Four years gone, four years to go - what are our chances?

-       Robert McLean

The 2012 book.

Just four years ago the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute assembled the thoughts of more than 30 people and subsequently published “2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society”.

The resultant book was not on the best seller list, I suspect, despite being timely, educative, informative and alive with information that would have made the achievement of a sustainable society in eight years possible, or at least not impossible.

Writing about “Public Wisdom” Tim van Gelder said public opinion falls a long way short of public wisdom.

van Gelder quoted democracy theorist, James Fishkin, who said “Respondents are generally ill-informed; they are usually “rationally ignorant” on the topic.

“Individuals’ attitudes are subject to manipulation by powerful forces pursuing their own agendas: eg, major corporations resisting tax system changes.

“The opinions elicited in standard polls may be artificially manufactured by the polling process itself: ie, may not reflect any real view held by the respondents but rather views shaped by that process,” Fishkin said.

The forward for the book which declares on an opening page, “For our grandchildren”, written by a Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and both a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow and Professorial Fellow of Economics at The University of Melbourne, Ross Garnaut AO, ends in saying:

Professor Ross Garnaut.

“What Australians do over the next few years will have a significant influence on humanity’s prospects for handing on the benefits of modern civilisation to future generations. This book will help Australians understand their part in the global effort for sustainability.”

Nobel Prize Laureate, Peter Doherty, was awarded and shared the prize in 1996 for his work in discovering how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells.

The University of Melbourne Professor wrote about disease and his concluding “Actions for 2020” were:

A sustainable society must be a fairer world that promises health and global wellbeing. Medical, agricultural and other professionals can provide expertise, but what is really needed are innovative economic models and courageous political leadership.

Hopefully, we can mobilise the necessary will before we are forced to act in “fire engine” mode to counter some major, and perhaps irreversible, global disaster. Though agreed international regulatory frameworks and collective action clearly have important roles to play, any effective action can only work via mechanisms that also emphasise individual enterprise, insight and inventiveness. Perhaps what we need most is innovative and business entrepreneurs who function as global gamekeepers, not poachers, and focus as much on human as on financial capital. A dedication to greed makes people fundamentally callous and less than human. Giving back enhances lives, not least the life of the giver.

The book, “2020: Vision for a sustainable society” was published in 2012, allowing humanity just eight years for concrete action – that has been halved and we now have just four of those critical years left.

Claims of success are many, but the simple and measurable reality is that our carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb worsening the risk of irreversible climate change and so with just four years left until this arbitrary date arrives, we have in fact done little to change our behaviours and so seriously mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions or understand how and when we should adapt to what is unfolding.

Many point to the Paris climate conversations and with considerable glee claim that global agreement to tackle climate change was significant and important.

Maybe it was a global agreement and while that acknowledgement is critical, the Earth’s climate has been disrupted to such an extent that the world needs more than words, it needs a style of action replicating what happened among allied countries in the lead-up to the Second World War, anything less will not do.  

What do we need to reach a sustainable society?

Narratives: a sustainable future will be attractive.

Actions: specifics to achieve sustainability. Largely, behaviour and policy changes, not technology.

Evidence: research to identify what is needed and its impact when it occurs. Publicise success.

Commitment: join the movement.

Partners: civil society, government, business and media working in concert.