Thoughts on Thriving #2: Risks. Boundaries. Action.

Well, hello again. Welcome to Thoughts on Thriving. I'm Wayne Visser. And kicking off today I wanted to reflect on the early part of my book. If you're following along, on the second page of the chapter on hope, I talk about how I nearly drowned in Sodwana, a bay just off the coast of South Africa. And the point I want to make here is that I was warned of the risks of swimming at this beach. In fact, there was a sign that warned of four risks: hippopotami, crocodiles, sharks, and a strong current.

Now, as it turned out, of all of those risks, the one that put our lives in danger, my wife and I, was the one that seemed to be less dangerous. If you think of crocodiles and hippopotami and sharks, of course, you immediately can see danger. But when you think of a strong current, what's called a rip tide, this is perhaps something that you're less likely to be worried about. And so it happened that we got dragged out to sea by this rip current, this undertow. And we found ourselves fatigued and struggling to get back to shore.

In the end, of course, we did make it. But there were certainly moments where we feared for our lives and thought that we would drown. Now I raise this story, because this is so typical of the risks that we face in society. We're very bad at assessing the seriousness of risks that are not dramatic, like the shark or the crocodile. If we see something that's visible, that makes the headlines, that is rapid, a catastrophe a disaster, we're far more likely to perceive that as a risk and to take action.

Whereas many of the crises we face in sustainability are gradual crises that are getting worse and worse, but not perceptibly so, not visibly so. And I'm thinking of things like climate change, or (even more difficult) biodiversity loss. And so this is a lesson for us. We have to retune our senses, to be able to detect the gradual change in risk that is occurring that may be even more life threatening than the dramatic, visible risks that we can see every day.

Now, this links to my second point, which is what have I been reflecting on, on thriving. In the past days, I have become very aware of the breakthrough science that was presented at the World Economic Forum by Johan Rockstrom and colleagues. This is an update to his global planetary boundaries model. In fact, it's the work, especially of the Stockholm resilience Institute and others. But what's different is that they have now quantified those boundaries for all eight of the major risks that we face from a planetary perspective.

And secondly, they have also added a social justice dimension. And so the threshold numbers for each of those eight boundaries, in some cases vary if we take into account the need for social justice. Now, if you're not already familiar with it, look it up because this is a huge leap forward in science, and we now have the data that we need. We know what we need to stay within, in terms of planetary boundaries, and we can measure our impact against these boundaries.

It links to a very important concept in thriving, which is the idea that change is not linear. In complex living systems where everything is connected to everything else, the system tries to maintain stability. It's self regulates. I've also been reading recently the scientific letters between James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, who were the two founding scientists behind the Gaia theory, the idea that the Earth is a self regulating living organism. And so this is what living systems do, they try to maintain a balance.

What this means, though, is that when it is disturbed as a system, it has certain tolerance thresholds, beyond which it can no longer maintain the integrity of that system. And the system rapidly collapses. So we often get fooled into thinking that everything is okay because the world, the environment, nature, our ecosystems, seem to be coping, they don't seem to be dramatically collapsing. But that may be because we just haven't reached that threshold, that tipping point. And that's why planetary boundaries are so crucial. We need to know these numbers. We need to take them into account in our business planning and strategies. We need governments to adopt these as absolute thresholds.

One of the points that Johan Rockstrom makes is that 1.5 degree warming is not a political target. It is a scientific necessity, if we want to avoid that collapse into climate chaos. And it goes for all of the other boundaries, which are about nitrogen and phosphorus in the environment. It's about protecting and restoring nature, both land that is still untouched and land that is already developed. It's about air pollution. It's about climate change. So take a look. Let's take these numbers seriously.

We have been warned. We have been given the necessary monitor, the measuring tools, to detect even those gradual, less visible risks. And so we have no excuse anymore. Let's not make the mistake, as I did in swimming in Sodwana Bay, of underestimating the risks, and as a result, failing to take the necessary precaution and action. The time now is for action. But within the planetary boundaries, within the thresholds of life. We have what we need to thrive. Let's take action.