Humankind is faced with an historic challenge.  Collectively, we have grown to where we are stretching the limits of our planet, yet society's goal is more growth.  Now that continued expansion is causing our biggest problems, we need a goal that aims to stabilize our impacts.  This mini-course gives some of the thinking as to how we might accomplish that. 

Content of Mini-Course:

1) Change Begins With a Conversation (394 words)
Cultural evolution has always advanced as people: share, think about and discuss perceived problems and possible solutions.

2) Reduce, Reuse,Recession; a warning from the economic cycle (400 words)
Early evidence that perpetual growth is at odds with long-term well-being.

3) Learning, Love and Laughter; A Key to Sustainability
(347 words)
The most potent step any of us can take individually toward securing the future.

4) Three Potent Steps to a Sane Economy (630 words)
Three steps that could reduce human impacts on the planet by 80 - 90%, while increasing the quality of our lives.

5) Transforming Our Culture Toward Sustainability (1125 words)
This item clarifies the challenge of shifting society's goals.

6) Outline for a Great Debate (706 words)
An introduction to the discussion needed to find the best synthesis between the established order and the order foreseen by the "natural immune system of society."

7) The Growth Hormone of the Collective Human Organism
( 5 min. video with 630 word alternate explanation)
An explanation of how debt based money makes perpetual expansion essential.

8) The Metamorphosis of Civilization
2 videos: 1st (1 min. 37 sec.) 2nd (1 min. 55 sec.) script and third detail (184 words)
The metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly provides insights into the necessary transformation of civilization.

9) A Strategy for Long Term Well-Being (1293 words)
This basic strategy document outlines key mechanisms of cultural evolution, introduces some simple techniques that can set those mechanisms into motion and then lists the anticipated results.

10) Best Bet for a Sustainable Future (124 words with links to more.)
How Gandhi's vision differers from both Capitalism and Communism.

11) Shared Recognition; the threshold of change (685 words)
This final installment offers a link to a delightful animation: Language as a Window into Human Nature. It explains the psychology behind Emperor-has-no-Clothes moments. The article goes on to explain how naming the choice between perpetual economic expansion and sustainability can unveil the essential choice that humanity has to make. It is awkward to challenge the status quo, but if we don't change direction, we will end up where we're going. By offering a question for discussion, this effort does not call anyone down. It opens up the possibility for broad cooperation on improving the prospects of the children and grandchildren.

Since the course started:

A) More Fun Less Stuff; This meme encompasses two world views. One where the long-term well-being of people and ecosystems is the priority and the other where expanding material production and consumption is the primary goal.

B) Measuring Genuine Progress; The conventional measure of progress, GDP, adds money spent cleaning up after destructive storms and automobile accidents to the proceeds from growing food and education. A Genuine Progress Index (GPI) differentiates between regrettable expenditures and constructive ones. It also accounts for social and environmental situations that impact on well-being.

Follow up

For those interested in the material linked above, we hope you will contact us so that as opportunities arise for cooperating on shifting society's goals, we know how to reach you.

Thanks for your interest.

Yours, Mike N.