Background
The term Great Transition was first introduced by the Global Scenario Group (GSG), a faculty international body of scientists convened in 1995 by the Tellus Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute to examine the requirements for a transition to a sustainable global society. The GSG set out to describe and analyze scenarios for the future of the earth as it entered a Planetary phase of civilization. The GSG's scenario analysis resulted in a series of reports and its findings were summarized for a non-technical audience in the essay Great Transition: the Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead.
In this essay, the Global Scenario Group explains that civilization is now in a moment of transition in which "all components of culture will change in the context of a holistic shift in the structure of society and its relation to nature…transforming values and knowledge, demography and social relations, economics and governance, and technology and the environment." Out of the turbulence of transition, very different forms of global society could emerge. The choices we make over this next critical decade could set the trajectory of global development for generations to come. The Great Transition essay contends that the realization of a Great Transition world depends in part on whether those living today contest the current roles of transnational corporations and state governments (i.e., through the emergence of an authentic global citizens movement). Alternate scenarios lead to varying futures ranging from Breakdown to Policy Reform to Eco-Communalism.
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