ATTAINMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY Project
Impact of Education for Sustainability of Consciousness
Let’s summarize factors that affect the sustainability of consciousness.
Regular stress caused by the above unsustainable factors eventually lead to health disorders on physical, emotional and mental levels (attention disorders, forgetfulness, learning disabilities, depression, lost life purpose, suicide, addictions, inadequate social behavior, mental problems, etc.) All those things affecting the majority of people on a personal level lead to effects on a socio-economic level.
So, to “unwind” those personal level disorders, society has a variety of activities providing techniques for proactive health at body, mind, and spirit levels, an inner cure for providing emotional balance, peace, self-control, self-esteem, personal growth: different sports and health activities, yoga, meditation, prayer, anti-stress techniques; religious & non-religious beliefs which provide for spiritual leadership in purpose of life and ethical instruction. Please note, all these activities are effective in the long run only if they go along with an outer cure which is fixing problems in society, establishing sustainability on the socioeconomic level. conditions for an outer cure should be built on personal level: we need to develop skills for providing for organizational improvements and up-to-date functioning of groups, organizations, and institutions on different levels of society from local to global. People can gain those skills at information management, problem solving, thinking development, sustainable business, and organizational management educational programs and practical workshops.
Below are examples of actions and strategies for establishing sustainability 2.0, socioeconomic level: a set of laws and regulations for information traffic; “socioeconomic blood circulation” programs for different social and economic systems; regular priorities updates in distribution of financial resources; “human friendly” employment strategies and policies; fostering ethics of appreciation of every human being (3.0) and every being (1.0) by individuals and socioeconomic structures (2.0).
Fostering the ethics of sustainability in society of different level leaders and the general public via education is a necessary preparation for actual change in society. Human history is full of examples when new laws and regulations which were issued by governments, or new policies and rules which were issued by business or organization’s management did not work because they were not supported by people’s ethics on a personal level.
Society does have social structures which are already doing a great deal of this work; but mass education for the understanding of principles of sustainability of consciousness will bring a better opportunity for coordination of these efforts between varieties of socioeconomic structures and make their work more effective. Churches, spiritual centers, sport clubs, health groups, medical centers, psychological help centers, government departments, job agencies, educational institutions can put their activities together for the benefit of sustainability 3.0.
The concept of sustainability of consciousness appears to be a common goal of the above mentioned socio-economic structures and the reason for the integration of different ways of the exploration of the world and different paradigms of worldviews. It means that the modern way to solve disagreements between representatives of groups with different worldviews is not fighting with each other or ignoring each other but enriching each other via finding connections between those worldviews similar to assembling pieces of puzzle for better understanding the whole picture.
The main principle of regular updates is keeping up with changes in life. The following is an example of updates which need to be done for non-discriminatory policies for different kinds of disadvantaged groups of the population. Not only traditional minority groups should not be discriminated against but any other people should not be discriminated by those groups. Not only a children’s’ self-esteems need to be protected from unsustainable behavior of teachers but teachers’ self-esteems need to be not less protected from unsustainable behavior of children. People who can really do a better job should be chosen for that job, not people who work harder on fulfilling the formal criteria for a job such a better written resume or job interview handling.
Attaining Sustainability 3.0 on the global scale will initiate attaining sustainability 2.0 and 1.0 on the global scale in a sustainable way.
The general strategy for establishing and maintaining three-level sustainability follows the pattern of a logarithmic spiral:
Prepare a base for socioeconomic changes on a personal level by fostering sustainability ethics in the entire population via education and sustainability 3.0 techniques along with sustainability 1.0 and 2.0 activities.
Update existing laws and regulations of sustainability at all three levels; develop and implement new ones.
Collect information on the effectiveness of those activities for updates on education and practice of sustainability on all three levels, then start over and do this loop over and over again.
How do we recognize which changes in society, which updates are helpful for a system, and which will eventually destroy it? We should watch for values and goals in system’s functioning. As long as those changes help to maintain a reasonable balance between obtaining a system’s own needs and serving society, this is a sustainable strategy. If those changes help for better maintaining a system but not for better or even for worse serving society they cannot be considered as sustainable. I believe that it is possible to develop a scale for the measurement of sustainability in the functioning of any system, and find limitations of sustainability of any strategy.
Summary of laws and policies needed to attain sustainability 3.0:
I A. Information traffic regulations statewide, nationwide and worldwide;
I B. Information security laws nationwide and worldwide;
II. Regulations for R- and W-strategies on environmental, socioeconomic, and personal levels, including:
II A. Updates for “human friendly” non-discriminatory policies and other social interactions regulations;
II B. Updates for regulations and strategies for “human friendly” job conditions; policies for hiring procedures and unemployment handling.
II C. Updates for and development of interpersonal interaction strategies and techniques;
III A. Human potential protection law with new strategies for social-economic resource distribution;
III B. Strategy updates for implementation of intellectual property law.
Different kinds of socio-economic structures, groups, and individuals are invited
to integrate their efforts for the attainment of sustainability 3.0:
1.Public and private educational institutions and centers, especially specialized on Global Sustainability Education; A) for educational leadership of the project; B) for the development of skills for the sustainable management of organizations, businesses, and institutions.
2.Religion and non-religion spirituality-based organizations and centers; for spiritual leadership, sustainable ethics guidance, and psychological balance techniques;
3. Psychological help and proactive health organizations/centers/ businesses; for sustainable health on body, mind, and spirit levels.
4.Organizations, centers, businesses which are interested in sustainable functioning and which can provide help for sustainable functioning;
5.Environmental sustainability centers, businesses, organizations for the sustainable planet;
6.Government branches, national and international level corporation management for creating and promoting laws and policies for the sustainable functioning of socio-economic structures and the sustainable living;
7.Any individuals and organizations who would like to contribute their time, energy, skills, abilities, or finances to the project.
The image of structure of the 3D interconnections between socio-economic layers can be found on the slides 17 and 20 of a slideshow "Sustainability of Consciousness- Sustainability 3.0" which is attached to the same-named subpage. (Sorry I cannot figure how to install it here):
Government branches
Educational institutions and centers
Environmental organizations
Organizations and businesses for socio-economic functioning of society
Spiritual centers, churches, psychological centers, health clubs for personal needs of people
Structured interconnections between layers allow to organize information flows between and within them which provides for the management of the project.
Project plan:
Attaining sustainability 3.0
a. development of new laws and policies
b. delivery of new laws and policies through the structure of layers in society; delivery of feedback of their implementation for adjustments.
c. support and delivery of educational programs, projects, and actions for the development of global sustainable consciousness. (My contributions here are Global Thinking Development Courses, Nature Connection Workshops, “Global Heart” and “Global Mind” projects; all of them can be found on this website.)
Attaining sustainability 2.0 and 1.0
Maintaining this process with sustainable adjustments when needed.
Sustainable development is about maintaining sustainable balance in changing system, so an attainment of sustainability should be followed with maintaining a system in order to keep it sustainable.
* * *