How to Design a Simple Decision-making Process for Reversing the Planet’s Eco-crises
Part 4 of Creating a Science of the Metacrisis
Design everything on the assumption that people are not heartless or stupid but marvelously capable, given the chance. – John Chris Jones
When you understand that the exponentially growing extraction flows and pollution flows of the decision-making system for meeting human physical needs (“the Human Enterprise”) are creating the planet’s ecological crises …
… your map of the Human Enterprise tells you the three design requirements of a decision-making process for scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and reversing the planet’s eco-crises …
First, your map of the Human Enterprise tells you that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process through which decision-makers adopt Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) …
Second, your map of the Human Enterprise tells you that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process through which decision-makers everywhere want to adopt Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options (in turquoise) that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise …
Third, your map of the Human Enterprise tells you that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process through which decision-makers everywhere want to adopt Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options (in turquoise) -- that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) -- at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s ecological crises …
The expression “regenerative option” may be used to describe a Things-We-Extract option or a Things-We-Use option that scales back the extraction flows and/or the pollution flows of the Human Enterprise.[1]
Using the expression “regenerative option,” designing a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires answers to the following three questions:
First, what are regenerative options?
Second, what are regenerative options that decision-makers everywhere want to adopt?
Third, what might a decision-making process look like for adopting regenerative options at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s eco-crises?
Answering the first question:
A regenerative option is either:
1) a Things-We-Extract option that takes less things-we-extract from the biosphere, that is, it takes less things like forests, water, wildlife, soils and minerals from the biosphere, or
2) it’s a Things-We-Use option – like an energy option, a water option, a materials option, a food option, or a manufactures option – that puts less pollution into the biosphere …
Less extraction or less pollution makes an option “regenerative” because less extraction and less pollution allow the biosphere to regenerate itself.
That lessened extraction – measured by an increase in the number of species in an area – can be called a “regeneration benefit” of a Things-We-Extract option.
That lessened pollution – measured by an option avoiding more pollution than it incurs – can be called a “regeneration benefit” of a Things-We-Use option …
Answering the second question:
If decision-makers want to adopt a regenerative option, they need to persuade themselves of two things:
First, they need to persuade themselves that the regenerative option meets a human physical need. In other words, the regenerative option has to work. It has to perform. It has to deliver nutritious food, or drinkable water, or a habitable building, or safe transportation, or usable electric power.
If a regenerative option meets a human physical need, if it works, if it performs, it is said to deliver “performance benefits.” If a regenerative option does not deliver performance benefits, decision-makers are not going to want to adopt it.
Second, if decision-makers want to adopt a regenerative option, they need to persuade themselves that the regenerative option avoids more costs than it incurs. In other words, the regenerative option has to deliver cost savings compared to the non-regenerative option currently in use.
If a regenerative option avoids more costs than it incurs, it is said to deliver “economic benefits.” If a regenerative option does not deliver economic benefits, decision-makers are not going to want to adopt it.
To recap:
Answering the third question:
A decision-making process – usable by decision-makers everywhere for adopting regenerative options at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s ecological crises – might look like a simple four-step “regenerative decision-making process.”
Through a simple regenerative decision-making process:
First, decision-makers identify options for meeting their human physical needs:
Second, decision-makers evaluate the performance benefits, economic benefits and regeneration benefits of those options:
Third, decision-makers compare those benefits:
Fourth, decision-makers persuade themselves what options they want to adopt and decide to adopt those options:
Regenerative decision-making delivers exponentially faster decisions – for adopting regenerative options at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s ecological crises -- because regenerative decision-making occurs within an exponentially faster decision-making process called an “Observe – Orient – Decide – Act” loop, or an “OODA loop.”
In a cooperative situation (like reversing the planet’s eco-crises), an OODA loop that contains a simple regenerative decision-making process (a “regenerative OODA loop”) delivers:
exponentially faster regenerative decision-making
for adopting exponentially more regenerative options
that deliver exponentially more regeneration benefits
for scaling back the extraction flows & pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and allowing the planet’s regenerated biosphere to reverse the planet’s eco-crises.
Through a decision-maker observing and measuring the delivered benefits from decision-makers’ adopted options …
… then orienting to deciding exponentially faster to adopt exponentially more regenerative options for delivering exponentially more benefits …
… and then deciding exponentially faster to adopt exponentially more regenerative options …
… the decision-maker acts exponentially faster to adopt exponentially more regenerative options and deliver exponentially more benefits …
… and then observes the delivered benefits from the decision-maker’s adopted regenerative options, and cycles again through the regenerative OODA loop …
Decision-makers’ exponentially faster decision-making -- using the regenerative OODA loop -- creates the adoption of exponentially more regenerative options for delivering exponentially more benefits …
Decision-makers everywhere adopting exponentially more regenerative options delivers exponentially more regeneration benefits for scaling back (or “de-growing”) the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise …
… and, at the same time, keeping intact the Human Enterprise for meeting every human being’s physical needs …
Scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise allows the planet’s biosphere to regenerate itself …
The planet’s regenerated biosphere reverses the planet’s ecological crises as a whole …
… and allows the planet to heal itself …
Regenerative decision-making is a simple decision-making process – contained in a simple regenerative OODA loop -- for reversing the planet’s eco-crises, while keeping intact the Human Enterprise for meeting every human being’s physical needs.
[1] A Things-We-Extract option or a Things-We-Use option that scales back the extraction flows and/or pollution flows is a “regenerative option” because scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows allows the planet’s biosphere to regenerate itself.
In Part 5 of this Creating a Science of the Metacrisis series, you will learn how to design and use a simple educational process for averting human society’s who-gets-what crises.
When you read my simple e-book, We Can Reverse the Planet’s Eco-crises, you’ll learn:
where the diamonds – in the form of “regenerative options” delivering trillions in avoided cost savings and avoided pollution – are buried, and
how to use a simple tool – in the form of a “regenerative decision-making process” – for mining those diamonds, winning those trillions in avoided cost savings and reversing the planet’s eco-crises as a whole.
When you read the articles in my Regenerative Decision-making newsletter:
… you’re giving yourself essential tools and skills for your successful career in reversing the planet’s ecological crises.
I’m super grateful for your kind attention.
Thank you for reading and aloha!
P.S. I cross-posted this article on Medium to give it greater reach.