New Enlightenment

Summary

After installing regulations on the use of all resources and the outputs of all harmful substances, resources continued to decrease and the environment continued to deteriorate. Initially, it was easy to reduce harmful pollutants and reduce the use of some resources. However, as time progressed it became more difficult to reduce green house gasses and further limit the use of resources. The original reductions had consumed all of the low hanging fruit. The regulations needed to maintain sustainable levels became impossible to enforce. The inevitable collapse of the environment or loss of resources had only been delayed by market regulation. Long term-orientated people foresaw this collapse and changed from being less bad to being good. This means changing from reducing CO2 to producing something else that was not harmful, like water. This is cradle to cradle thinking.

Description

2010

At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen the government leaders acknowledge that the climate is changing due to human influence. They set more stringent regulations on CO2 production that included more industries and more countries. Unfortunately, the number of storms, sea levels, and the temperature continue to increase during the 2010’s. People move away from the southern US and Southeast Asia. The insurance prices are too high and they are tired of rebuilding after every storm. Droughts in other areas like Western North America and Australia begin to be unbearable. These conditions create more refugees than ever before. Also during this period, resources and species begin to disappear, most notably blue fin tuna and the polar bear.

Watching these resources disappear wakes up several long-term thinking countries. They begin to meet to review their regulations and agree to lower their requirements even more. They also agree to set market regulations like the cap and trade system for Carbon Dioxide. These market regulations bring other short-term thinking countries into the discussions. Short-term thinking countries use the size of their economies to weaken the original meaning of the new regulations and the new trading system.

2020

Unfortunately, the result of these weakened agreements is that nothing changes. The number of storms, temperature, and sea levels continue to rise. Refugees multiply and resources dwindle. The long-term oriented people realize that the collapse of the environment is still inevitable with market regulation. They make a conscious change from reducing pollution to not polluting at all. This is cradle-to-cradle thinking. Instead of burning less fossil fuels that produce Carbon Dioxide, they don’t use any fossil fuels. Instead of eating less over-fished species they eat none. This is not easy to do alone. The increase in people wanting this lifestyle starts several social networks that share information about which products contain pollutants or limited resources. These social networks start to lobby both businesses and governments to include an easy to read symbol system that simply shows whether the product is sustainable or not.

Some companies realize the demand for cradle-to-cradle products and come up with their own labels. The first companies in each industry to set their own standards for non-pollution have the best chances to set the standards for their industry. These first movers lobby the government to spread their standards across their industry. The government follows with cradle-to-cradle regulation of the industries.

Environment

The deterioration of the environment slows but does not stop. There is a continual battle between the environment. Even when there is a gradual awakening of consumers to cradle-to-cradle living, there will still be a large part of the population that will want to continue to live as they once did before. The largest part of the population that will oppose the cradle-to-cradle movement will be the Americans with their high consumption lifestyle. The largest segment of the population that will push for the largest change are the Chinese with their high long-term orientation and collective movement.