Places to Intervene in the System Point No. 1 The mindsets or paradigms that governs the system

“Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science, has a lot to say about that. In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you come yourself, loudly, with assurance, from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don't waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.” – Dona Meadows.

The shared idea in the minds of society, the great unstated assumptions—unstated because unnecessary to state; everyone knows them—constitute that society's deepest set of beliefs about how the world works. There is a difference between nouns and verbs.

Examples (whether conscious or unconscious) of underlying beliefs and assumptions of the current capitalistic system that we live in:

• There is winners and losers

• The winners takes it all.

• People who are paid less are worth less.

• Growth is good.

• Greed is good or part of human nature.

• Free Markets is the best model

• Natural- Capital: Nature is a stock of resources to be converted to human purposes.

  
  

Those are just a few of the paradigmatic assumptions of our culture, all of which utterly dumbfound people of other cultures. Paradigms are the sources of systems. From them come goals, information flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows. The is the train that we are all riding on right now. The laws and policies that we make lay down tracks that determine where the economy takes people. Right now, our economy is built around profit rather than being built to get people to their true needs (including economic and environmental justice). Our economy is like a railway tracks—it’s built to take people to particular places. The train that prioritizes profit over everything else.

The new paradigm is a matter of prioritizing balance over profit. Balancing the needs of the future generations with the current generation. Balancing the use of earth resources with its ability to regenerate those resources. Balancing the Carbon Budget so Earth can reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon. Balancing the needs of the population over the needs of the corporation.

We need to understand that both people and nature are inextricably linked. You cannot uncouple protecting the environment from protecting peoples’ rights for decent living. You cannot have a sustainable business without addressing the social impacts of that business. Environmental justice means being fair to earth, and humans, the people are part of earth. The system that creates perpetual and continuous harm to people cannot produce sustainable benefit to the planet. It just does not work this way. Prioritizing Earth means prioritizing people in the first place. Healthy earth starts at healthy watershed, healthy foodshed, healthy airshed, and healthy soils, then you can balance your Carbon Budget. It is more grass root.