Most environmental stories we hear are tales of decline. In complexly interwoven natural systems, one ecological problem, such as loss of a forest, often leads to many others. It becomes hard to imagine stopping the downward spiral, much less reversing it.
But it can be done.
Several years ago journalist Amanda Suutari and I began collecting environmental success stories from around the world: stories in which ecological decline was turned around, and a new course was set toward restoration and sustainability. We wanted to find out what it takes to achieve such a turnabout.
The EcoTipping Points website features over 100 success stories, all of them with strikingly similar scripts. In every story, human well-being goes hand in hand with the health of the local ecosystem. And in every story, decline is driven by mutually reinforcing vicious cycles. Reversing the cycles can be a tall order, but anything less is like swimming helplessly against a powerful current.
The right “levers” transform vicious cycles into “virtuous cycles” that contribute to restoration with as much force as the vicious cycles drove decline.
Most important, in every story the sweeping changes from decline to restoration can be traced back to a “lever”—an action that set the positive change in motion. I call that lever an “EcoTipping Point.” EcoTipping Point levers typically combine the “right” eco-technology (in the broadest sense of “technology”) with the human social organization to put that eco-technology effectively into use. The levers are catalytic, generating a cascade of far-reaching effects, but they do more than that. They transform the vicious cycles into “virtuous cycles,” which contribute to restoration with as much force as the vicious cycles drove decline. (Click here for detailed examples of transforming vicious cycles into virtuous cycles.)
No comments:
Post a Comment