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
In Part 1 of this “Picture-Guide” series, you learned how to make an extremely simple mapping of the extremely simple decision-making system for meeting human physical needs (called “the Human Enterprise”) …
… that is creating the planet’s cascading ecological crises as a whole …
Through this “Picture-Guide” series of articles, you will learn how to simply & practically reverse the planet’s eco-crises (including the climate crisis) as a whole.
Because the Human Enterprise decision-making system for adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that meet human physical needs …
… 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 simple & practical 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 that are creating the planet’s eco-crises …
… and, at the same time, keeping intact the Human Enterprise for meeting every human being’s physical needs …
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.
A Things-We-Extract option or a Things-We-Use option that scales back the extraction flows and/or pollution flows may be called a “regenerative option” because scaling back the extraction flows & pollution flows allows the planet’s biosphere to regenerate itself.
What is a “regenerative option”?
A regenerative option is either:
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
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 – may be called a “regeneration benefit” of a Things-We-Extract option.
That lessened pollution – measured by an option avoiding more pollution than it incurs – may be called a “regeneration benefit” of a Things-We-Use option …
Decision-makers everywhere adopting regenerative options delivers regeneration benefits – in the form of avoided extraction flows and avoided pollution flows -- that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise as a whole …
… and, at the same time, keep 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 as a whole …
The planet’s regenerated biosphere reverses the planet’s eco-crises as a whole …
… and allows the planet to heal itself …
Extremely simple regenerative options -- delivering extremely simple regeneration (avoided extraction & avoided pollution) benefits – scale back the extraction flows & pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and allow the regenerated biosphere to reverse the planet’s eco-crises as a whole.
If you can find a simpler & more practical process for scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and reversing the planet’s eco-crises as a whole (including the climate crisis), please let me know.
In the next article of this “Picture-Guide” series, you will learn how to evaluate the “performance benefits” and “economic benefits” of regenerative options that decision-makers everywhere want to adopt.
When you read my short & simple e-book, We Can Reverse the Planet’s Eco-crises, you will learn how to solve the problem of the planet’s eco-crises through:
First, extremely simplifying the problem by making an extremely simple mapping of the decision-making system (called the “Human Enterprise”) that is creating the planet’s eco-crises, and …
Second, using that extremely simple mapping to design an extremely simple information-based decision-making process (called “regenerative decision-making”) for simply & practically reversing the planet’s eco-crises (including the climate crisis) as a whole.
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Thank you for reading and aloha!
P.S. I cross-posted this article on Medium for greater reach.