_ The Zero Emissions Strategy Conference

The Conference Podium,16 September

This piece may irritate and disturb those who would prefer that this conference of ours 'stick to the vital essentials of 'Zero Emissions'. Well, we have news for them. You can't get there from here unless you first find your way through the broader issues of technology and society that people like James Robertson (in Zero Emissions and the New Economics ), Matthias Ruth, (in Mensch and Mesh: Perspectives on Industrial Ecology, and Carol Brouillet (in Poisoning the Planet, Experts, and The World Game: A Feminist Perspective ) have so, perhaps uncomfortably, brought to the attention of the meeting. We present the following piece by Robert Theobald, author (or co-author) of Free Men and Free Markets (1963), The Triple Revolution, 1968, An Alternative Future for America (1970), The Rapids of Change, At the Crossroads, Turning the Century, and Reworking Success (among others), but who above all sees himself as a community activist and agent of change. More on him and his work can be had beginning with his short bio on the Web. The following piece is also being updated, commented and extended on IslandNet, which can be visited directly for later versions in the future. (The author welcomes comments and suggestions.) eb

• Contributed by Robert Theobald, for the Zero Emissions Targeting Conference, The Commons, 18 September 1997.

Vancouver, Dateline: February 8, 2001

Throughout the world, over the last two weeks, an explosion of creative energy has illuminated the prospects of the twenty-first century. There is now a dense, strategic, global network which argues that we must abandon the twentieth century emphasis on consumption and materialism.

The most common formulation of the alternative is ecological integrity, effective collective decision-making and social cohesion based on social justice. These are based on an understanding that we can only flourish as we collaborate with each other and with the natural order. While there is still much disagreement about what needs to be done and how we can work effectively together to break out of the control model which has dominated us in the past, there is a shared consensus among those in the movement that radical shifts in dynamics are needed now.

The political climate has been transformed in a few short years. Today's fault line is between those who continue to see maximum economic growth based on technological efficiency as the answer and those who reject it. This is totally different from the situation in the middle of the nineties when maximum economic growth and international competitiveness dominated discussion and the question was who should benefit from the increased production.

The debate is still frustrating, however. This is because the arguments of the two current groups are incompatible. This is true not only of the realities they see but also the styles they use for decision-making and organization. Those who want to continue past models still see objective realities: those who see a different future work in far more complex patterns. It is this question of style which is the primary force preventing communication.

The Beginnings

How did this challenge to the capitalist order develop so rapidly? The practical starting point was the agreement in July 1997 of three communities in southwestern British Columbia, Canada - Nanaimo, Vancouver and Victoria - to develop a wide range of programs during the last two weeks of January 1998. Given the flexibility of the internet, several other communities joined them in more or less intensive efforts. Many of these were in BC and most of the others were scattered across the North American continent. A few were in other parts of the world. Reworking Success, a short book on the process of transformative change written by Robert Theobald, was used as a base for discussion in determining the challenges which lay ahead. (New Society Publishers.)

Each community used a network and linking process to coordinate their efforts. The overall effort was coordinated by the qln network, devoted to enhancing the quality of life. This was founded in the summer of 1997 and its energy combined effectively with the fundamental change dynamics developing as a result of the BC initiative.

One of the drivers of the whole effort was posed by Willis Harman, a highly creative thinker about fundamental change questions. He reminded us, in a pamphlet developed around the potential of business, how rapidly communism had collapsed and that the process had been largely invisible. Harman wrote: "This leads to an interesting question, namely if the legitimacy of World Capitalism were increasingly challenged, as was that of communism by the latter part of the 1980s, would we notice it? Would we be looking in the right places to see such a portentous development?"

The people who pushed the new thinking and action in this overall effort recognized that capitalism was as unsuited to the twenty-first century as communism. They also saw that human beings, and human systems, would have to reach far higher levels of decision-making competence and compassion. They devoted themselves to processes which would permit required new behaviors to emerge.

There were two primary efforts. One was to revive "citizenship" at the community level. Community was defined in geographical, work, interest-group and professional terms. A huge range of skills were developed which enabled people to take back their decision-making powers. In addition, access to various models which we're working in various contexts was made easier through creative web-sites.

In order to make this effort effective, far better sources of knowledge about key future issues were required. Groups gathered on the internet to work through the core issues and to make their results broadly available through translation in three senses - by levels so that people with different levels of pre-existing knowledge could grasp the key points, into different media and into various languages.

The Middle Years

After the success of the 1998 activities, which were created in less than six months and showed the range and depth of energy available, the perhaps inevitable decision was taken to make this a yearly event leading up to the year 2001 - the true start of the new millennium. It was argued that this decentralized opportunity for a very wide range of people, groups and organization to show off their thought and work might well be a primary way to enable societies to understand what was required if ecosystems were to be stable in the future and the quality of life enhanced.

There were two primary steps which were taken during 1998 and 1999 to develop energy. Both of them brought people together in regional seminars across North America. One was designed for those who wanted a deeper and wider general understanding of the nature of the fundamental change process through which we are moving. The other brought together people in specific sectors such as learner-centered education, promotive health, right livelihood, restorative justice and many other fields: they came together with an agreed agenda which enabled them to learn from each other what activities enabled a shift out of industrial-era systems.

Documents emerged from these metings which were then tested and retested in groups of citizens. Basic principles emerged which seemed to stand up across current cleaveage lines. Indeed, as citizens were consulted rather than professionals, much extremism was left behind. It turned out that the basic beliefs of people were rather similar once the power games were eliminated. Another critical shift was that local communities refused to serve as opportunities for national interest groups to disrupt their lives: they decided that it was more important to preserve civil dialogue than to win a particualr point.

The 1999 January pattern was therefore far broader. Communities in the vast majority of the US. States and Canadian Provinces took part. National organizations collaborated to put out material and encouraged their members to meet jointly locally, professionally and in their work places. New alliances were formed within communities. There was also a significant beginning to activities outside the North American continent.

By the year 2000, the year when the millennium was mostly celebrated, coverage was worldwide if still spotty. The fact that the approach had always been decentralized rather than bureaucratic, permitted large-scale development to continue without the system breaking down because of overload. Movement toward larger and larger scales did inevitably produce strains but they were managed in a spirit of collaboration.

It was obvious after the 2000 efforts that it was possible to develop a visible, global statement of the need for fundamental change. More and more people, groups and organizations collaborated in the past year. It is this level of commitment which has led to the current moment when the clash between visions of the future is so obvious.

Much of the tension from these two visions comes from their most basic beliefs. The industrial-era patterns of thought assume that it is possible to fully understand reality and to make intelligent choices between options which are then formalized in policy and law. Those who believe that new patterns are essential argue that we live in the rapids of change and that societies need to be responsive to challenges as they emerge rather than being primarily controlled by formal rules and regulations: they act at the relationship levels

Lying under this disagreement is an even deeper clash. The industrial era assumes that the primary challenge is to control the worst impulses of human beings. The new thinking is based on the fact that most human beings, most of the time, want to develop themselves and others. While police power is still needed to control the few who would act destructively, the primary need is to permit people to be creative within ecological limits.

(This is the end of the scenario. Before closing I want to deal with two issues which I see as critical in the determining the emphasis of this future view.)

The second question is how much synergy is possible between the ever-growing number of people and groups which share similar perspectives? I am particularly conscious of this issue because I started my work when there were relatively few players and there a now a large number. It seems to me that there is an urgent need for closer coordination than currently exists. I do not currently see how to bring this about but I am committed to working with others toward this end if the possibilities emerge.

On the other side of the second issue, is the fact that I have some skills and credibility which seem to help some people gain clarity about what the current tasks and possibilities are. I remain convinced that it is appropriate for me to enable and encourage people to be more effective. I am, however, more and more convinced that my task is to provide space for thought and action rather than to determine outcomes.

I think that we need a lot of "strange attractors" who enable people to be more effective. I think that these strange attractors also need to link up as we can. (This is language from chaos and complexity theory. Another way of stating the same thing is that we need to start crystals growing and that each of them will be one part of the new whole that we need. Still another is that we need to build various craft which will convey people down the rapids of change. Still another is to think of nurturing the new shoots in a garden. Yet another is to think of the birth of a new culture.)

__ Commentary & Discussion of This Paper (Once you have registered)

__ Go to Other Podium Presentations

Back to top