Around the world an increasing shortage of good governance seems to have taken hold. It manifests in the increasing shortfalls on the Sustainable Development Goals and in the worsening polycrisis of the Anthropocene. The UN Secretary-General urged the international community for more infusion of scientifically authoritative models into governance, as well as more collaboration and inclusion of scientists. That goal is not easily achieved in this age of rising kakistocracies.
Dear Reader,
For years people in my circle of acquaintances have been discussing how the average Hollywood disaster movie misses the point when it comes to human security. One popular category presents a post-apocalyptic world of chaos and anarchy as a backdrop for human drama. It portrays the loss of human security as a fait accompli, from which the narrative develops a more or less hope-inspiring trajectory towards some sort of recovery. Another, slightly more popular category leads the viewer down a roller coaster ride through a deepening crisis, only to have the impending cataclysm or ultimate tragedy prevented at the last opportunity through some hero’s intervention.
In my view, neither category allows the viewer to develop her own understanding of the pervasive factors that stabilize those aspects of their human security that many viewers have come to appreciate, and are to varying extents even taking for granted. These factors form the basic platform on which human security rests (or doesn’t). They include the mechanistic components of the four pillars or seven dimensions in conventional human security models. They also include human agency and empowerment—personal qualities that can be acquired through education—such as the analytical skills to critically evaluate information about the world, or the ability to assess observations and propositions in the light of basic scientific principles. Beyond the individual sphere, that platform is also formed by qualities of the collective that support human security, such as cultural conventions about free speech, self expression, democratic principles and the limits of moral relativism. One collective quality that has acquired particular poignancy in today’s world is the extent to which a society values scientific literacy, scientific inquiry and objective discourse on scientific topics. To argue that Hollywood has not paid adequate attention to those factors affecting individual and collective agency would hardly understate its failing.
Yet, every once in a while, a film makes a talented effort in this direction. “Don’t look up” is such a film. It builds on the basic tenet that “every disaster movie starts with the government ignoring a scientist” [
Most proximal to the film’s narrative is the question to what extent the political system and cultural conventions as they presently exist in the United States of America are rendering the collapse of the country’s social order all but inevitable. The likelihood of a dictatorial regime emerging within the decade was convincingly argued by Thomas Homer-Dixon in a 2022 Article [
Around the world an increasing shortage of good governance seems to have taken hold [
The CEP and its associated ideology engender an almost pathological deference to the demands of industry and commerce over considerations of social justice, social welfare, or sustainable human security—let alone ecological integrity. It has resulted in one stalemate after another on climate change mitigation, in hopelessly inadequate countermeasures to the CoViD-19 pandemic, and in near-complete blindness to the reality of global ecological overshoot [
A state being governed by people who are either incompetent or unwilling to make the appropriate decisions in the face of political challenges is referred to as a kakistocracy [
The rise of kakistocracies marks a crisis of governance that comes at a highly inconvenient time in human history. On the one hand, the Anthropocene polycrisis demands our full attention and insightful, far-sighted decisions by our leaders. (Keep that in mind when you watch the film!) On the other hand, many aspects of the polycrisis would not present as urgently and menacingly, had there been more competent leadership in place during the past half century. Explanations for this shortfall range from intense pressuring by corporate groups and special interest lobbies [
Perhaps the most poignant indication that our policies at many levels do not meet the stringent requirements imposed on us by the Anthropocene is the failure of the international community to carry out the self-imposed tasks under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A recent editorial in the journal
Climate change mitigation will result in 2.4∘C warming by 2100, rather than the envisioned 1.5∘C, because of dithering and disunity in successive COP meetings.
An ambitious two-part UN summit on biological diversity, due to conclude in May 2022, centred on a widely supported target to protect 30% of the world’s land and sea areas by 2030—whereas not even the previous ‘Aichi target’ of 17% is in reach [
One in ten people is undernourished and one in four is overweight. The number of people going hungry is rising fast. An IPCC-like system of scientific advisors to governments was inititiated in 2021, recommending seven priorities, including sustainability in the face of rising demand. It faces an uphill battle against the dominant inertia, parochialism and conservatism that have led to the present crisis in food security.
The CoViD-19 pandemic created additional global constraints on funding, food supplies, and on education. It heightened the levels of violence against women, and caused a legacy of long term disability and infectious diseases. The UN Secretary-General’s report,
Interesting about this commentary from
All this begs the questions to what extent human security could be saved from the fallouts of inadequate governance, and what could be done. Current trends and various critical tipping points are likely to lead humanity into troublesome times [
Grassroots and community initiatives are evidently successful in developing new forms of local governance that can to some extent compensate for failings at higher levels. But many aspects of the polycrisis demand holistic and overarching approaches and coordination that only super-regional governing can provide, though not necessarily in the form of a conventional sovereign state. The righteous anger expressed by activists like Greta Thunberg against failing governments and myopic societies calls for new platforms that can accommodate democratic decision-making and coordinated, collective agency that follows scientifically authenticated and morally justified regimes. This is sorely needed; the fact that most cultures have not yet even learned how to use plastics sustainably and safely speaks volumes in that regard. Only with such new platforms in place can governance deliver policies that are informed by what qualifies as ‘progress’ in the Anthropocene.
That new understanding of ‘progress’ includes the principles of Deep Adaptation, described by its progenitor, Dr. Jem Bendell at the University of Cumbria (UK) as an ethos to make the Anthropocene “less worse”—a framework for policy, and a movement to become more openhearted and openminded about our future in the Anthropocene [
Failing governments are unable to support those aims of Deep Adaptation. Not only does their failure partly stem from a lack of open hearts and open minds, their failure is contingent on their inability to act on the prospect of limited collapse, the “involuntary systems change” [
One way in which readers might approach the concept of Deep Adaptation and become amenable to its potential benefits is to explore its connections with human security. How might its pillars and specific sectors benefit particularly from resilience, relinquishment, restoration and reconciliation? How could that be accomplished, and who would need to be actively involved? Engaging with such constructive considerations might be a way for citizens around the world—as well as ignored scientists—to improve their governance from the ground up.
Best wishes for a safer 2022,
Sabina W. Lautensach
Editor-in-Chief
This observation was expressed verbatim on a protest placard held by a youthful climate change protester, pictured in an 8 January 2022 post by Greenpeace.
(also published in The Ecologist 20(3) (May/June 1990)
Excellent summary of the challenges and of the lunacy behind the anthropocentric advocacy argument for nuclear power. Similar to the limitless growth assumption.
A comprehensive discussion of the phenomenon of kakistocracy and its manifestations is given in Lautensach (2020) (op.cit.) Failure of a government is understood as either willful refusal or inadvertent omission to engage in prudent and morally indicated countermeasures in the context of crisis or immediate necessity, where the means and resources for such countermeasures would be available. For a historical documentation, see Tuchman, Barbara W. 1984. The March of Folly, from Troy to Vietnam. New York: Alfred Knopf.
The report documents the world’s failure to fully achieve even a single one of the twenty Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010, exemplifying the failure of governments on a grand scale.
This book by two Canadian authors appears in the same league as Merchants of Doubt. It argues the collective culpability of spin specialists and corporate plutocrats for the mass failure of governments and the global stultification and obfuscation, amounting to `crimes against life and humanity'.
The economist Jason Hickel pointed out that achieving the SDGs on poverty reduction through free market capitalism would require the global economy to expand to 175 times its size in 2015. Rapid growth of poor countries to catch up with the rich would require the resources of 3.4 earths. All this without leaving even a token handout for Earth's non-human inhabitants.
The Network allows for collaboration and complementation among local projects that aim to develop more adaptive forms of living in the Anthropocene ( \urlhttps://ecovillage.org ). A history of GEN (Jackson & Jackson 2004) can be found at \urlhttps://gaia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/HJackson\_GEN-History.pdf.