Great Transition - Alternative Scenarios

Alternative Scenarios

The Global Scenario Group organized its scenarios into three categories: Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transition.

Conventional Worlds are futures that evolve gradually from today’s dominant forces of globalization: economic interdependence deepens, dominant values spread, and developing regions converge toward rich-country patterns of production and consumption. Two variations of Conventional Worlds are Market Forces, a neo-liberal vision in which powerful global actors advance the priority of economic growth, and Policy Reform, in which governments are able to harmonize economic growth with sustainable development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals.

The Group believes that if market and policy adaptations are not sufficient to blunt social polarization, environmental degradation, and economic instability, the danger of a deepening global crisis looms. Out of the turbulence some form of Barbarization scenario could emerge. One form this could take is an authoritarian Fortress World scenario, a kind of global apartheid with elites in protected enclaves and an impoverished majority outside. Another is Breakdown, where conflicts and crises spiral out of control, waves of disorder spread across countries and regions, and institutions collapse.

Great Transition scenarios are, in contrast, transformative scenarios. Their defining feature is the ascendancy of a new suite of values – human solidarity, quality of life, and respect for nature. Conventional Worlds scenarios see capitalist values maintained and only market forces and incremental policy reform trying to curb environmental degradation. Barbarization is a set of possible futures in which environmental collapse leads to an overall social collapse. The Great Transition is a pathway that finds humanity changing its relationship with the environment. It has two variants: Eco-Communalism and New Sustainability Paradigm.

Eco-Communalism is the adoption of a lifestyle that turns to non-material dimensions of fulfillment – the quality of life, the quality of human solidarity, and the quality of the earth. It is a highly localist vision favored by some environmental subcultures and is a strong theme within the anti-globalization movement.

New Sustainability Paradigm sees globalization not as a threat to be resisted, but as an opportunity for forging a new category of consciousness – a global citizenship that understands humanity's place in the web of life and its link to the fate of the earth.

The New Sustainability Paradigm endorses many of the ideals of Eco-Communalism with its plea for new human values and empowered communities. It rejects rampant consumerism, seeking improved human well-being through material sufficiency for all. It seeks a world where the quality of human knowledge, creativity, and self-realization – not the quantity of goods and services – signals development. It embraces equality, empowerment, and deep respect for nature. It recognizes plural paths to modernity, and welcomes regional diversity in expressing such values as freedom, equity, democracy, and sustainability. It champions subsidiarity, the principle that decision-making occurs at the most decentralized level possible.

The New Sustainability Paradigm seeks to shape the character of global civilization. It sees the planetary phase of civilization as an opportunity. Rather than retreat into localism, it validates global solidarity, cultural cross-fertilization and economic interdependence.