The five key dynamics we have to face, as individuals and society

The chance of our lifetime (1/3)

We live in troubled times and will remain there for the next few decades. To address this situation—and even turn it into an opportunity for individual and societal thriving—we need to understand three things:

1. What is it that we are facing?

2. What extraordinary opportunities lie within our situation?

3. What actions must we take to seize those opportunities and solve the challenges?

This is the first text in a series covering these three aspects and offering a path towards resilience, thriving, and the creation of a humanity at one with nature.

Troubled times lie ahead. Many of our self-inflicted problems have now surfaced, and this will increase further. But what does that mean in concrete terms? What lies behind words like “polycrises” or “climate crisis”? While some upheavals are already visible, our vocabulary and our shared understanding of crises often leave us without a clear picture of what’s to come.

We need to be courageous and bold in our actions. This starts with having a clear understanding of our current situation. Essentially, there are five dynamics we have to face.

I Climatic and ecological dynamics are uncontrollable

A climate that remained relatively stable for over 10,000 years has given us the illusion that we can understand and control the environment and nature. We believed we could alter nature without facing any consequences. But now we realize that’s not so.

Sciences talks a lot about tipping points we might reach or have crossed already. Ecological systems have such tipping points, where the status quo collapses and the system becomes something different. However…

• we do not know where the tipping points are and when we are crossing them;

• what happens after crossing a tipping point is unknown and unpredictable;

• the whole Earth is one interconnected and interrelated structure, and crossing one tipping point will enforce or create dynamics we cannot know, control, or predict.

Due to climate change and ecological destruction, we must face dynamics that will alter and transform our societies. We can predict that this will happen and has already happened. But we cannot predict how it will unfold.

And that’s only one part of this dynamic. The social structures we’ve created over the last few centuries—including built forms like cities, networks like the economy, and societal constructs like the public domain—are not adaptive. They depend on an almost stable and predictable environment. The challenge lies not so much in the climatic and ecological shifts we face; this is simply part of life and nature, which constantly mutates, changes, and moves forward. Instead, it lies in our self-created inability to adapt to changing circumstances.

II Technology amplifies

We are heavily relying on technology to help us navigate and resolve our self-made situation, as technology has been the force that has shaped our lives over the past centuries. However, technology won’t help. Instead, it will amplify the unpredictability of our circumstances due to three factors:

• technology drives ecological destruction, demanding energy and highly sought-after resources like rare earth metals;

• it supports and strengthens the destructive paradigms upon which our society and economy are built—paradigms that underlie our challenges;

• technology makes us more dependent. It is incredible what we can accomplish through our technological advances. However, that also means that for much of our lives, we rely on technology, its demand for energy and resources, and its ecological consequences.

An example that illustrates this point is the way our food supply relies heavily on industrialized agriculture. In the past, we grew food and plants in various climatic conditions thanks to a vast array of domesticated plants and the ability to cultivate them. This turned into a limited number of crops we grow almost everywhere, using technology, fertilizers, and fossil fuels, resulting in depleted soil and diminished biodiversity. Food production is specialized and concentrated, with only a few companies dominating the entire global market. This type of agriculture undermines local knowledge, communities, and markets, and results in food production and distribution that makes little sense.

Another example is AI. Its promises tend to be more mythical than real, and the reality it creates is disastrous. AI increases the demand for energy and sought-after resources in a technology sector that is already very resource-intensive. Instead of empowering everyone, it reinforces existing power and economic structures, often built on repression and the exploitation of both humans and nature. It aids already dominant companies in solidifying their positions. The technology is biased, perpetuating existing unjust and marginalizing social structures.

III Politics creates crises

The second Trump administration in the U.S. reflects a dynamic that has gradually emerged around the world over the last few decades. The destructive power paradigm embedded in nearly every political system designed by humankind has created a political domain that generates crises.

• Crises, differences, tensions, and polarities within and among societies are deliberately constructed to serve as powerful vehicles for gaining and maintaining political power.

• This power is utilized to shape society and individuals, constraining them into a specific worldview rather than creating societies where everyone has agency and can thrive in their potential.

• It is also used to uphold and reinforce the existing elite, obscuring the consequences this elite has on the majority. Populism and authoritarianism simulate the notion that the governed and marginalized hold power, while simultaneously undermining participation and the rights of minorities.

• The public discourse surrounding relevant topics, decisions, and opinions is either suppressed or distorted, amplified by social media and the rise of AI.

The consequences are twofold: the public attention is drawn away from central challenges (the consequences of ecological destruction, climatic changes, social injustice) to irrelevant topics (like migration), while people are rendered small and held in social stress to rob them of their agency to change their situation profoundly.

IV We destroy our social fabric

Polarization of the public, increasingly pervasive social media usage, and the destructive effects of these phenomena on our families and neighborhoods are among the ways we undermine our social fabric. This issue starts much earlier, as we intentionally damage the biological foundation necessary for building strong relationships and communities. Primary relationships with parents are fundamental to a child’s later ability to form and maintain social bonds and responsibilities. If the first bond doesn’t exist, the latter cannot flourish. Conception, pregnancy, and birth—once a naturally guided sequence—are now technologically mediated, transforming a natural wonder into a high risk. The mother-child bond is consistently disrupted, robbing mothers of their inherent power and leaving children insecure and unanchored. This is further reinforced by societal norms that take children out of families at a very young age and place them into a system of daycares, kindergartens, and schools, based on social selection. Our educational systems deliberately undermine self-worth and the capacity for children to self-direct their lives. They are taught to conform to societal expectations instead of discovering and unleashing their inherent power and potential. The demands of our professional lives exacerbate this issue and hinder contributions to building and maintaining communities and neighborhoods. At the same time, economic forces destroy community and communal building, starting with urban architecture and extending to the monopolization and industrialization of nearly every aspect of our lives.

Individually, people may have a strong network, often globally. However, local communities are no longer places of togetherness, support, learning, and thriving, but instead places of engagement, controversy, and discourse. Many of us feel lonely and isolated.

V We get sick and addicted

Our societies are toxic^.¹ We make ourselves sick through environmental pollution, social pressure, loneliness, and isolation, to name just a few ways. And this will only get worse. All four dynamics described above are sources of sickness that reinforce each other. We become ill on all levels of our lives: bodily (increases in allergies, cancer), mentally (burnout, depression), socially (polarization, violence, destruction), and spiritually (loss of self-esteem and meaning). And we become addicted—not only to drugs but also to work, violence, political power, sex, money, and consumption, as addiction can take many forms.

Our challenge in relation to these five dynamics can be summarized in three sentences: we must confront uncontrollable climatic, ecological, and societal dynamics and upheavals. Our primary methods of addressing them through technology and politics will amplify these dynamics or re-introduce their destructive effects. Simultaneously, our personal and societal capacity to adapt or cope with them decreases dramatically.

We need to be courageous, not only in facing what’s ahead but in being open and receptive to understanding that our current situation holds a tremendous gift: the path to a humanity at one with nature. This is another perspective we will discuss in the next part of this series.

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Read the whole series “The Chance of Our Lifetime”. The opening two parts described the crises we are navigating and illustrated the change we could create. The third section explain how to achieve that change.

1. Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture