5 Premises: A New Vision for Society

These five premises create an outline for any new vision for society that hopes to avert a spectacularly dire climactic crisis.

Premise 1.

An unsustainable culture that uses resources around it for short-term advantage, and has a willingness to take those resources from other cultures, will have a competitive advantage over a culture that uses its resources sustainably.

This is why cultures which planted wheat to expand their population, denuded the soil, then took over their neighbor's land to plant wheat and continue the cycle, came to dominate the planet.

Premise 2.

Most civilizations collapse because they over-use their resources, become too complex and specialized, and cannot adapt quickly to change.

Premise 3.

When a civilization collapses because of resource exhaustion, and this civilization spans an entire continent or planet, pockets of this culture can remain in a high state of complexity. These pockets will generally have a competitive advantage over less complex cultures, and will continue to expand until resource exhaustion sets in again.

These pockets of civilization will be less reticent to exploit every advantage they can, despite health or environmental consequences, as they will have witnessed first-hand what happens when the resources run out.

This resource exploitation above and beyond the carrying capacity of the planet will continue, as it has for 12,000 years, until a hard physical limit is reached that makes this continued exploitation impossible.

These pockets of civilization may be only a small minority of the total population, but like in Premise 1 ... it only takes one group with a large competitive advantage to dominate.

Premise 4.

There is a way to voluntarily choose a different path. Collapse is not inevitable.

However, people will never choose a new unifying cultural vision that promises them less without going through a feisty internal battle -- denial, anger, then acceptance. This internal battle is difficult to wage when we're being bombarded by advertising and propaganda.

Therefore, any vision for a sustainable culture must promise a better way of life -- at some point in the future.

Premise 5.

In premise 3, I stated that resource exploitation will continue in some form until it reaches a hard physical limit.

This limit can take two forms:

1. The biosphere of the planet becomes incompatible with human life through anoxic oceans, nuclear war, disease, or another major disaster that kills the majority of humans. (Note: this is not to disregard the role of other species, but simply a recognition that other species are not carving deep holes in the planet to get at the oil tar).

2. An opposing force, of sufficient size or complexity, deliberately knocks down any group of people that is living unsustainably (as defined by the opposing force). This would assure that no group could gain a competitive advantage through unsustainable resource exploitation.

There is no other way to prevent the unsustainable exploitation of the Earth's resources and ecology.


Therefore ...

Any new unifying vision of society based on sustainability must offer the promise of a better life.

This new vision must also retain a level of complexity necessary to prevent other cultures from living beyond the carrying capacity of their region, and expanding this unsustainable vision into other regions.