For years, Guy Dauncey has tirelessly warned of the urgency of tackling the climate crisis and provided practical ways to achieve reductions in our emissions. While the crisis has only worsened, the window of opportunity to shift direction has shortened. Here is a blueprint for concrete action. Read it and act! – David Suzuki
What Does it Mean to Be a ‘Practical Utopian’ in a Dystopic Time? Let’s Ask Guy Dauncey
Welcome the World of Guy Dauncey. Guy Dauncey is an author, futurist and anthropological economist from British Columbia, Canada. He works to develop a positive vision of a beautiful, kind, sustainable future, to translate that vision into action, and to demonstrate it in personal relationships. He is a founder of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, co-founder of the Victoria Car Share Cooperative, and the author or co-author of ten books, including the award-winning Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic and The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming. His most recent book is Journey to the Future – A Better World is Possible. He has also written a Sustainable Energy Plan for the US. In his own words, his goal is to rewrite the story of who we are, integrating the perennial dream of a better future into our scientific, evolutionary and civilizational story.
Is it possible to talk about utopian ideals in such an increasingly dystopic era? It is the Anthropocene Epoch and we have entered the sixth mass extinction. 200 species a day are going extinct. Millions of people are becoming climate refugees or dying in the global pandemic. While you might think all of this would be enough to make us reverse course, world leaders routinely discuss getting “back to normal.” On the whole, people don’t seem to realize that normal is the problem.
As Einstein said, “you cannot solve a problem from the same mind that created it.” Yet we refuse to change and instead, we persist in a way of life based on mass consumption, planned obsolescence, power law distributions that only make sense for the 1%, and limitless growth economy. The maladaptive form of zombie capitalism we have chosen as a collective society, is making the planet into a dead zone. Sometimes called neoclassical or neoliberal economics, this gamed market system is wreaking havoc with the air we breathe and the water that sustains all life on this pale blue dot we call home.
By making the planet sick, we have made ourselves sick. Meanwhile, we are failing to grasp these concepts as a global society. The pandemic is only one symptom of a greater problem that we are just not coming to terms with. Our entire ecosphere is under siege. The great ice that allowed civilization to flourish in the Holocene is dying.
In a world fraught with narcissism, BS Jobs, corporate totalitarianism, oil oligarchy, dark money, and darker politics, our planet and our atmosphere is collapsing. Many have become so disillusioned that they are ready to go down with the ship. They claim it is already too late in a post-modern doomist rhetoric that has become ubiquitous. One thing is certain, solving climate change requires the end of capitalism as we know it and therefore, we need an ecological civilization before it actually is too late.
This is where Guy Dauncey comes in. By re-imagining our collective future, Guy Dauncey is empowering a new third space from which change can happen in never before thought possible ways. Guy Dauncey is working on developing new models for an ecological economy, defining frameworks for it, and presenting narratives that define what this will actually look like. Guy Dauncey discusses the antidote to a fear-based, violent, debt, slave and predation-based dystopian society, providing a structured and pragmatic approach to building an ecological civilization.
Guy Dauncey Talks to SW’s Alison Green
Recently, Guy Dauncey sat down with SW Executive Director, Alison Green, to discuss the ongoing climatological emergency as well as what means to be a practical utopian and the pragmatic steps toward developing an ecological civilization. They also discuss the influential Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate activist group and some aspects of what has become problematic in the environmental movement. View the full interview here. After viewing the video, please join us on the SW Facebook Group to continue the dialogue.
Further discussion about Sustainable Economic Models, such as the circular economy, Herman Daly’s Great Transition Initiative (GTI), sharing economy, doughnut economics and more can be found in the SW Knowledgebase. More options for alternative economics exist than we are aware of, which is why we have become stuck in a system that researchers everywhere are pointing out is in various states of collapse. If we know better, we can do better. #FLATTENBOTHCURVES
