STORY
THE TIPPING POINT
As the Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki points out, environmental destruction, like the collapse of ecosystems, often follows an exponential curve. As an example, he asks us to imagine the spread of lilies over a lake during a 60 day period, at the end of which the water is completely covered. If the lilies spread at an exponential rate, doubling their surface area every day, then on day 59 the lake is only half covered. All appears to be fine. The next day however, there is no sign of the water. The lilies have deprived the lake of oxygen and the ecosystem dies. In terms of climate change, biodiversity loss and the global water crisis, there is much to suggest that we may well be living through Day 59.
At the same time, this analogy could be applied to the critical mass required for an evolutionary shift in our business practices, in our economic and political systems, in our scientific views and use of technologies, even our basic relationship to the planet. It may not appear that there is much sign of that happening but, like those first few lilies on the pond, the seeds of a new way of doing things are germinating across the globe and revealing that it can be done. We have the blueprints, the role models, which could be replicated at an exponential rate. Like the lilies, a Day 60 could appear, when these new models have replaced the old and a period of transition will have come to a close. Like the 'flip-over' that climatologists refer to - the possibility of a quite sudden shift in the global climate from one steady state to another - an equally sudden shift is necessary now if we are to have any chance of adjusting the sails and avoiding catastrophe.
Ultimately, the space in which that shift occurs is within each and every one of us. It all starts here, with that one simple step, when we get off one boat and on to another. In that instant, we cease to be part of that which is destroying the planet and become part of that which is seeking restoration, joining a growing global movement for positive change.
The decision rests with each of us.