New Zealand has caused one of humanity’s fastest depletions and degradations of land and water and one of the fastest rates of species extinction. We need a great leap forward from the politics of ping-pong platitudes
Opinion: Our economy is growing, tourists and migrants are returning, inflation is waning and politics is shifting.
So, New Zealand is getting back to some semblance of normality?
No. The future, for us and people the world over, will be very different from the past. Because humanity is confronting its first global confluence of crises. We triggered them all. We must devise the solutions.
First though, we must admit our economic growth is weak, inequitable, and often damaging to people and planet; our society is fracturing fast; and our politics are evermore tribal and dysfunctional.
It’s no comfort many other countries are worse off than us. On our current course, we’ll catch up with them sooner rather than later. The poisonous aspects of social media are just one example of how fast we can follow others into the abyss.
READ MORE: * Rod Oram: We’re light years from the change we need * Only now do we realise we’ve pushed nature into ever greater crises
The UK is one benchmark of how rapidly a nation can fall, seemingly inexorably, into political dysfunction and economic decline. And even more telling as it used to be a role model for us.
And we can’t console ourselves that incremental, piecemeal progress will solve our problems. The causes are too deep, our time too short and our challenges too interdependent. For example, we must tackle the climate crisis in ways that rapidly improve the lives of all and the health of nature.
Instead, we need a raft of new thinking. One big idea that can help guide us was expressed by Derek Parfit, the British philosopher, in On What Matters (2011). Now is humanity’s “hinge of history”, a deeply consequential time when we are locking ourselves into a future which will prove to be either good or bad for us.
“Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors.”
Yet, for all the vast scale and complexity of that idea, we can begin to explore it by asking ourselves what’s important to us. And Christmas, New Year and the summer holiday is a good time to do so. Well, once we’ve made our frantic preparations and can finally take a bit of a break from our usual routines.
A time, perhaps, to renew an old friendship or pastime; to do something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t yet; to find some common ground with a relative, neighbour or stranger; or to appreciate nature anew.
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth, find reserves of strength as long as life lasts,” wrote Rachel Carson, the American marine biologist and conservationist.
Those are just a few of the many ways we can revive ourselves and our relationships; ways we can begin to restore our social cohesion. Then, hopefully, we can begin to make our politics more functional, more capable of progressing complex issues. We need such a great leap forward from our current political game of ping-pong platitudes.
Then we will give ourselves a chance to set bold goals to grow our society and economy in fully equitable and deeply sustainable ways that work with nature, not against it; and to devise practical strategies to achieve them.
Every nation has the same tasks. But ours come with a particular responsibility. Aotearoa was the last large land mass to be settled by humans. That was only about 30-35 generations ago.
Yet, in our pursuit of progress, particularly since the mid-19th Century, we have caused one of humanity’s fastest depletions and degradations of land and water and one of the fastest rates of species extinction.
We still have the largest stock of natural capital per capita in the world, World Bank analysis tells us; and we still have a remarkable array of unique species on land, in fresh and salt water and in the air, even though many are at grave risk of extinction.
We also have a unique record of continuous Indigenous knowledge of our ecosystems running from their once pristine state to their current dire condition. So, we have an unparalleled opportunity to show how human, social, cultural and economic progress can help nature recover; and more importantly, how nature guides that progress.
There’s no doubting the symbiosis between them, as shown by this year’s edition of the annual global risk analysis by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It’s based on a survey of more than 12,000 country-level leaders in 124 countries.
Looking out five to 10 years, as the chart below shows, they see the top five risks to humanity are environmental ones followed by two social ones, as I reported in this column in August. I’m repeating it now because that single chart has done more to crystallise my thinking this year than any other piece of information.
And the second most important insight for me this year, which I’m also repeating from that column, is this: seeking hope on these critical issues, I’ve long searched widely and continually for inspiration. I find most of it among steely-eyed younger generations. Often, they are more realistic, more ambitious than their elders, as the forum found in the 2021 edition of its global risk survey.
The respondents among WEF members were divided into “Shapers” – younger people driving dialogue, action and change – and “Multistakeholders” – older people in senior leadership positions.
The younger generation ranked every risk as more likely to happen and with a greater impact when it does than did those who believed they were in charge. That’s true across all five domains studied – environmental, social, economic, geopolitical and technological.
But the two most extreme are environmental and social, as the two charts below show. That’s why my money’s on the Shapers.
Wishing you all a restorative break over the summer …
