Breaking the Circuit is based on the premise that the modern circuits (aka “systems”) of human civilization have provided great short-term material advantages to humans, but at the long-term cost to human and non-human life. Many books have been written and studies conducted on the broader subject. One of the most personally consequential books I’ve read is Overshoot, written by William Catton in the 1980’s. It is a treatise on the subject of how civilization developed and considers the earth’s carrying capacity and what lay ahead. Another book and one of the most publicly regarded of its kind, Limits to Growth published in 1972 by Donella Meadows and her team at MIT used a computer model named “World3” to simulate different scenarios of natural resources, industrial production, population levels, food and pollution through the 21st century. It was presented to congress at the time and has been a reference source for many subsequent studies and policy proposals.
Since 1972, updated publications for Limits to Growth sought to determine how reality was tracking with the different models over time and determine what potential shifts in society were needed in the future. The latest such publication in 2021 from the Club of Rome, the funder of the original work, assesses that of the five original scenarios, two are tracking with our current reality and remain viable for the future; noted in the graphs below.
The left is a scenario which assumes that technology will be developed for large-scale solutions to lower pollution (including climate), providing a softer fall of industrial output, stabilized population levels and resources and adequate levels of food. Without that broad scale tech solutions, and conducting business as usual (right scenario), pollution will continue to accelerate, impacting food production and population levels toward a societal collapse, sometime around the middle of the century.[1]
Today, as we experience increasing climate, economic, food/water and socio-political-related disruptions, it’s not hard to see where we might be on that curve: about where the scenario projected us to be at this time.
I’ll paraphrase here something I recently heard: humans are living at the peak of their existence, but the rest of the planet is rapidly sliding into a low point. And as we see in the World3 graphs, natural resources and pollution (environmental health) and food and human population (well-being) are highly correlated. As natural resources and food production declines and as pollution continues to increase, so will human population (society) begin to collapse soon thereafter. What that looks like in real time is uncertain, but the idea of "collapse" of our modern society seems fairly certain.
Does it seem likely that we will have some magic technology that will enable us to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere at the rates we are emitting into it? No, at least not in time. Does it seem likely that we will cut emissions 50% from human activity by 2030 and get to net zero emissions by 2050? No, not based on the continued mantra of economic growth and land use that is driving CO2 and methane (CH4) emissions even higher each year.[2]
In short, it appears that humanity, faced with increasing evidence of these broad, yet significant, existential threats, and our totally inadequate response over the past 30+ years, would prefer to maintain business as usual, rather than consciously make the changes necessary to avoid collapse. If we are both the problem and the only solution, why do we, ‘wise humans’ (ie Homo Sapiens) choose to continue to be the problem and abdicate being the solution?
We can point fingers at corporate-owned media, who themselves are tied into the system of short-term profits over everything else. We can blame the campaign finance rules in the United States, allowing for ‘dark money’ into politics and the influence of lobbying by fossil fuel companies and others. We can assume that it’s not within our capacity to solve the issue, even if we played a part in creating it.
“The greatest threat to the planet
is the belief that someone else will save it.”
– Robert Swan
All of the above may be true, but I believe we struggle to truly respond appropriately because we identify not just as players within the circuits that have polluted the skies, rivers and land, but that we increasingly identify ourselves AS the circuits, without considering anything beyond our own .
Industrial production within the system of capitalism exploded in the 1800’s as rules and regulations enabled capital accumulation and investment, while energy and technology, such as the coal-powered the steam-engine, enabled us to extract and move more raw materials and make more products at faster and faster speeds. Infinite growth and profit became the mantra, and the narrative of perpetual progress took hold within not just our economy but within our own self-belief of constant growth and improvement. From the athlete running on the field to the executive climbing the ladder.
Today, many are seeing the delusions of today’s capitalism more clearly. The argument of a free market economy managing itself has proven naive and often disingenuous, if not exclusively self-interested. This combined with ever-increasing influences from corporate lobbyists that pull the strings of most politicians, and it’s not hard to understand how we have gotten to where we are at. And yet, every person, even those who do see, still fundamentally play by the rules of the game because in part there is no other game in town, nor any imaginable, because capitalism, over the few generations it has existed, may be taking over the emotional center of our brains.
As I’ve learned, our brains developed over millions of years to help us survive as a species – from swinging branch to branch in the trees of Africa to walking the savannas for food as the earth shifted into an ice-age. Survival meant being motivated toward certain rewards and away from certain threats. And because we weren’t equipped with big fangs, claws, speed or other physical traits to catch prey or evade predators on our own, we developed a brain that was socially very effective. Where communication and collaboration meant life or death, our brains developed social rewards and threats to help us survive. How we related to avoid these external threats and how we mated to ensure our species survived, and our brain’s physical development over that time, depended on effective emotional motivators – which for us were primarily social in nature. These included status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness, as described in the NeuroLeadership Institute’s SCARF model, which I will describe in greater detail forthwith in another post.
Fast forward to today, and it seems our brains are being assimilated into a system whose prime objective is the accumulation of profit and material wealth, keying on social rewards (and threats, when absent or deprived) of status and certainty. The other threats/rewards of autonomy, relatedness and fairness seem de-emphasised, as many seem to sacrifice living freely for the perceptions of status via material wealth and control in our lives, disconnect with the world around them and become less attuned to how others are feeling and experiencing life. In short, I wonder if over time our roles in the capitalistic system would actually rewire our brains away from things like autonomy, relatedness and fairness. One can imagine a dystopian society where we are driven by the system toward behaviours that might be detestable by even today’s norms.
“We are Borg. You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.”
– The Borg, Star Trek
[1] While the World3 model has done an excellent job of forecasting the reality we are seeing 50 years later, there are unexpected challenges in relation to climate disruption that, given the highly complex systems at work, have been consistently underestimated by even the annual IPCC reports. The collapse scenarios within the World3 model may be superseded by the unexpected shifts that we are seeing today within the ecological and climate systems. https://www.clubofrome.org/blog-post/herrington-world-model/
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