Organisational Systems and the Earth’s Mega-Systems

We now live in what the earth scientists call the Anthropocene, a planetary epoch that acknowledges the impact that human activity has on earth’s mega-systems such as climate, species diversity, and land forestation; and impacts that threaten humanity itself through sea-level rise, floods, earthquakes, extreme heat, wildfires, animal transmitted viruses, to name but a few. Especially affected are people in the countries most affected already by poverty, land degradation, and wars. I won’t number here the many issues in climate change and species loss. That is done richly, informatively, and substantially in the articles in this volume and in their sources, as are the arguments locating the aetiology of these issues in particular human cultural assumptions, practices, and mindsets. What I will focus on is possibilities for organisational actions and mindsets now and in the future.

Let me be clear, I am not talking of false or manic hopes that serve only to soothe anxieties or falsely excite with vain promises. What is needed are real potentialities. These are not simply vast steps forward in technology, although some of these may prove useful. Too often the search for new technologies engenders false hopes within a context of maintaining the status quo; small additions to quell fears that we may lose our privileged places in the world. What is needed is the collective courage to face the facts of our environment and to change our ways of thinking. Good technologies will then naturally follow; purpose following transformed beliefs is tantamount. The central problem is that conscious, and especially unconscious assumptions are changed only with great difficulty. We humans are wonderfully adept at denying realities that don’t suit and at dissimulating, even to ourselves, about our personal motives and deepest desires. Psychoanalysis has demonstrated that all too clearly. Yet the survival instinct, what Freud named as Eros, is strong and can lead both to selfish and selfl