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THE TRANSFORMATION WROUGHT BY A MACROSHIFT has always challenged the creativity of people, but today’s challenge is unprecedented. In the past, a more adapted civilization evolved over several generations; the rhythm of change was relatively slow. This is no longer the case. The critical period for change today is compressed within the lifetime of a single generation. Repeated trial and error may have sufficed in the past, but it is not adequate today. The overexploitation of resources and impairment of nature, coupled with the unequal distribution of wealth and the destruction of the fabric of societies, has launched us on an irreversible transformation. In a macroshift many things are possible, but remaining with the status quo is not among them. We can neither go backward nor stay put; we can only go forward. But the direction of change is not predetermined; we have a choice.

A Chinese proverb warns, “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we are headed.”

But just what is this choice—and who will make it? A Chinese proverb warns, “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we are headed.” Applied to contemporary humanity, this would be disastrous. Without a change in direction we are on the way to a world of increasing population pressure and spreading poverty; growing social and political conflict potential; accelerating climate change and food and energy shortages; worsening industrial, urban, and agricultural pollution of air, water, and soil; further destruction of the ozone layer; accelerating reduction of biodiversity; and continued loss of atmospheric oxygen. We also run the risk of megadisasters caused by nuclear accidents and leaking nuclear waste, devastating floods and tornadoes due to climate change, and widespread health problems due to toxic additives in food and drink and the accumulation of toxins in soil, air, and water.

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These risks are real, since the great bulk of humanity in societies both rich and poor, Western and traditional, remains fascinated by material goods, personal wealth, and ostentatious lifestyles. Many people hold a mechanistic view of nature: we are free to manipulate the environment as we wish without regard for the consequences. Many also hold a Darwinistic view of society: life is a struggle for survival, with the powerful reaping rightful rewards and accumulating wealth that the market will hopefully distribute. The universe at large is a passive backdrop to human actions, governed by science’s deterministic laws, if not by divine fiat. In any case, individual actions have hardly any impact on the wider environment. In consequence people feel no responsibility for what happens in and to the world around them. In the end, a breakdown becomes inevitable.

The persistent pursuit of material goods and grandiose lifestyles overexploits resources and impoverishes the environment. As unfavorable weather patterns limit harvests and yields are further reduced by a shortage of unpolluted water, hunger and disease spread among the two billion poorest of the poor. Mass migrations get under way, as people move from the hardest hit areas to areas still relatively well off. Governments find themselves under mounting pressure; one after the other resort to military measures to shore up crumbling borders, ensure access to basic resources for their people, and “cleanse” their territories of unwanted populations.

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A rise in military expenditures diverts money from health and environmental care, aggravating the plight of poor populations and worsening the condition of the environment. This results in lower yields, greater deprivation, and more conflict potentials, increasing the need for military measures in a vicious cycle that feeds on itself.

A constant series of emergencies concentrates power in the hands of national politicians and military juntas, and cyberspace is dominated by the shrinking minority that has the means to promote its own interests. The Internet itself resembles a giant shopping mall and a forum for special interest groups. It encourages consumerism and reinforces the belief that the true aim of life is to make money and lead a carefree and unconstrained existence.

The international community becomes increasingly polarized, with growing gaps and resentment between those who benefit from globalization of the world’s economic, financial, and information systems, and those who are locked out of it. Marginalized states, ethnic groups, and organizations become more and more frustrated. They take advantage of the high-speed information environment to make contact with each other and begin to cooperate. Strategic alliances hostile to globalization and the power of major states and global enterprises are formed.

Terrorist groups, nuclear proliferators, narcotraffickers, and organized crime find a fertile environment for pursuing their goals. They form alliances with unscrupulous entrepreneurs and expand the scale and scope of their activities, corrupting leaders in the marginalized states, infiltrating troubled banks and businesses, and cooperating with insurgents to control more and more territory. Traffic in narcotics, in alien smuggling, in women and children, as well as in hazardous wastes and toxic materials joins traffic in illicit biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and becomes a global enterprise.

In this disordered world, international cooperation is more and more difficult, and finally impossible. As crisis follows crisis, humanity faces the prospect of a worldwide breakdown.

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A global breakdown is just one of the possible outcomes of the macroshift we are experiencing today. There is a brighter prospect, illustrated by the “breakthrough scenario.” In this scenario we wake up to the need to transform our thinking and behavior to cope with the dangers we face. A new sense of urgency to live and act effectively and responsibly is joined with a renewed sense of commitment to each other and the common future. We begin to recognize that we are a vital link in a network of great complexity that is highly sensitive to human values and actions. We develop a sense of individual empowerment and a deeper spirituality, which enable us to see the planet as a living organism and ourselves as conscious elements of it.

The need to live and act in ways suited to life for six billion in an already impaired environment triggers advocacy of a new behavioral code. “Let’s try to live in a way that enables others to live as well” is beginning to take precedence over the time-honored “live and let live (as long as it doesn’t interfere with me)” by the well-off and “let me live like the rich” by the poor. A new vision of self, others, and nature surfaces on the Internet, on television, and in the communication networks of enterprises, communities, and ethnic groups. Global businesses are sensitized to the changing values of their clients and customers and respond with goods and services that meet this shift in demand. Global news and entertainment media explore fresh perspectives and emerging social and cultural innovations. The public’s goals and ambitions become reoriented—toward “the good life” conceived not as amassing the greatest possible amount of money and material goods but as finding meaningful personal relationships and caring for others and for nature.

Population pressures combined with resource shortages encourage people to pull together rather than to pull apart. There is growing public support for public policies and corporate strategies that manifest a higher level of social and ecological responsibility. Funds and capital are channeled from military and defense applications and the demands of the affluent minority to the needs of the people who make up the bulk of society. Measures are implemented to safeguard the environment, create an effective system of food and resource distribution, and develop and put to work sustainable energy, transport, and agricultural technologies. More and more people have access to food, jobs, and education. More and more people enter the Internet and other communication systems as active dialogue partners. Their communication reinforces solidarity and uncovers further areas of mutual interest.

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By the second decade of the twenty-first century the world community is ready to put into place a series of system-building measures combined with sweeping system reforms. When the new arrangements take shape, national, international and intercultural mistrust, ethnic conflict, racial oppression, economic inequity, and gender inequality begin to give way to mutual trust and respect and a readiness to form partnerships and cooperate. Insistence on self-sufficiency and autonomy are joined with shared concern for nature and for others. Rather than breaking down in conflicts and wars, the human family is on the way to breaking through to a sustainable world of interlinked yet self-reliant communities.

The choice between these two scenarios—and others less radical but not altogether different from them—is in our hands. This choice does not lie with big business and big government but with ordinary people. It is up to you and me to choose a sustainable civilization that harmonizes the diversity of the world with the globalization of its technologies and markets and the interaction and interdependence of its economies.

The crucial issue is not how many people use the planet’s resources but how they use them. Our world has enough, as Gandhi said, to provide for people’s need, but not enough to provide for their greed.

Creating a sustainable civilization calls for an ongoing dynamic balance between human needs and demands and adequate access to basic resources. If the human population keeps growing, and if its patterns of production and consumption remain as disparate as they are today, achieving this balance will not be possible. Even though economic growth will continue and the demographic curve will slacken, by the middle of the twenty-first century some 90 percent of the world’s population will live in today’s poor regions. Fortunately, the crucial issue is not how many people use the planet’s resources but how they use them. Our world has enough, as Gandhi said, to provide for people’s need, but not enough to provide for their greed.

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In the industrialized parts of the world greed is now dominant. In the name of freedom and laissez-faire capitalism, obsolete values and beliefs give free reign to selfishness and ostentation. People seldom admit such traits even to themselves, but it is evident in many aspects of everyday behavior. One man in a small town in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona decided to admit this not just to himself but to everyone. In December of 2000 in a letter to the local newspaper he listed 39 items that he said makes him a “Bad American.” Among other things he wrote: “I don’t care about appearing compassionate”; “I think I am better than homeless bums”; “I paid for it and I don’t care to recycle it. You may do so if you please”; “I think global warming is bullshit!”; and “I like big cars, and big houses, and golf at my private club.”

Living by such values and aspirations entails excessive consumption and excessive waste. Those who “enjoy” such a living standard use 80 percent of the world’s energy and raw materials and contribute the lion’s share of its pollution. For example, the average person needs 5 liters of water a day for drinking and cooking and 25 liters for personal hygiene. But the average American uses 350 liters a day—80 liters just for flushing the toilet—and the average European and Japanese 165 liters. At the same time, many Africans walk 2 miles to get safe water, if indeed they can get any, and 48 percent of them lack access to water that is safe for drinking and cooking.

Selfishness and greed also affect the way people eat. Affluent people consume vast quantities of red meat and bottled drinks. The world’s entire grain harvest would not be enough to feed all the cattle needed if everyone worldwide were to adopt these dietary habits. The average Englishman consumes six bags of chips, six chocolate bars, six bags of candy, three sandwiches, two pies, two burgers, a donut, and a kebab every month while sitting behind the wheel. And each year Americans, worried about obesity, spend 30 times more trying to slim down than the annual U.N. budget for famine relief.

Affluent people overuse the planet’s resources, and poor people misuse them. Of the six billion people on the planet, the two billion rich and “developed” consume and waste more than their share, while the two billion poor and “underdeveloped” misuse what little is left to them. To make things worse, many of the two billion in the middle who belong to the emancipating and thus “developing” masses hope to adopt the lifeways and consumption patterns of the two billion “developed.” But this ambition is more than the resources and ecosystems of the planet can fulfill.

Clearly, there are more satisfying ways to live the good life.

Not only do the rich need to adopt better ways, the poor need to adopt better aspirations. When poor people believe that by emulating the ways of the rich they improve the quality of their lives, they are sadly mistaken. A high material standard of living does not automatically mean a high quality of life. The life ways and consumption patterns of the rich are stressful and unhealthy and can lead to hypertension, stroke, heart disease, and cancer. The very ideal of material luxury is flawed. Take the height of luxury offered by the popular tourist industry: sitting in the sun, smoking a cigarette, sipping a daiquiri, munching on a hamburger, and talking on the cellular phone. One who lives up to this ideal increases his or her chances of getting skin cancer, lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, high cholesterol, and brain damage. This is not much of an improvement over staying at home and working in a high-pressure job, taking smoke breaks every hour, drinking a martini after work to relax, and going to sleep in front of the television.

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Clearly, there are more satisfying ways to live the good life. There are meaningful and important tasks to be achieved in every job and profession, and there are scores of healthy and rewarding ways to spend leisure time. Helping neighbors, creating a better community, visiting sites of natural, historical, or cultural interest, hiking, swimming, biking, reading, listening to music, or taking an interest in literature and culture are all satisfying pursuits that do not involve a high level of material and energy consumption and do not require a lot of money. Yet they are healthier for us and better for our soul, and easier on the environment than the current models for success, affluence, and luxury.

If mad cow disease results in weaning people from a red-meat diet, in the long term this may be not a bane but a blessing. Eating fresh produce, living closer to nature, and walking more and using public transportation are healthier than eating red meat and junk food, sitting in cars in overcrowded streets and arteries, and breathing polluted air.

Nevertheless, the lifestyles of the affluent are widely admired and emulated. Because the two billion “developed” drive a private car to work, shopping, and recreation—even when public transport is available—the two billion “developing” hope to own and use cars for much the same reasons and the same purposes. A good portion of the 1.3 billion Chinese are on the way to realizing this ambition. In the center of the “miracle city” Shenzhen in the south there are hardly any bicycles left, but private cars, including luxury models, abound—together with traffic jams and air pollution. In India the “apartment culture” has become widespread; having a “luxury apartment” is considered the height of living the good life. Much the same emulation occurs in regard to eating habits. Because people in the industrialized countries have a preference for steaks and hamburgers, people in the developing countries aspire to the same kind of diet. Hamburger stands and fast-food restaurants are springing up throughout the poor countries and regions of the globe.

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Suppose, then, that the two billion “developed” decided to live in a more responsible way. Would that make a difference to the aspirations of the two billion ambitiously “developing”—and the state of the two billion hopelessly “underdeveloped”? It very likely would. Though governments of industrialized countries tend to ignore it, simpler lifestyles and more responsible choices would free a significant portion of the planet’s resources for consumption by all the people who inhabit it. For example, it takes the produce of 190 square meters of land and 105,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of grain-fed feedlot beef. But to produce one kilogram of soybeans takes only 16 square meters of land and 9,000 liters of water. On the same amount of land where farmers catering to the preferences of the affluent now produce one kilogram of beef, they could produce nearly 12 kilograms of soybeans, or 8.6 kilograms of corn. And they would save 96,000 liters of water by choosing soybeans, and 92,500 liters by planting corn. Given the rapid erosion of many agricultural lands and the coming water squeeze, this difference may be crucial. If mad cow disease results in weaning people from a red-meat diet, in the long term this may be not a bane but a blessing. Eating fresh produce, living closer to nature, and walking more and using public transportation are healthier than eating red meat and junk food, sitting in cars in overcrowded streets and arteries, and breathing polluted air.

”Live more simply, so others can simply live,” said Gandhi. Following this advice is even more urgent today than it was in his day. It is also easier to do. Today we realize that living simply is not a come-down. On the contrary, simple living is the fruit of a free choice that makes for greater personal well-being and a deeper sense of meaning in life. It is living in a way that is socially and ecologically sustainable and thus responsible to all the world’s people, today and for generations to come.

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There is no single solution to such a complex problem, and to achieve a better distribution of the world’s basic resources our economic systems must be reformed. Yet such reform is unlikely without a shift in the values and preferences of a critical mass of society. Timely shifts in consumer preferences and civic and environmental aspirations would buy time for economic and political reform to be put in place and would help safeguard the environment, defusing the potential for conflict inherent in today’s inequitable situation. When all is said and done, the critical factor in choosing our future is the choice we ourselves make about the way we consume, the way we work, and the way we live.