Overcoming systemic roadblocks to sustainability: The evolutionary redesign of worldviews, institutions, and technologies

doi:10.1073/pnas.0812570106

Overcoming systemic roadblocks to sustainability: The evolutionary redesign of worldviews, institutions, and technologies

^aRubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, George D. Aiken Center,
^bGund Institute for Ecological Economics, and
^cCommunity Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405;
^dIndependent Environmental Researcher, Oxford OX4 3SE, United Kingdom; and
^e21st Century School, Oxford University, Oxford OX3 8FS, United Kingdom

Contributed by Norman Myers, December 16, 2008 (received for review October 9, 2008)

Abstract

A high and sustainable quality of life is a central goal for humanity. Our current socio-ecological regime and its set of interconnected worldviews, institutions, and technologies all support the goal of unlimited growth of material production and consumption as a proxy for quality of life. However, abundant evidence shows that, beyond a certain threshold, further material growth no longer significantly contributes to improvement in quality of life. Not only does further material growth not meet humanity's central goal, there is mounting evidence that it creates significant roadblocks to sustainability through increasing resource constraints (i.e., peak oil, water limitations) and sink constraints (i.e., climate disruption). Overcoming these roadblocks and creating a sustainable and desirable future will require an integrated, systems level redesign of our socio-ecological regime focused explicitly and directly on the goal of sustainable quality of life rather than the proxy of unlimited material growth. This transition, like all cultural transitions, will occur through an evolutionary process, but one that we, to a certain extent, can control and direct. We suggest an integrated set of worldviews, institutions, and technologies to stimulate and seed this evolutionary redesign of the current socio-ecological regime to achieve global sustainability.

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Footnotes

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: myers1n{at}aol.com
Author contributions: R.B., R.C., J.F., E.G., J.K., I.K., L.M., T.M., K.M., N.M., Z.O., K.S., and J.W. analyzed data; and R.B., R.C., J.F., E.G., J.K., I.K., L.M., T.M., K.M., N.M., Z.O., K.S., and J.W. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵* Although the ability to resist regime shifts is a form of resilience, this form of resilience can actually get in the way of the more substantial adaptations necessary for longer-term sustainability.
↵† A good or service is rival if one person's benefiting from it prevents others from also benefiting. A good or service is excludable if it is possible to exclude people from benefiting. Marketed goods and services are, in general, rival and excludable, whereas nonmarketed public goods and services are nonrival and nonexcludable.