While I have some problems with some elements of this guy's approach (as I would with pretty much anyone's), I do think he is hitting many of the themes often brought up here, with an added psychological dimension we don't always fully address here. The full title of the piece is:
Hope in the Face of Disaster – Creating a sustainable, viable, future path for civilization(I'll say right up front that I usually avoid any work that has either the words 'hope' or 'sustainable' in the title, since they are usually bs.)
Summary:
Taking a long term view, this paper explores the many crises that civilization and humanity will face over the coming decades some of which are already starting to have an impact. The paper proposes a central cause to these crises and particularly explores the widespread psychological inertia in the face of these vast problems. Some potential constructive choices that individuals, communities and nations could yet make are outlined.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-01-09/hope-in-the-face-of-disaster-creating-a-sustainable-viable-future-path-for-civilisationSo what do I like about it? For one, some of the metaphors, for example in the "Where is civilization heading section" :
Like the philosopher in the story at the beginning it is useful to take a moment to climb the ‘tallest tree’ and to consider where civilisation is heading. Unfortunately the long term vista is not pleasant. Under the current business as usual economic model we are facing into a series of interrelated crises and global problems that are already beginning to have an impact.
Having spent much of my childhood in or near the tops of trees, I appreciate the metaphor, and it really gets to how little heed we have given to those who have bothered to actually climb the damn knowledge trees to figure out what is coming at us.
Much in the "Why is no one listening?" section is particularly good, too. It is a bit disappointing to see the Kubler-Ross stuff trotted out without much reflection, but that's kind of to be expected, and it is not altogether unuseful here.
The big conflict for me is between: "Honestly Accepting Reality" and "Creating a Positive Vision"--basically the more honest I am about reality to people, the less I am able to create a vision that will look positive. But still, the author has some very quotable statements in the latter section:
Unless we inspire people to act immediately, even a chance of a sustainable future will be lost. Every day that is passed without changing course makes a survival future less likely. We also have to be realistic about what is achievable. While we cannot avoid two degrees of warming, (which though catastrophic might be survivable) we can do a lot now to avoid four degrees (which will result in wide-spread collapse for human society).
Ultimately, my main problem is with the word "hope." He seems to use it in a different way than is it's common (often manipulative, political) use. For example his V. Havel quote: "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out." I'm not sure what the Czech word is here, but for most people I know of 'hope' does indeed imply that something can turn out well, and specifically well for the person expressing hope. Hence the absurdity of Kafka's dictum: "There is hope, but not for us."
I think we do, indeed, need a word to express "certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out," but 'hope' does not seem to be a good candidate, to me. Of course, words change meaning all the time, and maybe that can be a new meaning for 'hope'--let's just say I am not very 'hopeful' that such a meaning change can happen quickly without massive confusion.
The other point about 'hope' is that it, like 'success' and many others, is a scalar/empty word. It has no meaning without context--hope for what? There is certainly hope to reduce one's contribution to the problem by some degree. Hope to form community, to come to a clearer understanding of our predicament...But by itself, "hope," like "success," defaults in meaning to "hope" that we can continue BAU.
But I do encourage people to read the whole thing and come up with their own ideas of what is valuable and what is problematic here, practically as well as semantically.