From Sustainability to Transformation (retro)

By Jack Heppner

When we began writing columns for “Rethinking Lifestyle”, South Eastman Transition Initiative writers frequently used the term, “sustainability.” Our quest was to find ways to preserve resources for future generations. Our perspective was that this would require us to downscale our expectations and simplify our lifestyles to some degree.

However, in a recent lecture presented at Providence University College, Mark A. Burch, author of “Stepping Lightly: Simplicity for People and the Planet,” suggested that the concept of “sustainability” has been high-jacked in recent years by those who suggest that we can maintain our current levels of consumption, only find sustainable ways to do so. Such thinking, says Burch, must be replaced with the concept of “transformation,” which he suggests will call for significant adjustments to status quo lifestyle expectations.

Things are moving more quickly than anticipated. From 1970 to 2010 half of all living species on the planet have been depleted. Temperatures are rising more quickly than anticipated as ice packs are disappearing. Large population centres around the world are running out of fresh water. A third of the world’s topsoil, on which all life depends, has already vanished. Chemical pollution is mounting as are modern plagues. Some serious scientists, like Guy McPherson, are now predicting that by the middle of the 21st century life as we know it now will become virtually impossible. That means that my grandchildren are in for trouble.

Other scientists are giving us a little more time, but most of them are saying that business as usual is not a viable option. Unlimited growth, even if fuelled by renewable resources, will have to vanish from our thinking. A simple thought experiment will help us understand. Think of a small island, say about ten square miles, on which you are living. As more and more people arrive to live there everyone gets as creative as possible to make a viable livelihood for everyone. Eventually, however, it will become clear that the island has its limits. Well, so does our planet.

That is why the call today is not simply to find a green alternative to support an affluent, consumerist lifestyle that assumes unlimited growth is possible. We will have to “transform” our expectations, perhaps as significantly as a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly in the cocoon it spins for itself. Old ways of thinking, expectations and practice must be forgotten as we transition into a transformed lifestyle.

Gone will be the assumptions that greed is good, that we are defined primarily as consumers, that unlimited growth is possible and that massive, global inequities are acceptable. In this transformed world, impulsive narcissism will be replaced with simplicity rooted in mindfulness. The dream of affluence will be replaced with a notion of sufficiency where nothing is wasted. Clutter will give way to necessities, apathy to thoughtful action and individualism to community resilience. Fixing blame will be transformed into fixing problems and despair to a dream of enough for everyone for generations to come.