Collectively changing behavior appears to be the only realistic pathway to integrate our planetary limits and avoid a collapse of our global civilisation. To do so, it seems that we will have to explore part of ourselves that we do not know of yet. In fact, an estimated 95% of our choices and actions are the result of unconscious mechanisms and unless we are collectively making a conscious choice to cocreate a global disaster by pushing unsustainability to the limits, our unsustainable behavior patterns stem from unconscious mechanisms which we are not aware of yet. 

In a previous article, we have highlighted how human behavior patterns are at the core of the meta-crisis of sustainability. This time, we are going to explore where these unsustainable patterns come from and how they can be changed:

Collectively changing behavior appears to be the only realistic pathway to integrate our planetary limits and avoid a collapse of our global civilisation. To do so, it seems that we will have to explore part of ourselves that we do not know of yet. In fact, an estimated 95% of our choices and actions are the result of unconscious mechanisms and unless we are collectively making a conscious choice to cocreate a global disaster by pushing unsustainability to the limits, our unsustainable behavior patterns stem from unconscious mechanisms which we are not aware of yet.

To better understand the nature of these unconscious patterns, we can use the ABC technique which stands for Antecedent, Behavior, Consequences. Through it we learn that every behavior pattern is the result of past events and has consequences. According to this model, to change a pattern, it is therefore important to acknowledge its antecedent as well as its undesirable consequences. If we use this model to look at the big picture, humanity’s past history had generated certain behavior patterns that are unsustainable and that will lead to a collapse of our civilisation if they are not addressed. In other words, if we want to understand the nature of the patterns that are bringing us on the verge of disaster, we need to understand our past.

If we take a big step back to look at our species' past, we see that sapiens is a newcomer on earth. As a by-product of life evolution of animal ancestry, he has spent most of its existence as part of nature as a hunter gatherer. The sedentarisation of humans is extremely recent in evolution, let alone the access to modern technology that has allowed humans to dominate other species. It means that for most of its existence, sapiens had to survive in the wild which as we know can be quite dangerous, especially for humans that are not particularly powerful physically.

To survive, sapiens had to face 3 major types of existential threats, which shaped our primal survival instinct.

 all humans had to face the threat of predators, rivals and illnesses

 all humans are at risk of not having access to the vital resources that they need

 all humans faced the threat of being marginalized and rejected by their tribe (aside from the risk of being persecuted by the group, humans are social animals that thrive in groups and are extremely vulnerable when they are isolated)

To compensate for a lack of body strength, speed and agility compared to other mammals, sapiens developed their intelligence which could be notably used to create increasingly sophisticated languages, tools, weapons and narratives around which to build societies. This intelligence was used in priority in order to respond to these threats. In the process, those who learned to fear the threats of hostility, scarcity and separation developed a primal survival instinct specifically designed to neutralize them.

- To deal with the threat of hostility, they learned to dominate and subjugate their environment

- To deal with the threat of scarcity; they learned to accumulate always more resources

- To deal with the threat of separation; they learned to follow the dominant social norms

Logically, this led to ruthless rivalry as human tribes inevitably came to have conflicts for territories and their resources. The tribes that were best at conquering, dominating and controlling territories, in hoarding resources and in getting large groups to conform to their social norms greatly increased their chances of survival, developed and conquered the surface of the globe. These tribes had cultures that valued and nurtured power, wealth and social status. They became more and more dominant all over the globe.

Tribes that had adopted more equalitarian or symbiotic culture or that paid less effort and attention to develop their skills in dominating, hoarding and social engendering were less competitive and more likely to be subjugated, colonized or wiped out. Engaging and performing in rivalry for power, wealth and status has become a norm and a need to survive for almost all tribes on the surface of the planet.

Those who did best at this primal survival game were coming from Western Europe, the region which saw the rise and fall of the roman empire and in a much more recent history the ignition of the two-World War. Between 1492 and 1914 Europeans spearheaded the industrial revolution, conquered and colonised 84% of the surface of the globe, using their industrial power and wealth to dominate, control and exploit other continents.

It is this industrial revolution that marked humanity’s entrance in the Anthropocene. A new era characterized by unprecedented technological progress and the undisputed domination of earth by the human species. The Anthropocene is a game changer which sees humanity extracting itself from a natural environment which can now be dominated, exploited and transformed to respond to the thirst for more power, wealth, and status.

The Anthropocene will be followed by the great acceleration which in the mid of the 20th century is characterized by a globalisation of our civilisation and a dramatic and exponential surge in human population, technological progress and impact. It is just 20 years after the beginning of the great acceleration that the first planetary overshoot was recorded: from that moment, humanity’s ecological impact will be greater than what earth ecosystems can sustain.

We as a species have failed to acknowledge the paradigm shift that the Anthropocene is as well as its implications. In this new paradigm in which humans are now the stewards of the earth, the dominant primal survival patterns that have allowed humans to conquer and dominate the surface of the globe are becoming increasingly self destructive and dangerous. This is happening for a simple reason: the current exponential technological progress that we generate amplifies the harmful consequences of our primal survival patterns.

The impulse to dominate and control the environment creates ruthless rivalry for power that generates conflicts that are more and more dangerous in the presence of increasingly powerful weapons of mass destruction.

The impulse to accumulate leads to competition in order to hoard resources which result in growing inequalities and a depletion of natural resources in the presence of decoupled means of extraction in industrial scale.

The impulse to conform to the dominant norms in order to be validated and access social status leads to a marginalisation of difference and a perpetuation of the status quo reinforced by powerful technologies which can be used for mass surveillance and social engineering on a massive scale. The status quo is posing an existential threat when change is a vital need.

It is quite easy to understand why these increasingly unsustainable primal survival patterns have remained unnoticed until now, they have been rationalized, normalized and perpetuated through the social structures that dominate our globalised civilisation.

The drive to dominate and control the environment led to the creations of nations, which are social constructs with borders and armed forces specifically designed to dominate and control entire territories and their populations.

The thirst to accumulate resources led to a productivist and consumerist society, which has been designed to place all economic actors in competition with one another for short term profits, unlimited accumulation of capital and compulsive growth.

The thirst to seek for external validation led to all the dominant social norms, which define what is encouraged, valued, incentivized and prioritized in society and what is discouraged, unrecognized or penalized.

This dominant primal survival instinct also self perpetuates below our collective level of awareness, creating vicious cycles which if they are not stopped, can only lead to extremely undesirable futures.

The primal impulse to dominate and control the environment irremediably leads to rivalry for power and violent conflicts which perpetuates the danger and therefore fear of hostility. If unchecked, this can only result in catastrophic wars.

The primal impulse to compete in order to hoard resources leads to their depletion while at the same time increasing inequalities, which perpetuates the danger and fear of scarcity. Hence the overshoot of our planetary limits that will inevitably lead to a systemic collapse if it is not stopped (our economy and lives depend on natural resources, so depleting them is basically destroying our future).

Conforming to the dominant norms lead to the marginalisation of difference which perpetuates the danger and fear of separation. And if this is not tangible to you, think how many times you have been afraid to express your opinion in fear of being rejected?

These 3 vicious cycles perpetuating the dominant primal survival instinct are not separated from one another but interrelated. For example, a group that fears hostility from other groups will fear not having enough resources to defend itself and will also fear any opinion that challenges the norms of the group. This means that we can’t stop one of these vicious cycles without stopping the 3 others. In other words, to achieve the sustainable transition, we need to live in peace with one another and for that we need to learn to share our planetary resources and to accept one another as we are. It’s not rocket science but it’s a big game changer, especially when it goes against inherited primal survival instinct.

So, with this new understanding it should be clear that the meta-crisis of sustainability threatening the future of humanity is not just an ecological or socio-economic problem, but a human problem deeply rooted within us. It is happening for a very simple reason: the dominant primal survival instinct developed over hundreds of thousands of years of threats before the Anthropocene has now become self destructive within the Anthropocene. Because it has been conveniently mistaken for “unchangeable human nature”, it has self perpetuated below our collective level of awareness (within the collective unconscious) and is now becoming increasingly dangerous in the context of exponential technological progress.

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

The new science of trauma can allow us to better understand what is at the core of this primal survival instinct. In fact, it is impossible to deny the traumatic nature of the past history of humanity which is marked by centuries and centuries of invasions, wars, genocides, severe deprivation, famines, oppression, persecution, slavery. These have resulted in layers and layers of collective and intergenerational traumas: deep wounds that have been ignored and yet have played a great role in shaping our identities, social structures and cultures.

Contemporary science is pretty clear on the consequences of unresolved trauma. They result in a disconnection from the self and what could be described as a fragmented ego identity. They perpetuate a state of discomfort and existential anxiety associated with compulsive behaviors. To deal with this inner discomfort and numb the fear and pain, people develop all kind of strategies, including addictions to drugs, alcohol, but also consumerism, power, money, status, sex, work and… beliefs.

In fact, a key aspect to understand is our difficulty to face reality as it is coming from the interrelation between unresolved traumas from a bygone past and false beliefs. The human mind seeks to rationalize everything including the patterns resulting from the fear and pain repressed in the collective unconscious. For example, as the result of the unresolved collective and intergenerational trauma of scarcity left by thousands of years of severe deprivation, many people still fear not having enough. This fear is being suppressed and rationalized with the belief that extracting, producing and possessing always more is a vital need.

As such our global economy’s addiction to GDP 

(Gross Domestic Product: the monetary value of all finished goods and services generated by a territory during a specific period) growth 

is deeply rooted in the unresolved trauma of scarcity. If such fear and belief were functional in the past to deal with scarcity, it is completely unfit to deal with the new situation of resource overconsumption and planetary overshoot. Instead of resolving the trauma of scarcity, it creates vicious cycles of hostility and separation, which shows that the vicious cycle of danger and primal survival instinct are also traumatic by nature.

Understanding that, we start to have a clear picture of the problem, its fundamental and hidden root causes. Humanity is in a state of collective and intergenerational traumatic stress disorder, rationalised with false beliefs and mistaken for unchangeable human nature. This unconscious and fear driven ego state perpetuates a primal survival instinct that is increasingly self destructive and unsustainable in the context of exponential technological progress.

Recognizing our grim past, and our unresolved wounds is extremely sensitive as it results in a lot of emotional discomfort such as shame, guilt and grief. This is particularly challenging to do in a society valuing competitiveness, performance and appearances over vulnerability, authenticity and empathy. This explains to a large extent why we are still in this ubiquitous state of denial, escapism and apathy hindering our ability to face and understand the great challenges of our times. Because of the mental and emotional discomfort, they trigger both the problem and its fundamental causes hence they have been repressed and kept unconscious.

The meta-crisis of sustainability is the elephant in the room which obliges us to face ourselves and our unresolved issues. Yet, if through our past history we have learned to identify and fight enemies outside of ourselves, we lack knowledge and experience when it comes to dealing with the “enemies” inside of ourselves. To achieve a global sustainable transition, we will have to find the courage to acknowledge the false beliefs, irrational fears and unhealed wounds that have kept us in this primal state of survival until now so that they can be respectively dissolved, released and healed. As Carl Gustav Jung noted: “Until you make the unconscious, conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate”.

The global and systemic crisis of sustainability we are facing is nothing less than a call for a collective awakening and expansion of consciousness: an invitation to recognize the interrelation between our inner and outer words. To do so, a proper campaign of awareness about the problem, its hidden root causes and solutions is needed. It would result in a cultural renaissance based on self knowledge, a psychological reorganization and a conscious evolution that would trigger profound changes at all levels, which is exactly what is needed to successfully and safely achieve a global sustainable transition.

How we can achieve this, will be developed in a future article…

Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy & Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

The Unacknowledged Root Causes of Unsustainability

Climate change, fossil fuel and greenhouse game emissions are receiving increasing media attention in the west thanks to climate activists and a meteorology that records peak temperature at an increasing rate. As a result, more and more pledges are being made to tackle the problem, by governments, companies and organisations. If all these efforts are signs that steps are being taken to tackle a global threat that could seriously jeopardize the future of humanity, it appears that our efforts to overcome the great challenge of our times are hindered by a lack of understanding of its nature, its underlying causes and its solution.

We are Facing much more than just Climate Change, and it is time that we acknowledge it

Climate change, fossil fuel and greenhouse game emissions are receiving increasing media attention in the west thanks to climate activists and a meteorology that records peak temperature at an increasing rate. As a result, more and more pledges are being made to tackle the problem, by governments, companies and organisations. For example, Jeff Bezos recently donated billions of dollars to “fight climate change”. If all these efforts are signs that steps are being taken to tackle a global threat that could seriously jeopardize the future of humanity, it appears that 

our efforts to overcome the great challenge of our times are hindered by a lack of understanding of its nature, its underlying causes and its solution.

In fact, climate change appears to not be not the only ecological problem we are facing, a growing number of alarming scientific reports point at the overconsumption of our planetary resources, the destruction of the ecosystems, the pollution of air, water, soil and what is being called the 6th mass extinction which indicate that we are in the process of destroying the conditions that make our existence possible. To better understand what is taking place, it is important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture using two key indicators: humanity ecological footprint and earth biocapacity.

Humanity’s ecological footprint stands for the impact of human activities on earth:

The damaged dealt to the planet ecosystems

Earth biocapacity in the other hand stands for our planet ecosystems ability to absorb this impact:

The rate of regeneration of the ecosystems

When humanity’s ecological footprint offsets earth biocapacity, we are in a situation described as an overshoot of our planetary limits

Humanity extracts more resources than can be sustainably generated

More pollution is released than what the planet ecosystems are able to absorb

The ecosystems are being destroyed at a faster rate than they are regenerated

Climate change is just the symptom of a bigger ecological problem

: the overshoot of our planetary limits. If we don’t resolve it, we are going to face an ecological disaster of planetary scale with unprecedented catastrophic consequences. To avoid it, we have no other choice but to integrate our planetary limits and achieve a global sustainable transition.

Although it is common to consider sustainability while focusing only on ecological issues, it is very unlikely to be an effective approach to achieve the sustainable transition. We are not only facing an aggravating critical ecological situation, we are also facing major socio-economic and political issues: a growing human population, extreme poverty and famines, rising inequalities, increasing financial debts, out of control inflation, geopolitical tensions and an increasingly polarized population. 

What we are dealing with is not just climate change or an ecological emergency, but a multifactorial systemic and global crisis of sustainability

. All these issues are not separated from one another but interrelated. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet reached the collective level of awareness needed to properly define the problem which is hindering our ability to conceive of realistic solutions. If “a problem well stated is a problem half solved” as per Charles Kettering quotes, a problem unproperly stated is a problem that we can’t even start solving.

To resolve a systemic and global crisis of sustainability, it is key to identify and treat its underlying causes

. It is undeniable that whether they are socio-economic or ecological, all the factors of unsustainability share one common denominator: they are all the result of certain human behavior patterns.

And it is not difficult to guess what foster them. Our global economy built on the pursuit of the American dream is materialist, consumerist and productivist. It is based on ruthless competition for short term profits, unlimited accumulation of capital and growth. On a finite planet, such economic system can only lead to the overexploitation and destruction of the ecosystems. 

What we are experiencing is a predictable overshoot of our planetary limits: a global scale tragedy of the commons

 in which the earth vital resources are being overconsumed in order to feed self-perpetuating rivalries for power, wealth and status. 

The global and systemic problem we are facing is not technological or technical but human and created by carelessness, ignorance and greed.

The global and systemic crisis of sustainability we are facing is reminding us about disregarded lessons of ancient wisdom about the importance of empathy, ponderation and solidarity which under these new circumstances appear as vital quality to nurture and develop for our human species to become sustainable. And to learn that very precious lesson, 

we must collectively find the courage and maturity to recognize that the problem we are trying to solve outside of ourselves, find its roots within ourselves.

all the dominant systems of power appear to support the unsustainable status quo.

 While we are approaching a tipping point and a global disaster, our politicians are busy perpetuating and optimizing the GDP growth, our medias are placing our attention on mundane stories and superficialities, our social media use the best of artificial intelligence to keep us hooked, employees are burning themselves out doing mostly meaningless jobs, and we are constantly bombarding ourselves with advertisements to consume always more so that we can feed our collective addiction to GDP growth.

Before we can do anything, we might need to collectively acknowledged that we have kept ourselves entertained and distracted away from an impending global crisis of sustainability. 

As long as we unconsciously chose to keep ourselves and one another in a state of denial, escapism and apathy

, we will continue on our path towards planetary disaster. Undeniably, facing this situation will require a certain level of mental and emotional maturity ad it challenges our beliefs and certainties. And to encourage ourselves it is important to remind that feeling temporarily feeling distress and overwhelmed is part of the process, before we can grasp the grasp the magnitude of the problem and set ourselves in the conditions needed to move toward the solution.

As much as all of this this might seem very depressing and overwhelming, we would be lying to ourselves if we were saying that we are facing is a problem without solution. We would be also quiet blind not to see the opportunity within the challenge. In fact, 

addressing the underlying cause of the crisis of sustainability implies profound changes and therefore an opportunity to reinvent ourselves and our society for the better.

The global and systemic crisis of sustainability that we are facing is not only a great danger but also a great opportunity for evolution and positive change. It is trying to teach us a lesson as 

we are all invited to learn how to take care of ourselves, one another and our planet.

Why climate change is the symptom of a much deeper and bigger problem?

 is an ex-corporate senior manager who has founded New World Together: an Interdisciplinary Research and Education project dedicated to pioneer Global Sustainability

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Benjamin Casteillo

Benjamin Casteillo

Why climate change is the symptom of a much deeper and bigger problem?

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