Life, Money, and the Deep Tangled Roots of Systemic Change for Sustainability

Abstract

For many working to achieve sustainability over recent decades, it may appear the problem is well-known, and some partial solutions are well-known, but we can't get enough traction, synergy or leverage to make real change to human social, economic and environmental systems to actualize sustainability in the industrial nations. While it may have been easier and quicker to work on the “low hanging fruit” of change for sustainability (e.g., technical solutions, increasing efficiency, new light bulbs), this paper suggests the necessity of equal effort devoted to the “deep tangled roots” that extend down into the foundations of our academic disciplines and cultural mindsets. As I believe many would agree, our need for successful large scale change is urgent. This paper seeks to help clarify and integrate two major leverage points for systemic change–fundamental and dominant paradigms of life science and of economic systems–to help create sustainability in reality.