to adopt a contradictory belief system is challenging enough. Expecting them to accept scientific evidence to which they are currently opposed, and to appreciate the need for urgent collaborative action, flies in the face of everything they stand for and identify with. It is a Sisyphean task.

3. Were it not for the urgency, Thunberg's message would not be aimed primarily at these narcissistic individuals and their sycophantic followers. It resonates more deeply with youth and those dispersed, dissatisfied, millions of people in the developed world who, distressed by the real possibility of extinction, and concerned for the future of their children, are alarmed by the unwillingness of their governments to take immediate and appropriate action. Greta's unwavering call is what this group has been waiting for. To rise up, unite and demand change, imposing it through civil disobedience if necessary.

But even that is not the total picture. Looking through a more granular lens it becomes clear that a large part of this group is overwhelmed by anxiety. No longer able to trust the expert, scientific evidence, or state institutions, they remain disengaged. For them opinions are now a legitimate substitute for the truth. Denial is sufficient in itself.

Those who are not so overwhelmed are easily led. Mistrusting the media, they are happy to blindly follow brash celebrities with big personalities and simple solutions, who are always ready to flaunt existing laws, or brand as fake news anything that fails to meet their own ends. 

And then there are the so-called leaders. Some in this group actively work to disparage those like Greta Thunberg who are merely telling the truth. Others are content to ignore any moral considerations in order to retain their hold on power by appeasing the masses. A few who do exhibit a more inclusive perspective and communal consciousness, like Christiana Figueres and Angela Merkel for example, face a backlash at home.

The challenge is how to animate this entire group, the bulk of citizens in the developed world, to wake up, call out the truth to power, and crash through to generate informed action. For if this group fails to discard their fading trust in society's most venerable institutions and players, in order to forestall what will otherwise be an inevitable catastrophe, there can be no hope for the human family beyond our lifetime.

4. The quest for transformation of the established order is a moral responsibility. Those of us with knowledge must speak on behalf of those who are simply unable to influence even their own situation. More than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. Around 66 million live in extreme poverty - surviving on less than $1.25 a day. Meanwhile the 10 richest people in the world are worth $686 billion. A billion children worldwide are living in poverty and 22,000 die each day as a result. This means a large proportion of the population is not even present in conversations about the climate crisis. Subsisting on the fringes of war, repression, hunger and fear, their attention is totally focused on how they can survive for one more night.

5. It can be unwise to divorce the climate crisis from other existential threats. All of them arise from the way we choose to live our lives. Everything is interconnected. It is tempting to point to carbon emissions as both the singular cause of, and the solution to, climate change. But climate change is a euphemism. Industrial production, the fossil fuel energy used to drive it, and the quest for endless economic growth have converged to trigger a breakdown of the Earth's major ecosystems. The problems range from a loss of biodiversity, stresses on food production, the spread of infectious diseases, and water scarcity, to issues such as terrorism, security, immigration, corruption, the demise of state hegemony, nuclear accidents and machine intelligence.

But these, too, are only symptoms of a much deeper malaise. For the mess in which we find ourselves can best be described as a crisis of consciousness - a breakdown in moral purpose, and a lack of appreciation for what it means to be human - both aggravated by the deliberate continuation of a cycle of desire and consumption that is now so central to how modern society works and to which we are all addicted.

Just imagine... The cravings of 7.860 billion people, all desiring more money, to buy more stuff, is putting untold pressure on many of our most life-critical systems - such as health, food production, construction, education and governance, for example - and the energy needed to keep the wheels turning. Most of these systems were not designed to cope with such sheer numbers, which is why they are beginning to fail.

Our intrinsic impulse to compete opens up wide cultural divisions and social rifts, as we blame anyone who is not like us for our problems. Only when that behaviour makes matters worse do we grasp the inevitable truth - that as individuals we have no power to change the course of global events. There is no place to hide, no sanctuary from the insanity. So we keep going as best we can or choose to immerse ourselves in mindless distractions, drop out for a life off-the-grid, join a rebellion, or succumb to anxiety and depression. Apprehensive and cynical, we resort to buying more and more goods in the hope, or expectation, this will cure our sadness - for that is what we have consistently been told. As the religion of materialism fails us yet again, the cycle is perpetuated. Meanwhile the despair deepens.

As I have pointed out previously, there are many factors amplifying the levels of physical and psychological discomfort we are all feeling. One in particular stands out as the key source of our anxiety: our shared worldview. This has become infused with a dubious impulse based on monetizing literally everything that moves - from the forests and the oceans to personal data. It manifests as a world-system driven by economic growth delivered by greed and envy.

When both markets and governments fall short in providing for the needs of society, the sense of chaos can be overwhelming. We do not easily accept the possibility of extinction. Normalcy bias shields us from acknowledging climate change. And we refuse to believe our civilization is in a state of collapse. It is probable we will continue to believe that until the evidence can no longer be denied - remaining blind, deaf and dumb to worsening conditions, yet confident others, or human ingenuity, or new technologies, will solve these problems in time to avert disaster.

That is why today, surrounded by confusion, ambiguity, misinformation, and conflicting power plays, we find ourselves caught between the plutocratic status quo, with its unsustainable and malignant addiction to business-as-usual, and a world full of empathy and cooperation, where knowledge applied diligently could be used to effect second-order change, at scale, in due course resolving most of the problems those clinging to the status quo choose to ignore, or pray will go away.

The real issue is what we should be doing about this crisis of consciousness of course, which is why Thunberg's message is so apt for us today. As little more than innovative apes, our mental capacity hovers just below the threshold needed to solve most of the existential problems we ourselves have created. Yet our inability to take appropriate action leaves us stranded in an even more vulnerable limbo.

Here then is the real opportunity the Thunberg generation offers us. Not merely to solve the problem of global warming or to adapt to its inevitable consequences. But to leverage the social momentum for change in a shift towards a new civilizational model and worldview. A worldview that is more equitable, sustainable, and generative. One that allows humans to live within their means as well as within the limits imposed by planetary boundaries.

If we can reach the year 2030 having accomplished that, we will have set a path for continued prosperity, health and wellbeing for all life on this planet. That will be the Thunberg effect. The impact of authentic leadership in an era where leadership is otherwise missing in action.

In Free Fall....

Our civilization feels like its in free fall. Much of what we have previously taken for granted now appears to be broken as old operating strategies refuse to work any more. Just as humanity is waking up to the limits imposed by nature on what it can and can not do, so an impasse has been reached in our ability to deal with critical issues in a collective manner - that is as a species.

Over the coming decade we will face a cascade of massively disruptive crises that will feed on each other economically and ecologically. Many of these are going to disable institutional power players, opening up new space for alternative socio-economic, governance, and technological models to embed. As that happens, collaboration on an unprecedented scale will be needed to transition the human family into a world-system that is at once more viable, resilient and nurturing.

In that respect it is useful to examine two probable scenarios. The first presupposes enlightened and effective leadership from at least a fraction of today's political and business elite. This is problematic for three reasons. Those responsible for generating the problems we face are unlikely to be part of the solution. The new leadership will require a level of consciousness and altruism sufficient to rise above perceived self-interest and ego. Much will depend on the trust 'we the people' have in those leaders. If today's dynamics are anything to go by that, in itself, will be a real hurdle.

The second focuses attention on local resilience but accomplished in ways where the resulting innovation flows are accessible universally – for example through open source design, commons, and peer-to-peer communities. Again this is problematic. By and large the general public is insufficiently motivated, informed and proficient in taking responsibility for anything assumed to be the function of government. Federal governments do not easily relinquish power. And in any case grassroots organizations tend to be far better dealing with local issues and are not geared up to cooperate on a global scale, at least without additional resources and layers of governance.

Clearly elements of both scenarios are critical to success. Both must be framed within different logics of possibility and desirability.

I find it fascinating that all the hype in the business-government axis of the dominant world-system right now - from the online World Economic Forum, to the new Biden administration in the US, and even unusually explicit statements from Presidents Putin and Xi, for example, is all about societal transitions, great resets, transformations, a zeitgeist shift to stakeholder capitalism, new normals, and green, green, green!

Frankly it is a little too hard to take these New Year's resolutions as anything more than a new wave of money-making gambits. Just as previous initiatives - B Corps, conscious capitalism, the triple bottom line and various other "social impact" agendas - at the end of the day little more than catchphrases, but so readily taken up by the corporate crowd, anything that makes business sense, tunes into the public mood, and balances purpose and profit, is a gotcha deal. I can believe some of the heartfelt declarations. But good intentions only get us so far. It is actions that we now await with bated breath. We must see what structural changes actually eventuate, and how rapidly these gain traction. And we must pray this is not just another cynical exercise of rearranging the deckchairs once again - because that, dear reader, is all we have seen so far.

My cynicism can be traced to five factors that appear to be impeding civilizational renewal in terms of a substantive societal metamorphosis. They have nothing to do with technology, infrastructure or investment capital, and very little to do with politics. In fact all five of these factors are relatively intangible. What they do have in common is an affiliation with the cultural and psychological spaces within which we typically respond to shifting and uncertain conditions.

Very simply stated these factors are (i) the separation of ideas and social relations and sense of exceptionalism that results from the false premise of detachment; (ii) treating other people and species as objects to be manipulated; (iii) obsolete mindsets; (iv) the obtrusiveness of competitive conduct within and across all human activities; and (v) the fragmentation of endeavours. Let us examine each of these in turn.

As the umbilical bond human beings have with each other expands and extends, both through travel and unbounded online platforms, we have become more attuned to comprehending Homo sapiens as a global “community of mind” - as an experiential phenomenon on at least one level. Global communications networks, along with our capacity to observe events and natural disasters as they happen, have allowed us to feel members of a cohesive human family. We feel the pain of others in distress.

At the same time, the world has splintered into diverse factions. Starting originally with nations, then followed by myriad communities, groups and tribes - right down to the sovereign individual - this pluriversal mix of distinct, often opposing, values, customs, myths, languages and activities, lacks any shared worldview conveying a desirable common future.

Shards of information depicting who we are, what matters to us, and what qualities we emphasize, in terms of what we believe it means to be human, slam into each other to reveal a schizophrenic state, in which coming to terms with the remorse we suffer from wreaking so much misery on our fellow beings becomes almost unbearable. The only way we have been able to shield ourselves from, or avoid, such emotional distress, is through the pretense of separation - an artificially-imposed detachment from others and from other species that is not simply unhealthy but a delusion.

Coupled to this is the toolkit we have derived to fathom out all manner of ills, and to which we turn when it comes to making sense of tangible events and issues - or our world-system. Here, critical issues facing humankind are becoming decoupled from each other in our forensic analysis of them. We no longer discern the entanglement. Topics are separate in our minds. In first seeking that which separates one idea from another we fail to discern and appreciate the crucial connecting tissues.

When it comes to issues like climate change, the production of clean energy, or state-sponsored terrorism, for example, we continue to apply linear thinking (usually with greater enthusiasm than before, and even in the knowledge that our solutions are not working and cannot possibly work) yet stop striving to design a different world where such symptoms (of a system in stress) could not endure. There are a few fundamental reasons for this.

Myopia is very significant in this regard. We tend to become blind to the obvious – the things that really matter. The warning signs of a system in distress are there to be seen, but only by those possessing sufficient bandwidth or acuity to perceive them as such. We are more commonly deceived and distracted by the many thousands of iterations of a few seminal messages - smudging clarity and meaning into inconsequence. This “consensus illusion” often deceives us into believing we are operating with additional information when, in fact, we are becoming indoctrinated with much less. If that were not alarming enough, many vital signs are not appearing on our radar screens because they are either imperceptible to us culturally or are showing up only at the intersection of our understandings.

With few exceptions we are no longer in the habit of seeking evidence in the shadows. We have a habit of following the spotlight, wherever it points. This is why it is so easy for unscrupulous politicians to distract us by responding only to questions they want to answer. Even if we were looking in the right places we lack the tools to bring into sharp focus what we might see there. In other words the territory has changed but our maps and reasoning have not kept pace. We have all become so busy interpreting what is going on from our own, deeply embedded, meaning structures that we have become oblivious to viable alternatives.

Most people find it almost impossible to grasp the more complex nature of change. Consequently modern society, along with elected representatives, is out of its depth - deficient in the capacity to make sense of what is going on at anything more than a very superficial level. Worse still, as hype around our most critical issues escalates, our ability to confront matters is overwhelmed by a belief that such a thing cannot possibly be happening to us. It is simply too much to bear.

The result is that collective cognition shuts down, or diverts to less existential matters like sporting events, celebrity gossip and other diversions. This is becoming known as apocalypse fatigue. People suffering from this condition feel helpless to do anything about the issues confronting them. They would much rather ignore any threat to their own existence by acting as if it isn’t true, shrug their shoulders in despair, and turn away from reality simply because it is too dreadful to contemplate. Ultimately there is only one question that really matters. Whatever happens over the next few decades the wealthy will survive. The three billion or so people who are not so fortunate will be wiped out. Do we really care? If so, what should we be doing about it.

The Occidental mind, unlike Sinic, Indic, Ubuntu or even Islamic mindsets, is a rational device. It responds best to deductive logic, which it values over all other methods of knowing. Accordingly, those of us raised in the West have been conditioned into building and dissecting structures one piece at a time. We have been taught to analyze and measure critical dimensions before applying problem-solving techniques to re-engineer these parts. Using this logic results in solutions ranging from the brilliant to the commonplace.

Method, though, remains consistent - dependent upon ranking and resources. So one or more parts of a structure - those perceived to be the weakest links - are improved, while other parts are ignored. When we see a deterioration in different parts of the structure we switch our attention to those elements and ignore the parts we were working on. While we in the West have become very adept at this kind of structural reductionism we have neglected to develop similar expertise in the design of viable and enduring systems. Our greatest weakness, however, is in applying deductive logic to every challenge facing us. By excluding alternative ways of knowing, including indigenous wisdom, we are requiring all other cultures to engage through the lens and morphology of the Occidental mind should they wish to participate in their own survival.

Overload is yet another problem. We are assailed by all kinds of information every hour of our waking lives. It has been known for some time that too much information causes a condition known as sensory overload. This produces disorientation and a lack of responsiveness, as well as lowering our ability to make accurate predictions. Not only does this make it much more difficult for us to comprehend and communicate the complex patterns we discern in systems, constructing effective, enduring solutions, is even more problematic when we are exhausted by the very information that might have the solution embedded within it.

We have developed a highly refined sense of shifting the blame. It is not my problem is a conditioned reflex acquired through our instruction-based, rather than inquiry-based, educational methods. As we are herded into careers, social memes, and classes, we develop a highly refined sense of what is in our purview. We seek public sector solutions to our wantonly excessive consumption. We rely upon government intervention when our sick and aging need care. We look to the police for community relations. We look to the clergy for morality. Regardless of evidence showing a lack of cognitive alignment within our collective transmuted accountability, the notion of someone else should remains our dominant modus operandi. 

Then, when these systems fail, we animate them with our personal projections of an accountability that they never accepted in our opening premise. By focusing on the role of leaders and obsessing on artefacts of hierarchical structure we have lost our moorings on citizenship and personal responsibility within community. In reality we are the problems we project on others. But then we, too, are the capacity to solve the same.

In spite of the highly controlled machinery of denial, misinformation and propaganda a growing minority genuinely comprehend the seriousness of our predicament. A few are even trying to do something about it. But having a partial sense of circumstances beyond our control has also encouraged society’s communicators to go to town in ways that exploit our growing sense of angst and that are detrimental to longer-term planetary solutions.

Some have leapt on discrete issues to push their own frenzied (often negative, cynical and commercial) self-interest. As a consequence most memes expressing the evolving human condition are conveyed via a strange mix of edgy fear coupled to competitive dogma - rather than from any sense of hope, inspiration and abundance. It must be said that some recent strategies by celebrity politicians and well-meaning activists have also unintentionally contributed to an overwhelming feeling of helplessness that has humanity in a vice-like grip.

Most of the seeds responsible for today’s rampant damage across so many sectors of society were sown during the industrial revolution. Those seeds stemmed from a type of thinking that was uniquely Occidental in its embrace of growth and innovation. This was ultimately responsible for the triumph of Western neoliberal economies of course. It has only been over the past few decades that it culminated in the hugely exploitative mechanisms of production we are experiencing today – variants of the capitalist ethos that have become driven by greed and are designed to promote the acquisition of wealth above any other goal.

Developing states, including China, Singapore and Dubai, have started to emulate this model, or a hybrid lookalike. Today, because of the exponential demand for food, water, energy and goods from the almost eight billion people who live on this planet, a perfect storm of economic and social flaws inherent within the original design is about to break. In spite of this, all relevant societal memes are still predicated on the erroneous notion that Occidental worldviews and values hold the key to civilizational renewal. This is hubris and narcissism at its most evil.

Western views of progress already border on the irrelevant in almost all non-Western traditions. Future solutions to the civilizational problem must of necessity integrate and transcend all current worldviews if they are to be effective. That means giving an appropriate voice to those cultures, along with credence to alternative economic and social modes of development.

The political inertia we see does not spring from apathy or any lack of a desire to change. Again the problem can be found in our thinking. In this case the notion of competition (and the prevalence of competitive behaviour) traps us in circumstances where it is expected that we fight others in order to safeguard our own parochial interests. Thus the lack of any real political leadership is first and foremost the result of us succumbing to an obsolete economic paradigm with its associated suite of constraints concerned with preserving the national interest.

The fact is we are beholden to mechanisms, from the nation state to the G20 and even the United Nations, that effectively hinder collaboration on a planetary scale.

Conventional wisdom maintains that we are fundamentally competitive social beings. Most biological evidence points to the contrary. But this is part of the paradigm we must shatter in order for the communal needs and interests we all share to shine through.

If the lack of a unified vision or platform for change is a serious issue then the splintering of any strategic focus and alignment are huge contributing factors to a demoralizing diffusion and dilution of energy. Currently there are myriad discrete and well-meaning initiatives, strategies, campaigns, movements and media all vying for our attention and funding across a range of theatres. Such diversity is overwhelming and a distraction in its own right. There is also far too much talk and not nearly enough inspired leadership for action attached to these ventures.

The key will be to find strategic acupuncture points that liberate new energy flows, concentrating and embedding entrepreneurial passion and relevant innovations within the evolving world-system. A critical element in this regard will be investment capital for renewal. The injection of capital and resources from business and high net worth individuals is still channelled overwhelmingly into old ‘sunset’ industries and interests – including the servicing of war and conflict which is a highly profitable business.

Two things must change. First entirely new business models must be invented from within alternative ontological frames. These must challenge prevalent assumptions governing investment, value and profitable exchange, ultimately making it more attractive to invest in things like renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, mutual enterprises, charitable agencies and alternative governance mechanisms.

Secondly, however inconceivable or idealistic it might seem, we must wean ourselves off military combat. Peace is a prerequisite for societal renewal. We cannot create peace by practising warfare.

So there is our dilemma. For the first time in history we are faced not with a simple problem requiring a simple solution, but with a fiercely diabolical condition – a world-system so immensely and dynamically complex that even the most sophisticated and advanced reductionist thinking, coupled to rational data, and a host of incredible technological breakthroughs, are still totally inadequate to correct the unintended consequences of our original defective design.

Yet we insist on using old tools and thinking to combat this enemy. It is not the planet that is at risk but our civilization.