Navigating Climate Change Through Deep Adaptation

One of my heroes is the author and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff (see Team Human). I recently revisited a conversation he had with author and teacher Jem Bendell in ep 270 of his podcast where they discuss navigating climate change through deep adaptation. At the core of their conversation is the question, “What if scale itself is the problem?”, which is a controversial and upsetting opinion.

We know climate change is inevitable and we see our modern, industrial (dependent on coal, oil and gas), consumer-driven society is collapsing. In part, this belief is what led us to our work at Circular Design Co, because sustainability is incredibly complex and challenging to navigate. It’s our “nature” to think we can technologize or capitalize our way out of this mess, but the concept of constant growth is inherently at odds with sustainability.

Jem’s background is in corporate sustainability, and he goes on to say that he has always been driven by this idea of “scale of impact” because we have to make drastic change fast, but even really driven people in the most influential positions aren’t able to change these big, impervious businesses, and the lack of change led him to feelings of despair.

So instead of taking a top down approach, he started thinking bottom up, focusing on the local, community level. Instead of being depressed by our future potential (see “Can Climate Cafes Help Ease the Anxiety of Planetary Crisis?”), he gave into the serenity prayer. With the courage to change the things he can and accept the things he can’t, the sentiment would improve the quality of his lived experience and push him to rely on maximizing the human experience by collapsing into community.

Technology and growth capitalism alone can’t cure climate change although they are tools for inspiration, action, and innovation. At Circular Design Co, we’re mostly working with new materials and makers that can, at least on a small scale, decouple economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, build long-term resilience, generate economic opportunities, and provide environmental and social benefit.