The butterfly And the Boiling Point. Seven Lessons for Leaders in Systems Change. Ecoliteracy.org Seven Lessons for Leaders in Systems Change A report from the field.
The first guiding principle of the Center for Ecoliteracy's framework for schooling for sustainability — Smart by Nature™ — is "nature is our teacher. " Taking nature as our teacher requires thinking in terms of systems, one of nature's basic patterns. Systems can be incredibly complex, but the concept is quite straightforward. Force Multipliers. Most approaches to "solving" our climate and resource crises focus on technology: replacing fossil fuels with a different technology (solar, wind, ethanol, nuclear), or increasing the efficiency of our current technology.
We focus on increasing the efficiency of things which would then be used in the same way - adding insulation to single-family homes, or doubling the efficiency of single-user cars that sit idle in the garage and parking lot for the vast majority of their lives, or harnessing renewable sources of energy that would then continue to be used unnecessarily and wastefully. While these solutions may marginally slow the velocity of an economic and energy descent, they can't seriously apply the brakes to the very unpleasant net energy freefall that may be in store for our society. Among the various solutions proposed to our predicament, the most promising innovation may be social innovation. These simple ideas are not new or original. You and Your Slaves.
Yes, you're the slave master of many energy-driven gadgets that replace human labour.
But our slave society won't last. Slave driver: Energy use of a single person, at top, as represented by all the people it would take to generate it with sheer muscle power. "A low-energy policy allows for a wide choice of lifestyles and cultures. If, on the other hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether labeled capitalist or socialist. " -- Ivan Illich In 2009 a British family living in a four-bedroom house became the subject of a subversive energy experiment about modern slavery.