SCOTT has found some new optimism for the future, one that avoids a dystopian nightmare and still sees us going green…
SCOTT has found some new optimism for the future, one that avoids a dRECENTLY I’ve been having discussions on Social Media about the Great Reset – before last year I took this to be a concept in economics of a theoretical period post peak oil that could potentially follow The Great Moderation (mid- 1980s until 2007) – which was the planned reduction in the volatility of business cycle fluctuations in developed nations through a period of economic stability characterised by low inflation. A time of positive economic growth that would redress the boom and bust cycles of the decades before.
For years I had used the term ‘Great Reset’ for the switch away from our need for oil and the move toward alternative more environmentally sympathetic industries. What the economist, cultural historian and writer on environmental issues Dr David Fleming called the transition to a ‘lean economy of culture and carnival’. I feel we are in that time.
However, I was blind sided last year, by the use of the term The Great Reset as the name of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in June. A high profile business and politics convention with the Prince of Wales as top billing. Their theme one of rebuilding society and the economy in a more sustainable way following this pandemic.
I wondered was this the same ‘reset’? How could it be? My version saw a shift to community and ecology, and theirs explored aspects of the sustainable response – green growth. Prince Charles himself listed his key areas for action – net zero transition globally, carbon pricing, green investment, and green public infrastructure projects. All good so far – plus the re-invigoration of science, technology and innovation. Great I assumed, at least the WEF had listened to Greta in January when she spoke to them and had realigned themselves accordingly. It had been a long time coming since my activist days of the 1980s.
Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum said: “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. Klaus called for a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism with all aspects of our societies and economies revamped from education to social contracts and working conditions. It was I assumed true that their Great Reset and my idea of the Great Reset were both of the same ideology.
When fellow activists from groups such as Greenpeace International and academics I followed also expressed their support for their Great Reset. I thought the green revolution has come at last. However I was unaware that conspiracy theories would surge with a different take on the dogma of what those business leaders, government officials and activists proposed to “reset” and how they planned to do it.
To me it was that ‘lean economic’ end to traditional capitalism, an adoption of more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and at last an implementation of Green New Deal-like government programmes. But to others the Great Reset was seen as ‘a Covid fuelled Fourth Industrial Revolution’ an elitist paradise that would usher in a trans-human, socially distanced, and utterly soulless dystopia. Suddenly a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ sounded toxic, when faced with this hyperbole I was shocked.
Off the radar the green movement had been reimagined as slaves to a dystopian nightmare that secretly served a trans-human agenda. I sunk into dark times, as my imagined future fell apart – it appeared science, technology and innovation were not part of the green agenda – we must have a return to the traditional old ways before the industrial revolution. The ways of our ancestors would not or could not include 3D printers, virtual screens, and construction from renewable, recyclable, reusable, remoldable materials that left the resources of the natural world untouched.
My fugue lifted when I realised that there is an achievable ‘mainstream’ imagining of the WEF’s vision with community at its centre – one which isn’t top-down, centralized, or authoritarian. I call it a Greater Green Reset, where we can still reject entirely the philosophical argument that this current great reset is about the transformation of humankind into some augmented Borg beings (cybernetic humanoids from Star Trek), and believe we still can achieve a genuine better greener future for communities.
As President Biden clearly signalled in his first week in office, fossil fuel is being consigned to the past – vowing to permanently close a million of USA’s oil and gas wells this year. This is the future I’ve been longing for. I firmly believe we can use the guardianship skills of nature we learn from our ancestors and combine that with green technology and innovation.
What I find interesting is the internet is awash with theories that the WEF’s great reset will lead to
Trans-humanism. Yet I can’t find it explicitly stated on any published agenda. I’ll take the green bits and the circular economy bits, and the sustainable bits and believe that society can hold itself together after the inevitable end of growth, grounded in localisation, community and culture. I’ll stay sceptical it will also result in me being ‘assimilated’.