Defining the Decision-making Required for Reversing the Planet’s Eco-crises
Chapter 5 from We Can Reverse the Planet's Eco-crises
Simply put design matters. And at a moment in our history in which the scientific community has issued serious warnings about the negative impacts of our flawed designs – from global warming and water pollution to the loss of biodiversity and natural resources – designers have a critical role to play in the creation of a more just, healthful, and sustainable world. – William McDonough
You now have learned how to map each of the two decision-making systems – Human Enterprise Decision-making and Political Economic Decision-making -- that are creating the metacrisis.
First, you have learned how to map the decision-making system called Human Enterprise Decision-making for meeting human physical needs …
Second, you have learned how to map the decision-making system called Political Economic Decision-making for deciding who-gets-what …
Human Enterprise Decision-making – for meeting human physical needs – is creating the planet’s ecological crises …
Political Economic Decision-making – for deciding who-gets-what – is creating human society’s who-gets-what crises …
Political Economic Decision-making – for deciding who-gets-what – is not creating the planet’s ecological crises …
Human Enterprise Decision-making – for meeting human physical needs – is not creating human society’s who-gets-what crises …
When one understands the decision-making systems that are creating the metacrisis, you can use your maps of these decision-making systems to define the decision-making required for reversing the planet’s eco-crises:
First, because Human Enterprise Decision-making for adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options …
… is creating the exponentially growing extraction flows and pollution flows that are creating the planet’s ecological crises …
… reversing the planet’s ecological crises requires a Human Enterprise Decision-making process for adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that scale back (or “de-grow”) 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 …
Second, when one understands that Political Economic Decision-making is not creating the planet’s ecological crises …
… one may recognize that the planet’s ecological crises are not solvable or reversible through Political Economic Decision-making for deciding who-gets-what …
Reversing the planet’s ecological crises becomes simple when one knows that:
first, one is designing a process for scaling back (or “de-growing”) the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (while keeping it intact for meeting every human being’s physical needs), and
second, reversing the planet’s eco-crises does not depend on Political Economic Decision-making because the planet’s eco-crises are not solvable or reversible through Political Economic Decision-making for deciding who-gets-what.
Third, because Human Enterprise Decision-making is creating the extraction flows and pollution flows that are creating the planet’s ecological crises …
… one may design a decision-making process for scaling back (or “de-growing”) the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and reversing the planet’s ecological crises as a whole and, at the same time, keeping intact the Human Enterprise for meeting every human being’s physical needs …
In the next chapter from We Can Reverse the Planet’s Eco-crises, you will learn how to use your map of the Human Enterprise to specify the design requirements of a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s ecological crises.
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