sustainable futures in a time of social transition marcus bussey [email protected]

U3A Lecture, October 23, 2012

Sustainable Futures in a Time of Social TransitionMarcus Bussey

[email protected]

Sustainable Futures U3A: [email protected]

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History-Futures? What is the study of the future? The SEQCARI project and Historical Scenarios


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I teach history but research the future

We study the future because assumptions about it inform our decisions and actions today


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Anticipation covers both our preferences and our fears. The word evokes a sense of promise, and this is important to any futures practice, as to see the future as only a place of dark foreboding diminishes our ability to respond proactively and with the necessary mixture of courage and imagination. Yet…

Anticipation and Possibility


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…we also need to have the real fear of collapse and decline to goad us into both personal and collective action. Thus anticipatory futures offers us both the carrot and the stick….


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Both are woven into the fabric of the possible and both invite us to consider how best to engage with the question of sustainable futures as a praxis grounded in local realities yet striving for a beyond that will remain forever unattainable; offering a universalisable possibility of sustainability that is always just out of reach, yet always calling us forth to action.


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The world is complex Reality is fluid Consciousness is layered

Sense Making


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The future can be studied by its effects

• Business as usual• Preferred• Used• Disowned• Transformed• Outlier


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Futures and Foresight Futures – the application of futures thinking to the

world around us Foresight – the strategic application of futures thinking

to the world around us


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Normative action Futures thinking is an exercise in practical imagination Philosophically it is a form of pragmatism (a

philosophical tradition) Pragmatism accepts both the limitations of structure

and the possibilities of human action and works between these two to improve the human condition

Futures thinking is normative, i.e., it is committed to an outcome

Futures thinking is partisan


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Foresight has Tangible Outcomes Scenarios Survey results Sectoral analyses Critical technology lists Technology priority lists Technology roadmaps Panel documents - Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) Policy recommendations Guiding vision description


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Foresight has Intangible outcomes Resilience Vision Creativity Connectivity and Networked Innovation Hybridity Confidence


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Learning Culture Bringing these strands together sets the basis for a

learning culture:

◦ Participatory◦ Anticipatory◦ Action Learning


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Uses of the Future Training Strategy Creating capacity Emergence New memes


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Six Pillars – Futures Processes Mapping – Futures tri angle and 4QM Anticipating – emerging issues (next slide) Timing – macrohistory and models of change Deepening – CLA Creating Alternatives – scenarios Transforming – Vision and Transcend


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Creating Alternatives

Structural analysis of context – seeks to redefine roles and processes internal to context

Scenarios – “Scenarios are the tool par excellence of futures studies. They open up the present, contour the range of uncertainty, offer alternatives, and even better, predict” (Inayatullah, 2008, p. 15).


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Pseudo-Futures We need to develop and explore personal, local and

civilisational futures that are authentic, sustainable and libratory

This is done by identifying the authentic from a range of scrambled and misleading signals

Authentic futures are those that lead all in context to a maximum fulfilment of potential

From sustainability perspective this includes the natural world

Maximum fulfilment is win-win – it is an aspirational future trajectory


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Leaders are those with practical imagination

In this they combine vision (idealism) with context

Within a dynamic relational net they act as an authority hub from which and into which social process and learning flow

They carry both real and symbolic capital – ie they have bodies but also are bodiless!

Sustainability Leaders


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Futures thinking draws on foresight, anticipation and emergence, is located in the present, leverages the best of tradition while working from the present to foster optimal futures for all (in context)


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The old real estate adage: Context Context Context!


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“…our patterns of thought, behavior, production, and consumption are adapted to our current circumstances – that is, to the current climate (and global biogeochemistry), to the twentieth century’s abundance of cheap energy and cheap fresh water, to rapid population growth, and to yet more rapid economic growth.”

(McNeill, 2000: xxii)

Adaptation and homo sapiens


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“These patterns are not easily adaptable should our circumstances change”

(McNeill, 2000: xxii).


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“…we as a species are choosing a particular evolutionary gambit. In the very long view of biological evolution, the best survival strategy is to be adaptable, to pursue diverse sources of subsistence – and to maximize resilience”

(McNeill, 2000: xxii)


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“This is because in the long run there will be surprises, shocks, and catastrophes that kill off some species, no matter how well adapted they may be to one specific set of circumstances”

(McNeill, 2000: xxii).

He concludes


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David Orr: “We are prone to overdo what worked in the past, with the result that many of our current problems stem from past success carried to an extreme.” (2002, P. 25)

Also: “Stupidity is probablyas great a factor in human affairs as intelligence.” (ibid)


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From a systems perspective risk increases exponentially when foresight is limited to a business as usual mindset that seeks to shut out, or suppress, the disturbances in a system.

In this the understandable desire to keep the system closed, and therefore manageable, competes with the reality that systems are embedded in systems and that the appearance of ‘closed’ is illusory.

To survive and thrive in a complex and dynamic system requires different skill sets than the managerial competencies that strive for order in a complex world.

Managing for the future


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Take Five!


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Scenarios are a key tool for fostering social learning. They do this by suggesting alternatives, challenging dominant constructions of the present and allowing people to develop visions of the future that are aligned to their own aspirations as individuals and communities. Furthermore, they challenge linear constructions of social process and affirm human agency – our ability to act on the present – by highlighting our centrality as social actors (see Inayatullah, Molitor, et al, 2009).

(Bussey et al, 2010: 6)

Scenarios


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The collection of historical case studies served to: stimulate thinking about the future; describe specific historical contexts in which social learning

either succeeded or failed to respond to an environmental or social stress;

identify and profile key determinants in the success or failure described in the previous point; and

suggest historical-futures templates (scenarios) for thinking about climate change adaptive capacity and how we might most effectively respond over time

(Bussey et al, 2012: 386).

Why history?


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“Adaptive capacity is historically specific. It is a measure of the human ability to respond to threats and stimuli in the social and natural environment. As such, it is framed by a set of contextual tangible (e.g. assets, finances) and intangible (e.g. values, knowledge) variables”

(Bussey et al, 2012: 387).

Adaptive Capacity


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Complexity and Leadership Institutions and Values Technology and Imagination Information and Knowledge Scale

Determinants of Adaptive Capacity


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Like all systems, the human system is always responding to feedback from its environment. Yet the environment is not homogenous. Systems inhabit systems and function across scales of action from the intensely local to the macrocosmic.

Yet it is easy to reify this human system and forget that people inhabit it at all levels and that all responses are therefore human responses. This research sought to explore this human ‘system’ through historical case studies.

Being aware that the system was not homogenous, we (1) chose case studies that were relevant to the sectoral interests the overall study is designed to inform, and (2) proposed a four-quadrant representation of the social system that adequately accounts for the heterogeneity of the system

(Bussey et al, 2012: 387).

Mapping Systems


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We were looking for a way to distill human experience without loosing its meaning

We chose the four quadrant model (4QM) of Ken Wilber (Wilber, 2001)

The detailed rationale is offered at (Bussey et al, 2012: 387-388).

Micro

Internal Determinants

BeliefsHabitsHopes/FearsDesireSymbolsCustomsValues (e.g. authoritarian/egalitarian)

Leadership (i.e. adaptive or brittle)

Memory/HistoryCompetition/CooperationKnowledge and ReasonSocial Risk TakingIdentity Meso

Macro

External Determinants

WeatherResourcesDemographyGrowth/DeclineEcosystemsWildcardsTechnologyLawsInstitutionsResource Networks (commerce)

PoliticsPolicySocial Addiction

Level One – Folding Field of Adaptive Capacity Mapping Determinants


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MacroMesoMicro

Personal – Subjective

(e.g. spirituality)

Personal – Collective

(e.g. religion)

Impersonal – Objective

(e.g. events/chaos)

Impersonal – Collective

(e.g. secular humanism)

Level Two – Folding Field of Adaptive Capacity Mapping Determinants


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MacroMesoMicro

BeliefsHabits

Hopes/FearsDesire

Symbols

CustomsValues

LeadershipMemory/History

Competition/CooperationKnowledge and Reason

Social Risk TakingIdentity

WeatherResources

DemographyGrowth/Decline

EcosystemsWildcards (hurricane)

TechnologyLaws

InstitutionsResource Networks

PoliticsPolicy

Wildcards (invasion)Social Addiction

Level Three – Folding Field of Adaptive Capacity Mapping Determinants


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MacroMesoMicro

BeliefsHabits

Hopes/FearsDesire

Symbols

CustomsValues

LeadershipMemory/History

Competition/CooperationKnowledge and Reason

Social Risk TakingIdentity

WeatherResources

DemographyGrowth/Decline

EcosystemsWildcards (hurricane)

TechnologyLaws

InstitutionsResource Networks

PoliticsPolicy

Wildcards (invasion)Social Addiction

Level Four – Folding Field of Adaptive Capacity Mapping Determinants


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Historical Scenarios We used the case studies to stimulate thinking about

the future by switching them from historical narrative to futures spaces

Moving from past to future allows us to chart human learning processes while acknowledging the contextual nature of learning

The focus ultimately is on determinants (not the ‘story’)

Mapping Future Possibilities via…


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‘‘Like the shape around the flight of gnats, a scenario attempts to describe the shape around possible future events, a structure within which events may occur . . . a scenario is a description of the environment, and is not a description of the sequence of events themselves. To say a scenario is a description of an environment is to already admit to examining a conceptual space, rather than a line’’

(Staley, 2010: 77)

Patterns…


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ProbablePossiblePlausiblePreferable

Coordinates


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Out of chaos a new idea emerges: democracy Takes 100 years to gain legitimacy

Lesson: Change always experiences a period of up take when it is an emergent trend (one amongst many) before it gains momentum and legitimacy. This case study is a reminder that patience and persistence go hand-in-hand with vision and courageous leadership. Social memory is also important because people had to remember what it was that Solon had sought to establish. The democratisation of Athens also flags the necessity of building the institutional infrastructure and conceptual tools in anticipation of a desired change.

Practical responses therefore inhabit all four quadrants of Fig. 1 presented earlier in this paper: we need responses now (UR), institutional preparedness both now and into the future (LR), cultural ferment in which new ideas, values and language are sown through effective leadership (LL), and also individual ownership of this cultural ferment (UL) for sustainable futures to be even considered a viable possibility.

(Bussey et al, 2012: 392).

Solon’s Athens 590BCE


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continuation or business as usual; collapse in which a society loses coherence and returns to a

less complex form of social order as happened following the fall of Rome;

a disciplined society that adheres to a strict social or spiritual/religious ideology such as in feudal Europe, communist North Korea and Taliban dominated regions of Afghanistan; or,

transformation, in which context experiences a qualitative shift to another level of social order as occurred when Western society moved from an agricultural to an industrial society.

Dator’s Scenario taxonomy


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Scenarios have been chosen as a trigger for discussion and reflection amongst stake holders

The past as a resource for rethinking the present The future is a stimulus to adaptive activity in the

present

Scenarios and SEQ


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“…alternatives [by] challenging dominant constructions of the present and allowing people to develop preferred visions of the future, identify futures they wish to avoid and to explore the logics inherent to both.

Scenarios challenge linear constructions of social process and affirm human agency – our ability to act on the present – by highlighting our centrality as social actors.

Furthermore, … scenarios can inform decision making and reduce the instances of folly with which history abounds”

(Bussey et al, 2012: 393).

Scenarios suggest…


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Sustainable futures are many and varied All require shifts in assumptions and values Sustainable futures are not utopias but open ended

processes that increase equity and inclusivity while decreasing human dependence on finite energy resources

Sustainable futures cannot simply be strategised, they need to involve that anticipatory dimension that calls us to be our best while warning us simultaneously to beware of hubris

Conclusion


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Bussey, M., Carter, R. W., Carter, Jennifer., Mangoyana, Robert., Matthews, Julie., Nash, Denzil., Oliver, Jeannette., Richards, Russell., Thomsen, Dana., Sano, Marcello., Smith, Tim., Weber, Estelle (2010). Societal Responses to Significant Change: An Historical Analysis of Adaptive Capacity, report for the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative. Maroochydore DC: Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast.

Bussey, M., Carter, R. W., Keys, Noni., Carter, Jennifer., Mangoyana, Robert., Matthews, Julie., Nash, Denzil., Oliver, Jeannette., Roiko, Anne., Richards, Russell., Thomsen, Dana C., Sano, Marcello., Weber, Estelle., Smith, Timothy F. (2012). Framing Adaptive Capacity through a History-Futures Lens: Lessons from the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative. Futures, 44(4), 385-397.

Inayatullah, S., . Molitor, Graham, T. T. et al (2009). Scenario Symposium. Journal of Futures Studies, 13(3), 75-156.

McNeill, J. R. (2000). Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century. New York: Norton.

Orr, D. (2002). The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture and Human Intention. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Staley, D. (2010). History and Future: Using Historical Thinking to Imagine the Future. New York: Lexington Books.

Wilber, K. (2001). A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. Boulder: Shambhala.

References

sustainable futures in a time of social transition marcus bussey [email protected]

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