The Titanic was a classic example of humanity’s arrogance that affluence and technology can outwit natural forces. So far we have collectively failed to learn the lessons from the irony of the ‘unsinkable’ ship that sank on her maiden voyage.
Agreement is growing that we are past the point of no return with regards to the man-made climate and ecosystems breakdown. Many are now looking to build a concerted attempt to soften the landing. The most high-level international initiative is ‘Our Common Agenda’ which is led by the United Nations. The ‘Common Agenda’ recognises that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not measure well-being. GDP is an excellent measure of the eco-destruction that we wreak on our surroundings.
The I=PAT insights from environmental science warn us that growing GDP is detrimental to the well-being of our environment. They warn us that growing our population size, affluence and technology will degrade our environment. The Jevons Paradox warns us that increasing the efficiency with which we use energy only results in increases in demand. The data about Earth’s biocapacity and humanity’s ecological footprint combine to inform us that we have been exceeding the carrying-capacity of Earth for about 100 years. Recent research estimates a sustainable human population on Earth would be about 2.5 billion; this webpage offers a simple guide to understanding why this estimate is reliable.
All these insights have not yet prevented us from continually increasing the pressure on our degraded ecosystems. These insights are not stressed in formal or informal education. All our strategies for resolving the climate crisis are dependent on expanding: people, affluence, and technology, despite the fact that all these tools play a big role in exacerbating our problems. We are caught in a deadly loop trying to use our problematic tools as the solution.
Peacefully aspiring to return within the carrying-capacity of Earth, now estimated at 2.5 billion, will require some profound socio-economic cultural changes. These are some that I have identified.
- Replacing oppression with place-based stewardship (Fair Start Movement)
- Replacing growth economics with knowing when enough is enough (DEAL)
- Replacing military supremacy with mutual security (Consilium Dignitatis)
- Replacing nationalism with bio-regional identity (One Planet Living Framework)
- Replacing patriarchy with relational leadership (Alaka Oluwatobi)
- Replacing pronatalism with eco-aware family planning (The Pro-life Paradox)
- Replacing democracy with an Ubuntu style of governance (Alaka Oluwatobi)
There is an urgent need to shrink the global economy and population. We need to collaborate globally. Peaceful global collaboration would allow us to cease investing in military power. For the USA, this would release $1.5 trillion in 2027. This would also demilitarise the most dangerous player in our modern world, and set a wiser direction for the whole world.
Maximum mitigation from our man-made existential crisis requires a managed retreat from our bloated indulgence in all the eco-costly treats that are offered by over-exploiting Nature and burning fossil fuels for non-essential purposes. This managed retreat is both urgent and tricky and is not something where we have any past-experience. It is therefore recommended that whilst we attempt to rapidly reorganise our priorities we should ask our young adults to consider delaying their plans to raise a family.
The ‘lifeboat’ from our Titanic can be summarised as a collective endeavour to peacefully, voluntarily and equitably downsize the global economy and population size until we are consuming no more than half the available biocapacity on Earth. Note that vasectomies are usually reversible. Making vasectomies freely available globally would be a helpful cultural signal that we are willing to allow our young adults to choose to prevent their offspring from coming on board our Titanic right now. This could be implemented together with the framework for universal basic provision that is suggested by Consilium Dignitatis. These two strategies will free up a great deal of time, energy, and ingenuity as we focus on the strategic global downsizing exercise to return within the carrying capacity of Earth.
The aspiration to return within the carrying-capacity of Earth is expressed formally as the Global Aspiration for Eco-equity. This concept is designed to redress the flaw in our Human Rights and our prevailing economic model which both ignore the need to operate within the biocapacity of Earth. The Global Aspiration is designed to inspire the longing for economic downsizing into the human mindset. It will enable the fragmented Degrowth movement to mature into a higher level of ambition and vision.
The profound socio-economic cultural changes mentioned earlier are already emerging. Anyone highlighting the injustice of the conflicts in Israel, Iran, Sudan, Haiti etc is playing an important role. Anyone involved in Degrowth, Beyond Growth, Post Growth, Well-being Economy is playing a part in this transition. Anyone involved in sustainability, regeneration, the Sustainable Development Goals, soon to be renamed the Sustainable Degrowth Goals, are all playing a part in the transition.
Philosophers like Alaka Oluwatobi are revealing the flaws in the governance of sovereign states who are now subservient to major media platforms that are owned by the billionaires. The Fair Start Movement are are currently in the final stages of drawing up a legal case showing that our global society is fundamentally unfair and illegitimate because people are not equally empowered from birth, especially across race and wealth. They are calling this phenomenon “Illegal baselining” / “equity fraud”. They will soon be submitting this case to the appropriate bodies in the USA and the UK. Thank you to Carter Dillard for keeping me in the the loop on this initiative.
Thank you to Dr Victoria Hurth for your book Beyond Profit. I have reached out to all those that have endorsed the ideas in your book. They are all involved in the paradigm shift that is now emerging very rapidly. The book review below appeared in the Financial Times. Please note that the term ‘more sustainable future’ used by the reviewer is not meaningful in a world in chronic ecological overshoot. We remain unsustainable until we successfully repay our ecological debts and return within the carrying capacity of Earth.
‘Beyond Profit: Purpose-Driven Leadership for a Wellbeing Economy’, by Victoria Hurth, Ben Renshaw and Lorenzo Fioramonti
Corporate purpose has become the incense of modern capitalism: sweet-smelling but insubstantial. Beyond Profit seeks to reclaim its meaning. Combining perspectives from leadership to economics, the authors contend that the health of a new economic system depends on reimagining profit not as an end point, but as a mechanism for long-term wellbeing.
The book structures its argument around three “logics”. The first logic is business-as-usual thinking, based on short-term financial self-interest. The second extends that self-interest into the long term. The authors champion logic three: governance explicitly designed to serve collective wellbeing. Drawing on case studies ranging from Italy’s Benefit Corporation movement to Michelle Obama’s food reform initiative, they show how purpose-driven organisations can realign markets around human and ecological health rather than financial extraction.
Beyond Profit is a dense but rewarding read. It combines moral urgency with academic precision, exposing how profit-first assumptions have shaped institutions and identity. Yet this is not a work of despair. The authors offer a pragmatic road map for change, with examples including government “wellbeing budgets” in Scotland and Iceland.
Hurth, Renshaw and Fioramonti argue that reforming capitalism begins with redefining success. This is an invitation to rethink what we value, and to govern accordingly — a diagnosis of our economic malaise and a manifesto for a more sustainable future. Leo Cremonezi
Thank you to Bart Flos
Bart Flos‘ recent post about exponential change inspired me to revisit and update a popular Medium article that I published back in June 2023 with the same title ‘Arrogance in the Anthropocene‘. James Niblick exhibits the widespread lack of understanding of the escalating polycrisis that we face today. Al Bartlett spent spent his life trying to explain the dire consequences of perpetual economic and population growth. May he rest in peace. Bart Flos‘ tireless efforts to encourage us to face reality are greatly appreciated. Thank you!