The Daily News
In a Rapidly Changing World, legitimate News is Essential to developing a Vital, Equitable, Resilient and Regenerative Living World for All.
The New Story starts with the Anthropocene
“Welcome to the Anthropocene” is a three minute video that opened the 2012 RIO Earth Summit. The video powerfully describes the destabilizing impacts of human production, consumption, and invention on the Earth’s living systems. It also states that “our creativity, energy, and industry offer hope.” In other words, human creativity and invention helped to bring us into the Anthropocene, and it will also be part of what brings us through it and beyond it.
Anthropocene [ˈan(t)-thrə-pə-ˌsēn ]: Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
A very Ambitious Idea
Knowledge of the Anthropocene and the fact that humans are rapidly degenerating the Earth’s entire Biosphere brings forward an ambitious idea: we need a New Story of how we inhabit our planet. Do Something.org states that nearly 1/2 of the world’s population, more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, less than $1.25 daily. Yet plenty of resources are available for everyone to have a reasonable quality of life. Knowing this brings forward another ambitious idea: We need a New Story of how we treat each other and live together on a full planet. We need a real story of inclusive equity and well-being.
These two influential ideas, a vital Anthropocene led by thoughtful homo sapiens; and inclusive well-being led by an empathic society converge into the ambitious vision defined by Living Design: We must collectively develop a New Story for a vital and living world. One that is wholistically shaped, managed, and balanced by humanity in all realms of life. As scary as that may seem, no other desirable option or path is available at this point in time. Human activity has pushed the Biosphere out of balance. Ecosystems around the globe are at risk of extensive damage, placing the whole of life and society at risk. The fundamental lack of economic and social equity are being used to destabilize society and democracy. Maintaining a vital and living world demands the thoughtful intervention of humans in physical systems, and a substantially more inclusive society. There simply is no other path visible forward.
This process has already started. People around the globe are actively engaged in helping ecosystems like forests, coral reefs, and prairies adapt to climate change. Urban environments are being adapted. We must also adjust our societal structures, organizations, and beliefs. Our current societal framing is no longer effective and has become the source of our problems in many instances. As stated by the IPCC in 2018 and interpreted by the Washington Post “We need a rapid and far-reaching transformation of human society at a magnitude that has simply never happened before … there is no documented historical precedent for the scale of changes required.”
The C3 Living Design Projects’ greater purpose is to be one small step in defining the New Story of Life. A story that catalyzes a transformation to a Living World based in organic ecology, wholistic poiètics, thoughtful innovation and inclusive well-being.