Naretha Pretorius with A Life On Our Planet.
As a child, if you made a mess of your bedroom, you were told to clean it up. If we made a mess of our earth, then the same principle would apply, writes Naretha Pretorius.
We need to clean it up. But, unfortunately, it’s not as simple as cleaning your room. The year 2020 ended with a blessing (and a wake-up call) – the gift and impact of a profound book, A Life On Our Planet, My Witness Statement And A Vision For The Future, by David Attenborough.
With each word I read, I could hear his calm yet assertive voice. He delivers an inspiring career journey; he also shares how he witnessed our world-changing over 60 years.
The earth’s population is rising at a ridiculous rate. The carbon in our atmosphere is reaching alarming levels. We now only have a third of our remaining wilderness left.
Halfway through the book, Sir Attenborough managed to make this mother sob. A painful penny dropped with these words: I fear for those who will bear witness to the next 90 years if we continue living as we are doing at present.
That is the future of my children, and their children. I envisioned a fulfilling life ahead for them. But at that moment, I feared for their future. At the rate we are going, they will experience a hard life; in just 90 years my grandchildren may not even have a world to live in. There will be no earth left unless we action the change now. We are fast heading towards the sixth mass extinction of humanity. What are we to do about this dismal reality?
The earth does not need humans, humans need the earth. The earth will thrive without us. If we don’t create the needed change, then there will be no earth for us to live on. No earth. No humans. This means we need to rethink our understanding of sustainability. Sustainability is more than an annual report, it is a way of living. Sustainability, by definition, is: the ability for something to continue forever. As Attenborough states: The capacity of humankind and the biosphere to coexist permanently. To be sustainable, humankind must establish a life on our planet that exists within the planetary boundaries.
We often talk about the fourth industrial revolution, but what about the sustainability revolution? As a design thinking facilitator, our approach to complex challenges are human-centric. Maybe we need to shift that, and add to that question, how can we be more earth-centric in our ways of working, thinking and doing?
What are the needs of our earth, so that we can answer to the future of humankind? What value do our solutions add to the lives of people, as well as the sustainability of our earth?
The recipe for a sustainable life is simple. We should not be taking more from the earth, than what we can give back. We are a highly creative and intelligent species. We have the resources, the knowledge, and the ability to implement the required change. The question is whether we understand the urgency.
Attenborough says we need wisdom.
He paints the picture of our inevitable doomsday, but he also provides existing solutions we can mimic. He is passing the baton on to us. We need our decision-makers to become change agents. Our leaders, politicians, policymakers, city planners, designers, educators, parents, and citizens, whatever your role or capacity, must seriously rethink how you can contribute to the solutions.
In every industry, and within every role we play, at home or within our businesses, we can contribute to the change. And we need to act now. We can no longer wait.
Attenborough ends the book with an encouraging message: We must not give up hope. We have all the tools we need, the thoughts and ideas of billions of remarkable minds and the immeasurable energies of nature to help us in our work. And we have one more thing – an ability, perhaps unique among the living creatures on the planet – to imagine a future and work towards achieving it.
Read the book, and ask yourself: how can I contribute, so that we as a collective, can look forward to the future of humanity? It is time to clean up our mess.
Naretha Pretorius is a Thinking Facilitator and the Campus Head at IIE-Vega Durban; Instagram: @facilitator_naretha_pretorius; www.vegaschool.com