Gus Speth

From a society-wide perspective, a new consciousness a involves major cultural change and a reorientation of what society values and prizes most highly.

My big hope is for progressives to leave behind their issue silos, come together, and forge a mighty political force, both for immediate action and for deep, transformative change.

It’s time for something better. To me, that something better is post-growth, where society focuses major policy interventions on growing the activities that benefit people, place, and planet and on shrinking those things that do the opposite and, all the while, not pausing to worry about GDP.

How do we try to compensate for our destruction of so much of Earth’s life? By curbing ourselves? By deep societal change? By bending heaven and Earth to protect what is left, before it is too late?

Adapting to climate change does not address the societal systems and values that spawned the current crisis. What’s needed is “systemic adaptation” that fundamentally changes our economy, our politics, and our priorities in ways that put community and the planet first.

We must act even in the face of hopelessness, warriors defending a sacred place, simply because it is the right thing to do, rebelling beyond hope because the human spirit tells us with insistence that what is unacceptable—all the suffering, all the loss, all the tears—must not be accepted. Fight.