Regeneration – ending the climate crisis in one generation

I came across the work of environmentalist Paul Hawken  during my time as Director of Learning at Forum for the Future. In his new book published on the 21 September-2021-at the start of the autumn equinox he espouses a new way of framing the solutions to our climate crisis. It’s title is an alternative twist that might be humorous if our global crisis weren’t so depressing; his latest of nine books is called Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. Paul has a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the corporate and consumer inattention and avarice that has brought the Earth and its human and nonhuman inhabitants to today’s “Code Red” state.

It’s hard to comprehend some of the statistics around wealth and the power it has in influencing policy.  The UK for example is now home to 145 billionaires, behind only China and the USA in world rankings. And London has the most billionaires of any city on earth-93 , with New York a distant second. Recent media reports(Pandora Papers) show how  their financial sponsorship can seek to adversely influence some political parties on environmental and social issues.

Paul has enjoyed half a century at the forefront of thought leadership, activism, and collaboration with leading brands, all of which lays the groundwork for his advocacy for a critical global shift toward a regenerative economy.

 The word “regeneration” has been bandied about increasingly in more recent times by many who sign up to the transformation agenda especially those seeking ways to develop regenerative agriculture and at the University of British Columbia – where they are making great strides towards a “regenerative university”. As one recent reviewer has argued” Hawken isn’t co-opting the word. He has a history, in fact, of creating and promulgating a cementing lexicon that leads to cultural and practical promotion through philosophy and policy. That’s what he did in 2017 with Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, and the impact it created and sustains.”

Regeneration is “a how to do it” book. But what exactly is regeneration? Hawken says. “It’s both simple and complex.”

He correctly states that we must agree on  the meaning of our terms because terms like “climate change” are not accurate descriptors (the problem is global warming — our climate changes every nanosecond and always will), or as with “sustainability,” a word too vague and fuzzy to catalyse traction, leading to a movement based on them which does not seem to work.

We certainly need new measures and metrics for growth and success. Along with new parameters and more transparency. And in his view, regeneration is the most rational, albeit ambitious, option available. So, in Hawken’s words : “Regeneration is a radical new approach to the climate crisis, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation.”

 A “much simpler” definition, coined by Hawken is: “Regeneration is putting life at the centre of every act and decision … an orientation … looking at what we do; what we think; what we buy; and how we interact with each other, with the natural world, and with the world of goods and services,”

 He argues that regeneration is a natural part of our lives. “It’s innate to being a human being. All 30 trillion of our cells regenerate every nanosecond, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Regeneration is what we do as living beings, as a species of life on the planet. We regenerate ourselves, by taking in air, water, or food. We care for our children. We do it with our pets, do it with our garden. We care for others. We regenerate in our synagogue, church, or temple.”

According to Hawken the bottom line is this : “Life creates the conditions for life.”

Yet, “What’s happened is we have created — inadvertently, mistakenly — an economic system that is the opposite. It’s one that extracts life … an extractive economy,” Hawken argues. “If you follow the breadcrumb trail back into any supply chain, anything you buy, any service you receive, you will find that it is extracting life from the living world, from the oceans, from the land, from the forest and the soil — and from people, by the way.”

And “When you take life, you are degenerating,” he says. “Today, with business-as-usual, “We’re stealing the future from our children and their children and generations to come.”