Why we need a world view rooted in lessons from lived experiences
The connection to climate change through food, water, shelter.
It’s not often that we think of our lives as built on basics of food, water, shelter - nor do we consciously consider ourselves as part of a global system interdependent on other species. However, this is our reality.
To see it simply, let’s take the example of a banana. Not just because humans and bananas seem to share more than 50% of their DNA but because bananas are one of the most popular fruit in the UK. It is commonly imported from countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador and Columbia where climate change is a current, real and continuous threat. Yet the connection between our daily breakfast fruit, our income and the land its produced in is not fully understood, nor is its resultant impact on todays’ globally and digitally connected environments.
Learning from such areas where climate impact is a lived reality is an important step in building the necessary preventative measures that can help strengthen resilience and adaptation strategies in areas where disaster is yet to strike in full swing. It may also help connect the world on the basis of empathy and care as identified in a separate article. This is especially relevant as these places are a thriving bed of existing knowledge to help decision makers understand how best to transform and build the necessary mindsets, systems, processes, methods and tools for application in other countries. In doing so, it may also bridge the gaps between cultures and create necessary linkages for mutual support.
But why?
Global Lessons
Current advances in technology, increasing climate impact,global pandemics and wars have applied greater pressure on decision makers to act quickly. With time running out in an unfamiliar territory of emerging challenges, rising costs and reducing resources, the steps towards transformation are fraught with barriers.
Data outputs based around future projections has not helped showcase the urgency that is already here engulfed in complexities yet to be unravelled. Nor does it provide a human approach to the lived reality of existing communities and human connections. This is where lived knowledge in combination with raw data, can reveal hidden processes underpinning societal and cultural norms, showcase interlinked connections and highlight cascading impact to help decision makers create realistic benchmarks, lead with confidence and tap into an existing evidence bank.
Population numbers are growing and boundaries disappearing. Today’s world is a mix of different cultures brought on with globalisation and technological freedoms. Accommodating diverse pools of knowledge bases and societal systems is important to not only reflect societys’ needs but accurately respond to building its future.
Demonstrate How
So if we are to prepare for the inevitable challenges, learning from the global majority where climate impact is disproportionately affecting lives is integral, preventing it in the first place is of course essential. In such places, climate disaster is an ongoing challenge leading to food and water shortages where places and spaces to inhabit are being destroyed by extreme climate events and re-building is affected by shortages in raw materials.
Lessons of adapting to climate impact can be understood from these areas where destruction and rebuild has occurred, offering the opportunity to be analysed and applied in a pattern-based, scalable way that is locally sensitive and resource efficient— to prevent the same issues and create a more resilient and adaptive world that can mutually respond to today’s challenges.
Recommendations
What is needed now — is an inclusive world view rooted in realities that are currently occurring. This can be undertaken in several steps.
1.Building an awareness of connected realities — There is a need to reveal the emerging picture to understand its implications and dependencies through systems analysis and cataloging. Gathering information from the global majority and showcasing examples of responses and solutions can form part of this.
2.Sense-making — Identifying patterns and connections is important to understand which mindsets, approaches/behaviours, processes and outcomes can be scaled and repeated ensuring local context and cultural variations are acknowledged and retained.
3.Application and Testing — Demonstrating knowledge and responses will help set new benchmarks within planetary boundaries that can create risk profiles for decision-makers and facilitate the necessary evidence base to inform accurate and timely decision making.
Nesta’s recent report on collective intelligence is a useful example of combining people’s knowledge, new forms of data and digital technology in climate adaptation and mitigation efforts.
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Thanks for reading! If you found this interesting, please take note of an ongoing project based on this thinking and get in touch with any examples relevant to food, water and shelter from the global majority towards transformative adaptation focused on long-term prevention and the possibilities that arise in this ‘new way of working’.
