2023 was one of the coldest years of the Century

How we misunderstood the remarkable answer to the question of our time

That's right, 2023's record-breaking year for global temperatures was actually one of the coldest years of the 21st Century… when you look back from 2099.

I'm backcasting from the future to get over the horizon effect, whereby it is incredibly difficult to see beyond everyday time horizons. Tomorrow, next week, next year, the next decade; they gradually dissolve into the blue haze until we can't see beyond them. 

And yet, the perspective of the future can prove compelling.

I'm sure it wasn't news to those of us paying attention to this moment when the data came in about last year's “gobsmackingly bananas" record-breaking global temperatures.

Once I'd got over gawping at the graph showing every day last year being 1 degree above average (think Munch’s Scream), it was the final line from Prof Andrew Dessler that caught my attention:

"Every year for the rest of your life will be one of the hottest on record. This, in turn, means that 2023 will end up being one of the coldest years of this Century. Enjoy it while it lasts."

Wow.

This is just the beginning.

Much of my work is about helping people and organisations develop mental processes and practical means to establish the sort of long-term thinking that responding to this crisis demands. 

While incorporating such wisdom may seem new to us, many indigenous people have developed effective means for doing just this, such as the relatively well-known concept of Seventh Generation Thinking.

And, as it turns out, Western thinkers have a surprisingly long history of appropriating this wisdom, and getting it wrong. 

Let's take a quick pass over how we did in our earlier attempts and see if we can do a little better.

Abraham Maslow, he of Hierarchy of Needs fame, spent some time with the Siskia (Blackfoot) Tribe as he developed his renowned theory, and their ways of thinking and decision-making strongly influenced his ideas.

During his time with the Siskia, Maslow saw a place where self-actualisation was the norm; they shared a common ambition to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

He estimated that 80–90% of the Blackfoot tribe had a quality of self-esteem that was only found in 5–10% of his own population.

However, he misinterpreted their philosophy because he could not see beyond (or perhaps felt unable to articulate a perspective outside the prevailing orthodoxy) our Western view of the individual as the most important actor; hence, we ended up with the highly individualistic Self-Actualisation and Transcendence at the peak of his famous pyramid.

Sidenote - Maslow never articulated his theory as a pyramid, and the Blackfoot would not represent their perspective as a hierarchy either - visual for demonstration only.

However, this was not an individual pursuit or end. Rather, Self Actualisation is closely connected with Community Actualisation, a symbiotic relationship where the community provides for the individual, and the individual provides for the community.

And, crucially when we are trying to rediscover the wisdom of long-term thinking, these are both entangled with the Siskia achieving Cultural Perpetuity: the skillfulness to nourish a community-wide family, keep each person fed, live in harmony with the land, and minimise internal and external conflicts.

BOOM. There it is!

Cultural Perpetuity.

The answer to the greatest question humankind has ever struggled with, the one which defines this moment and the very existence of a future for humanity - how do we thrive in perpetuity?

Here, we can see the I, We, Us of modern systems thinking reflected in ancient wisdom. 

How had they arrived at this profound answer?

By developing and perpetuating through storytelling, culture and ritual an intimacy with how Nature works; through systemic connections and feedback loops.

In doing so, they express what Janine Benyus called "the conscious emulation of life's genius".

They didn't need a thought-leading author and pioneer of biomimicry (much more than replacing non-renewable materials with bio-based ones) to tell them that Nature has been running a 3.8 billion year R&D programme in order to get really good at sustaining life. 

They got it because they were part of it. 

It's thinking like this that is starting to see Nature being brought onto the Boards of forward-thinking businesses as well as being given legal rights. 

This is not just the right thing to do; it’s the sensible thing to do.

And here's the thing - the Siskia didn't articulate generational thinking by having someone ask "Are we thinking long-term enough about this?" at each juncture. 

Instead, their entire culture and society were built around principles which enshrined an innate attention to the future in every moment.

This is the direction we need to be heading if we hope to thrive in future. Yes, of course, we need to act with urgency to curb greenhouse gases.

But, really, climate action is just the beginning. It is far from an end in itself if we are to row back from the seven other planetary boundaries we have crashed across.

Cultural Perpetuity is the ultimate goal. Self Actualisation and Community Actualisation, what we might call flourishing as individuals and thriving as a society, are absolutely integral to that.

How we understand and achieve this is the thrilling challenge of this moment, what Charles Eisenstein calls “Our glorious possibility”.

Find out more about how I can help, and get in touch for a chat, via my website.