Hello--
my name is Mr. Jan Hearthstone, my interests are designing the Earth future
co-operatively, and ecological and social sustainability.
I work independently.
Thank you, Hearthstone - www.ModelEarth.Org .
The Article:
The Seed Vision:
Universal Model of Sustainable Earth.
(rough draft--updated, at times, online: www.ModelEarth.Org/seed.html )
We have to know what kind of a world we want to live in. The challenge is to
come up with an idea of a world that would appeal to us all; an ideal that
all of us on Earth could strive for, and focus on achieving a harmonious,
truly sustainable co-existence of us all on Earth. The valid competition
would be to improve on the ideal , and to find better ways of achieving this
ideal, instead of competing for advantage over others to the detriment of
the whole planet.
I think that as long as we can all agree that we all want to live
sustainably, there might just be such a model that would accommodate all of
us on one planet:
Imagine an Earth where humans exist in zero population growth communities
situated amidst wild, by humans unregulated nature where all the other
species that we share this planet with live untroubled by humans.
These communities could exist at what-so-ever level of complexity of
sustainability (from "hunter-gatherer" way of life to anything more
complex), as long as they would be transparently and demonstrably
sustainable, so that they would not adversely affect the existence of other
human communities and other life on Earth.
A great number of variations on this "seed vision" suggests itself--the
result would still be a humanity that would harmoniously exist with itself
and all other life on Earth, providing that humanity would adhere strictly
to the "zero population growth" policy, and to living demonstrably and
transparently sustainably.
A way of providing a satisfactory definition of "sustainable"/"sustainably"
would be to demonstrate transparently in models (of any appropriate kind)
any situations that would purport anything to be "sustainable".
There is a need for a model of what the Earth should ideally look like that
would be freely accessible by everyone on Earth, so that everyone can, at
any point, see what progress is being made towards the ideal at any time, so
that there is a reference available for any undertakings that might concern
the welfare of anyone on the planet.
I have suspicion that this "universal" model is not an unknown idea, however
I cannot remember where I saw it--it could well have been a sci-fi book;
I would appreciate pointing out to me where else this idea might exist!
N.B. -
The "vision" in the title harks back to Donella Meadows'
"visioning"/"envisioning", which owes its being to Robert Fritz's
"Technologies For Creating" (TFC). What "visioning"/"envisioning" is for
Donella Meadows, Robert Fritz calls a "choice". Fritz' The Path of Least
Resistance (Fritz 1984) is a necessary reading for anyone who wants to
understand what "visioning"/"envisioning" is.
Donella Meadows' "Envisioning a Sustainable World" in which she explains
what "visioning"/"envisioning" is is online:
www.sustainer.org/pubs/Envisioning.DMeadows.pdf
and so is what I wrote on her "visioning"/"envisioning" concept:
"Visioning": Global Citizens Designing a Sustainable World Together -
www.modelearth.org/donella-vision.html.
In Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update the authors write about the
"sustainable revolution", the next biggest social change coming. (Meadows,
et al. 2004, chapter 8, p273)
But they caution: "A sustainable world can never be fully realized until it
is widely envisioned.The vision must be built up by many people before it is
complete and compelling."
The Universal Sustainable Earth Model (The Seed Vision) is a "complete",
all-encompassing vision of a sustainable Earth; It is complete, because any
sustainable life-style can be accommodated within the model, as long as that
"life-style" indeed is provably sustainable.
What is needed now is to make this all-encompassing vision of a sustainable
Earth "compelling".
Bibliography:
Fritz, Robert
1984 The Path of Least Resistance. Salem, MA: DMA Inc., ISBN:
0-930641-00-0
Meadows, Donella H., Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows
2004 Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
A synopsis of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Online at the
Sustainability Institute (founded by Donella Meadows):
<http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/limitstogrowth.pdf> (accessed 10/06/2009)
FINIS
