Are we meeting the goals set by organizations like the Club of Rome which wrote the classic book Limits of Growth which warned us of limits to the planet and that we were rapidly approaching those limits through rapid industrialization? Consider also the Kyoto Accords which were basically an international agreement that accepted the problem of Global Climate Change and began attempts to remedy it.
Understanding the Problem Paradigm
So lets frame things not so much in black or white or even good or bad but as one group that is striving to be totally open and always looking for the best solution and another group well they like what keeps them comfortable even when that leads to suffering by others. So if there was a Global Civil War I predict it would be between those two groups. In the 90s and 200s no doubt progress has been made, but the vast majority still are part of the “problem paradigm” driven by conventional systems of transport, production, finance, health care, security and construction/building maintenance. Also how does the progress measure up in terms of a shift away from those dependent and comfortable with the problem paradigm.
So what are missing success factors that will push humanity over the edge? Possibly the great visionary people we reference and eve the doers who begin to put together the peices of sustainability into a more coherent picture to replicate and scale out from the models they create - are missing something. How can we explore this in a constructive way.