Transforming Cultures

At the heart of the Transforming Cultures project is State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism To Sustainability, which will be released in January 2010. Below, you’ll find the book overview.

Overview
Many of the environmental and social problems we face today are symptoms of a deeper systemic failing: a dominant cultural paradigm that encourages living in ways that are often directly counter to the realities of a finite planet. This paradigm, typically referred to as the “consumer culture,” has already spread to more than two billion individuals and has led to consumption levels that are vastly unsustainable.

If this culture spreads further—particularly if the total human population reaches 9.2 billion by 2050 as projected—there will be little possibility of solving climate change or other environmental problems that are poised to dramatically disrupt human civilization. In order to thrive long into the future as a species on a healthy planet, we need to cultivate a new cultural system—a culture of sustainability that can effectively compete with and eventually replace the consumer culture. This culture, of which all could realistically partake, would no longer be centered on consumption but on living good lives within the natural limits of the planet.

Of course, shifting cultural patterns is not a simple task, but will take a sustained, long-term effort to redirect the institutions that shape culture, eventually leading to a decline in support of the consumer culture and growing acceptance, even dominance of a culture centered on sustainability. These institutions include schools, the media, businesses and governments. Some of this is being done, to one degree or another, but environmental priorities are mainly focused on immediate crises and pushing for policy changes that solve environmental symptoms. Focusing on underlying problems or “root causes,” in contrast, will have a more lasting impact.

By bringing about a cultural shift that makes living sustainably as “natural” as a consumer lifestyle is today, not only will this address urgent crises like climate change, it could also tackle other symptoms like extreme income inequity, obesity, and social isolation that are not typically seen as environmental problems. For example, a sustainable diet—spread through schools, social service providers, the media, new ecological restaurants and stores—that encourages consumption of more vegetables and whole grains instead of meat, added sugars, and processed ingredients will not only reduce environmental impacts of the consumer diet (such as climate change, proliferation of ocean “dead zones,” and air and groundwater pollution) but reduce obesity and improve human health and quality of life.

State of the World 2010 will paint a picture of what this sustainability culture could look like, how it differs from the current consumer culture, why we need to urgently make this shift, and, most important, how we can and already are making the shift. After the first chapter introduces the need for a new cultural paradigm and the means to spread it, subsequent sections will look at the key institutions that are dominant shapers of culture and how these institutions are being harnessed to shape a culture of sustainability. The book will then be used throughout 2010 to do significant, targeted outreach to those actors already poised to lead this cultural transition: environmental educators, green-leaning policymakers, environmental journalists, sustainable business managers, eco-celebrities, foundation officers, and environmental organizational leaders.