What is going on here? A new paradigm has wrapped its mighty arms around the construction industry. The old ways of doing things are giving way overnight to the most efficient and effective methods available. Those who do not adapt will perish. And those who do adapt, such as the construction worker shown above operating a robotic compactor, will be able to solve problems they were unable to solve before.

The problem solved above was how can a human work safely in one spot while a giant excavator scoops up shovelfuls of earth a few meters away? Well, they can't, using the old paradigm of the operator must ride the compactor. But under the new paradigm, the operator can be safely away from the danger area while the robotically operated equipment does the job. (1)

Five years of taking an analytical approach at Thwink.org has led to a new viewpoint that is so different from conventional wisdom that it can only be called a new paradigm. If the environmental movement comes to accept this new viewpoint of their world, we predict they will be able to make great strides toward solving the global environmental sustainability problem, because their efforts will be more productive by an order of magnitude.

The new paradigm consists of five sequential insights. Each one builds on those before it and becomes successively more valuable. This crescendo leads up to the fifth and final insight, which is the knockout punch that actually solves the problem. The new paradigm consists of:

1. The process must fit the problem.

2. The social side is the crux of the problem.

3. The phenomenon of strong, prolonged, successful solution adoption resistance clearly exists. Therefore there must be an invisible social structure that is the fundamental cause of that phenomenon.

4. A satisfying hypothesis for this structure is The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace and its current exploitation by the New Dominant Life Form.

5. There is a high leverage point in this structure that has never been tried.

These are large and unconventional abstractions. They require some effort to comprehend. But once they click your world will change, because now it will be intuitively obvious what must be done to solve the problem at the strategic level.

Elements 2 through 5 are really just examples of application of element 1, which is the very heart of the new paradigm. Let’s examine the elements one at a time:

1. The process must fit the problem – Currently it does not. Environmentalists and environmental organizations persist in using an ad hoc, common sense, event oriented problem solving approach. While this works fine on moderately easy problems like regional pollution and even the stratospheric ozone problem, it fails on more difficult ones like climate change and deforestation, which have resisted all attempts at solution for decades. Such problems require a very different process to solve.

Use of the wrong process is the main reason the modern environmental movement has been unable to solve the global environmental sustainability problem. This has occurred because the movement has settled into the comfortable illusion that its current process, Classic Activism, is just as capable of solving difficult problems as easy ones. But this process has clearly failed to solve the problem. It follows that if the movement is to achieve its mission, it must switch to the right process, one that fits the problem.

That the process must fit the problem is the most crucial insight of them all, because it initiates a chain of powerful new insights. The first link in that chain is adopting a process that fits the problem. Changing from the wrong process of Classic Activism to the right process of Analytical Activism would allow the environmental movement to make a quantum leap forward. Such a change would quickly show that:

2. The social side is the crux of the problem – The transformation of society to environmental sustainability requires three steps: The first is the profound realization we must make the change, because if we don’t our descendants are doomed. The second is finding the proper practices that will allow living sustainably. The third step is to adopt those practices.

Society has faltered on the third step. By now the world is aware it must live sustainably, which is the first step. There are countless practical, proven ways to do this, which is the technical side of the problem and the second step. But for complex reasons society doesn’t want to take the final step and adopt these practices, which is the change resistance or social side of the problem. Therefore the social side is the crux of the problem.

Acknowledging this leads to the conclusion that:

3. The phenomenon of strong, prolonged, successful solution adoption resistance exists. Therefore there must be an invisible social structure that is the fundamental cause of that phenomenon. – There is no doubt this phenomenon exists, as reflected in way the footprint curve shown below has continued marching upward, ever since the modern environmental movement began in the 1960s. The efforts of environmentalists, including those in governments and international agencies, have had only a negligible effect on this curve. (2)

The same phenomenon may be seen in the graph below of the steady rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. This is the black sawtooth line. Once again, the environmental movement appears to have had no significant effect on a highly critical trend. (3)

Something must be causing this phenomenon. Because it is clearly based on human behavior, and because human behavior in the large is caused by social structures, the fundamental cause of this phenomenon must be a particular social structure. There can be no other fundamental cause.

Applying a process that fits the problem and seeks to find this formidable structure leads to the following unconventional but profound conclusion:

4. A satisfying hypothesis for this structure is The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace and its current exploitation by the New Dominant Life Form. – Now the chain of insights is leading somewhere. We have arrived at the fundamental cause of failure to solve the problem. Like the good physician who never gives up, we have diagnosed the cause of the patient’s illness at last.

This structure consists of a race to the bottom among corrupt politicians battling against a race to the top among virtuous politicians. Because the race to the bottom has an inherent structural advantage over the race to the top, it is the dominant loop most of the time, as it is today. Furthermore, the race to the bottom is currently being exploited by what is best called the New Dominant Life Form, which is the modern corporation and its allies. And finally, because the race to the bottom requires generous amounts of falsehood and favoritism to work, that is what characterizes politics today.

The goal of most corporations is to maximize the net present value of profits. The goal of most individuals, once they have gotten past the survival and security stage, is to maximize quality of life for themselves and their descendents. These goals are mutually exclusive, which explains the very strong, prolonged resistance to solving the global environmental sustainability problem.

Because we have captured the fundamental structure of the problem in a simulation model, inspection of the model causes the fundamental solution to the problem to suddenly become blindingly obvious. This leads to the very good news that:

5. There is a high leverage point in this structure that has never been tried. – Because Classic Activism leads to pushing on low leverage points, it should be no surprise there are a number of higher leverage points that have not been tried. The one with the most potential to solve the social side of the problem in a single stroke is general ability to detect political deception.

This ability is currently low. If environmentalists can unite and raise it to a high level the race to the bottom will collapse, leaving the race to the top dominant. Politicians will then respond correctly to the truth about the global environmental sustainability problem because it will now be in their best interests to do so. If they come to the same conclusion that environmentalists have, that sustainability is civilization’s top priority and nothing else comes close, then civilization will at long last enter the Age of Transition to Sustainability.

For a detailed look at this high leverage point and a simulation model showing how effective pushing on it should be, please see The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace.

(1) Photo by the author at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport outside of Paris, 2003.

(2) Source of Humanity’s Total Footprint graph: Redfining Progress, in the 22 page publication The Ecological Footprint of Nations, 2004.

(3) Source of CO2 graph: Anslem Ecology Lecture Notes. Click on the link to greenhouse gases, greenhouse effect.