Finding the leverage points
For healing the planet’s ecological crises as a whole
Leverage points are points of power. – Donella Meadows
People everywhere are damaging the biosphere faster than the biosphere can regenerate itself.
This damage to the biosphere is showing up as nine planet-scale ecological crises created by humanity’s “overshoot” of the biosphere’s regenerative capacity …
How might we heal the planet’s ecological crises as a whole?
Environmental scientist Donella Meadows articulated a two-step process for finding the leverage points of a system and changing the system as a whole:
First, model the system as a whole to find its paradigm and find its leverage points for changing its paradigm and changing the system as a whole.
In the words of Donella Meadows:
Systems folks would say you change paradigms by modeling a system, which takes you outside the system and forces you to see it whole.
“Leverage points” … are places within a complex system .. where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything. … We not only want to believe that there are leverage points, we want to know where they are and how to get our hands on them. Leverage points are points of power.
People who have managed to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems.
Second, change the paradigm at the leverage points to change the system as a whole.
In the words of Donella Meadows:
There’s nothing physical or expensive or even slow in the process of paradigm change. In a single individual, it can happen in a millisecond. All it takes is a click in the mind, a falling of scales from eyes, a new way of seeing.
Finding the leverage points for healing the ecological crises as a whole
Finding the leverage points for healing the ecological crises as a whole requires answers to these two questions:
What is the system that’s creating the ecological crises as a whole?
and
What are the leverage points within that system for healing the ecological crises as a whole?
What is the system that’s creating the ecological crises as a whole?
People everywhere making decisions for meeting human physical needs are creating the ecological crises.
People everywhere making decisions for meeting human physical needs -- which may be called “the Human Enterprise”[1] -- may be modeled as …
… the sum of people everywhere deciding to extract physical things (in turquoise) from the biosphere (in deep green) …
… things like forests, fresh water, wildlife, soils and minerals -- that may be called the “things-we-extract” …
… plus all the physical flows of all those things-we-extract (in orange) – things like forests, fresh water, wildlife, soils and minerals – out of the biosphere (in deep green) and into the Human Enterprise …
… plus people everywhere deciding to use all those things-we-extract (in turquoise) -- in the forms of energy, water, materials & chemicals, food & fiber and manufactures & structures …
… things like energy, water, materials & chemicals, food & fiber and manufactures & structures that may be called the “things-we-use” …
… plus all the physical flows of all those things-we-use (in chartreuse) – things like energy, water, materials & chemicals, food & fiber and manufactures & structures -- within the Human Enterprise for meeting human physical needs …
... plus all the physical flows of pollution from all those things-we-use (in orange) out of the Human Enterprise and back into the biosphere (in deep green) …
This simple model depicts the system that’s creating the ecological crises as:
people everywhere making decisions for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise), plus
all the physical flows of things-we-extract (in orange), physical flows of things-we-use (in chartreuse) and physical flows of pollution (in orange) created by people everywhere making decisions for meeting human physical needs …
The exponential growth of the Human Enterprise (in yellow) …
… has reached a point where the exponential damage to the biosphere (in deep green) from the exponentially growing things-we-extract flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) is outstripping the biosphere’s capacity to regenerate itself …
The exponential damage to the biosphere as a whole from the things-we-extract flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise is showing up as the planet’s ecological crises as a whole:
This is a first-ever model of the system that’s creating the ecological crises as a whole.
What are the leverage points within the Human Enterprise for healing the ecological crises as a whole?
The leverage points within the Human Enterprise for healing the ecological crises as a whole are:
people everywhere deciding to adopt things-we-extract options for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise), and
people everywhere deciding to adopt things-we-use options for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise) …
In other words, leverage points for healing the ecological crises fall into two sets:
decision-making for adopting things-we-extract options, and
decision-making for adopting things-we-use options.
The leverage points are the decision-making to adopt things-we-extract options & things-we-use options, not the things-we-extract options and things-we-use options themselves.
This is a first-ever specification of leverage points for healing the ecological crises as a whole.
Changing the paradigm for healing the ecological crises
Modeling the system & finding its decision-making leverage points empowers one to change the decision-making paradigm and heal the ecological crises as a whole by inventing a new decision-making paradigm (called “regenerative economics”) through which people everywhere want, decide and act to adopt things-we-extract options & things-we-use options …
… that scale back the human-created extraction flows out of the biosphere and the human-created pollution flows into the biosphere …
… which allows the biosphere to regenerate itself …
… and allows the regenerated biosphere to heal the ecological crises as a whole …
… and allows the biosphere to meet the physical needs of all living beings, including human beings …
This is the power of leverage points for system change.
In the words of Donella Meadows:
We not only want to believe that there are leverage points, we want to know where they are and how to get our hands on them.
How would it feel to get your hands on the leverage points for healing the ecological crises?
Thank you for reading The Regenerative Transition.
Peace and Aloha!
Erik
P.S. I cross-posted this article on Medium for greater reach.
P.P.S. I’m also over on LinkedIn if you want to connect there too.
What are your thoughts about this? Simple? Practical? Impossible?
Jump into the comments!
[1] Biologist Paul Ehrlich used the expression -- “the human enterprise” -- to capture the entirety of human activities in relation to the biosphere: “To rescue the human enterprise in the long run requires strong action in the short run directed toward saving biodiversity and bringing the human enterprise within sustainable limits.”