Defining the Decision-making Required for Reversing the Planet’s Eco-crises

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

You now have maps for each of the two decision-making systems — Human Enterprise Decision-making and Political Economic Decision-making — that are creating the metacrisis.

First, you have a map of the decision-making system called Human Enterprise Decision-making for Meeting Human Physical Needs …

Second, you have a map of the decision-making system called Political Economic Decision-making for Deciding Who-Gets-What …

Human Enterprise Decision-making — for meeting human physical needs — is creating the planet’s ecological crises …

Political Economic Decision-making — for deciding who-gets-what — is creating human society’s who-gets-what crises …

Political Economic Decision-making — for deciding who-gets-what — is not creating the planet’s ecological crises …

Human Enterprise Decision-making — for meeting human physical needs — is not creating human society’s who-gets-what crises …

When you understand the decision-making systems that are creating the metacrisis, you can use your maps of these decision-making systems to define the decision-making required for reversing the planet’s eco-crises:

First, because Human Enterprise Decision-making for adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options …

… is creating the extraction flows and pollution flows that are creating the planet’s ecological crises …

… reversing the planet’s ecological crises requires Human Enterprise Decision-making process for adopting Things-We-Extract options and Things-We-Use options that scale back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise …

… and, at the same time, keeping 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 …

The planet’s regenerated biosphere reverses the planet’s ecological crises …

… and allows the planet to heal itself …

Second, when you understand that Political Economic Decision-making is not creating the planet’s ecological crises …

… you can recognize that the planet’s ecological crises are not solvable or reversible through Political Economic Decision-making for deciding who-gets-what …

Reversing the planet’s ecological crises becomes simple when you know that:

• first, you are designing a process for scaling back (or “de-growing”) the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise (while keeping it intact for meeting every human being’s physical needs), and
• second, reversing the planet’s eco-crises does not depend on Political Economic Decision-making because the planet’s eco-crises are not solvable or reversible through Political Economic Decision-making for deciding who-gets-what.

Third, because Human Enterprise Decision-making is creating the extraction flows and pollution flows that are creating the planet’s ecological crises …

… you can design a decision-making process for scaling back the extraction flows and pollution flows of the Human Enterprise and reversing the planet’s ecological crises as a whole and, at the same time, keeping intact the Human Enterprise for meeting every human being’s physical needs …

In the next article (Chapter 5 from We Can Reverse the Planet’s Eco-crises), you will learn how to use your map of the Human Enterprise to specify the design requirements of a decision-making process for reversing the planet’s ecological 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 your consideration.