Environmental Engineering Reference
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and a power shift down the social hierarchy from states and large organizations to
various subgroups and individuals, enhanced by the analytic power of new information
technologies and possibilities of terrorist action. The danger is increased by the
possibilities of convergence and simultaneity, with all the shifts happening in one
place at the same time. Additionally, in the future we may not have sufficient high-
quality energy to run our complex systems as the energy return on investment is
declining (more energy is needed to produce energy). One of the deep drivers of our
contemporary crisis is the desire to increase economic growth, resulting in increased
material throughput, and based on the assumption that more means a better quality
of life. These drivers counteract attempts to improve efficiency and lessen our impact
on the environment and, although it is not possible to predict the future, for Homer-
Dixon, systems breakdown and increasing systems volatility seem ever more likely.
However, this grim scenario does have a brighter side, as a number of opportunities
lie between the twin poles of living harmoniously and sustainably and complete
catastrophic breakdown. Complex systems are able to adapt, and adaptation to
moments of breakdown offers possibilities for creativity and for leadership to push
society down one path rather than another. Adaptation will depend on the extent
to which we are able to increase our social, economic, political and technological
resilience, accomplished in large part by the development of a 'prospective mind'
that recognizes that sharp and hurtful discontinuities are an inevitable part of our
future. We must embrace the unexpected and expect surprises. For Homer-Dixon
(2006: 283), scientific knowledge remains the best tool people have to distinguish
between 'plausible and implausible futures'. This may mean new localized and
sustainable forms of energy production, more time to deal with shocks, abandoning
the system of 'just in time' production, and embarking on a proactive process
of advanced planning and thought which focuses on how future crises could be
dealt with in a 'non-extreme', dialogic, networked and collective manner. Open-
source approaches that have been used to develop computer software need to be
applied ferociously to hard social, political and environmental problems. The seeds
of rebirth will therefore be found in the reality of present problems, with the
possibilities of future breakdown breaking down denial and inertia to produce
something new, useful and hopefully sustainable. As Homer-Dixon writes, we
therefore need to be:
open to radically new ways of thinking about our world and about the way we
should lead our lives. We need to exercise our imaginations so that we can
challenge the unchallengeable and conceive the inconceivable. Hunkering down,
denying what's happening around us and refusing to countenance anything more
than incremental adjustments to our course are just about the worst things we
can do. These behaviours increase our rigidity and dangerously extend the growth
phases of our adaptive cycle. When a social earthquake eventually occurs, we'll
have no new concepts, ideas, or plans to help us cope and no alternative ways
of seeing our future.
(2006: 282)
Is this not a task for us all? Is this not a task for us all to be leaders in, whatever
the spheres in which we lead our lives?
