Design everything on the assumption that people are not heartless or stupid but marvelously capable, given the chance. — John Chris Jones
When we understand that the exponentially growing extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise are creating the planet’s ecological crises, our map of the Human Enterprise tells us the design requirements of a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s eco-crises.
First, when we understand that the exponentially growing extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) …
… are creating the planet’s eco-crises …
… our map of the Human Enterprise tells us that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process through which decision-makers …
… adopt Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) …
Second, when we understand that the Human Enterprise is decision-makers everywhere adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise) …
… our map of the Human Enterprise tells us that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process …
… through which decision-makers everywhere want to adopt such Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options (in turquoise) …
Third, because the exponentially growing extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (in orange) …
… are creating the planet’s eco-crises …
… our map of the Human Enterprise tells us that reversing the planet’s eco-crises requires a process …
… through which such decision-makers everywhere want to adopt such Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options (in turquoise) at the exponential rate needed for scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows (in orange) and reversing the planet’s ecological crises …
These three design requirements — of a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s eco-crises — generate the following three questions:
First, what are Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that scale back extraction flows and pollution flows?
Second, what are such Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that decision-makers everywhere want to adopt?
Third, what might a decision-making process look like for adopting such Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s ecological crises?
Going forward, the expression “regenerative option” can 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 is a “regenerative option” because scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows allows the planet’s biosphere to regenerate itself.
Using the expression “regenerative option,” the three questions become:
First, what are regenerative options?
Second, what are regenerative options that decision-makers everywhere want to adopt?
Third, what might a decision-making process look like for adopting regenerative options at the exponential rate needed for reversing the planet’s eco-crises?
In the next three articles, we will look at answers to each of these three questions and design a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s eco-crises.
I’m currently publishing We Can Reverse the Planet’s Eco-crises in series format: one chapter at a time starting with Chapter 1 and continuing through Chapter 10 plus a chapter-length Appendix.
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Aloha and thank you for reading.
