Time for Global Dialogue on Shrinking Sustainability Opportunity?

In 1970, in high school, I read some of the first generation environmental texts (Carson, Ehrlich, Odum, etc.). They indicated serious storm clouds on the horizon precisely because of the key point that The Natural Step articulates so well: that the systematic destruction of the earth's regenerative life support machine (nature, the environment, etc.) is built into the heart of the human economy.

In 1975, I read the Club of Rome Report Limits to Growth (1972). It punted and said that although the study demonstrates that the human economy lives within a finite bubble of natural processes and resources, that there are limits, the study could not specify their quantitative parameters or when they might be reached, although the authors' surmised that it is likely they may be reached within 200-300 years.

In 1995, I read Beyond the Limits by Donnella Meadows, et. al. It too punted on the period for reaching the limits, guessing it was in the 100-year-plus-or-minus-50-year time frame.

In 2005, the International Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) concluded that we had about 10 years left to reach peak global CO2 production if we were to orchestrate--at a 90% confidence level--a soft landing on limiting average global temperature rise to 2-degrees C or less. Even this is a 200-300 year environmental solution and disaster management scenario before the earth's temperature & climate would return to some semblance of pre-global warming conditions, or so we hope.

Therefore, in the span of 35 years, the window of opportunity shrunk from 300 to 10 years, and that was 5 years ago! The question we face is whether there is a critical-path to sustainability success and what it would take to motivate the urgent, massive, global mobilization that appears to be required (a la Lester Brown and Plan B, etc.)?

Part of such a response, the beginning, could be a lightning-fast global dialogue on the shrinking window of opportunity for a response. It would use The Natural Step (TNS) framework and could be orchestrated by America Speaks'Town Meeting, a powerful 21st Century method for orchestrating authentic and productive democratic town hall meetings at any scale that lead to intelligent, informed, group decisions./1/ This global-scale initiative could be held under the auspices of the UN. One of the curious aspects of the sustainability challenge is that it seems like the first one in history where the response will need to be an authentic collective choice of the world's people. This could be orchestrated with a combination of TNS+AmericaSpeaks+ UN+Internet approach. Without it, elected leaders can/will only respond reactively to their supporters (business lobbyists), and business leaders can/will only respond to their perceptions of "the market" and its failing price signals. If such a global conversation and choice could be accomplished before the next UN Conference on sustainable development in 2012, that could be a powerful force to move the global response beyond the incrementalism of the market and the blinders of current understanding (see also: COP-15-Planetary Cardiac Arrest? ).

/1/ AmericaSpeaksis a Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to "engage citizens in the public decisions that impact their lives." AmericaSpeaks' work is focused on trying to create opportunities for citizens to impact decisions and to encourage public officials to make informed, lasting decisions. AmericaSpeaks has developed and facilitated deliberative methods such as the 21st Century Town Hall Meeting, which enables facilitated discussion for 500 to 5,000 participants. Carolyn Lukensmeyer is the President and Founder of AmericaSpeaks. Its partners have included regional planning groups, local, state, and national government bodies, national and international organizations. Issues have ranged from Social Security reform, the redevelopment of ground zero in New York and rebuilding New Orleans.