The three types of changes for a sustainable future
Or, why our current level of commitment to reduce ecological disaster is insufficient
These days in society, we are seeing an increasing number of changes towards sustainability and towards having a harmonious relationship with the environment. However, many of them can be deceptive. If we are to become truly sustainable, we have to understand which actions are effective and which are not.
To this end, I've divided the kinds of changes into three categories to better understand what really works and what doesn't.
Type I change
I define a Type I change to be a token change that appeals to emotion or that sounds good, but does relatively little to help us become more harmonious with the natural world.
For example Coca-Cola is responsible for an immense amount of plastic pollution by creating one-time use disposable plastic bottles filled with soda. A 2022 Reuters headline reads, Coca-Cola, criticized for plastic pollution, pledges 25% reusable packaging.
This is a Type I change. It does relatively little to stop the immense amount of plastic pollution such as the great pacific garbage patch, and yet it sounds good to lots of people. Type I changes abound: many forms of recycling, installing a few solar panels here and there, and eating sustainably-sourced chocolate.
Type I changes are typically the sort of changes that try to sound environmental but are designed to fit within our consumerist society.
While Type I changes can do some good, the good is minuscule in proportion to the damage done by the entire activity. The good of Coca-Cola using 25% reusable packaging is dwarfed by the amount of plastic waste they produce and the disrespectful attitude they promote.
Keep an eye out for Type I changes because they are typically used by governments, politicians, and corporations to make you think we're doing something to stop the climate crisis and ecological disasters, but if all we ever did were Type I changes, nothing would change for the better.
Of course, Type I changes are not always fundamentally bad. Sometimes they can do a little good, but they are ineffective all by themselves. A small number of people giving up meat and imported food is basically a Type I change for society, and of course this does some small amount of good.
Type I changes on the other hand can be bad when corporations use them to divert public attention from their truly destructive activities. Type I changes result in a worsening of society when they grease the wheels of unrestricted economic growth at the expense of our biosphere.
Type II change
A Type II change makes a real difference. A Type II change is one which significantly helps the ecosystem in some way, but still works within our broken consumerist system.
A typical example of a Type II change is a government setting aside a few million square kilometers as a protected ecological area. When the United States made Yellowstone National Park a protected area in 1872, that was a Type II change.
What is the difference between a Type I and a Type II change? Unlike a Type I change, a Type II change typically significantly ameliorates the tragedy of our ecological commons at the expense of short-term profits. A Type II change is harmonious with the environment, protects non-human life forms, and goes beyond the token gesture of using some recycled packaging.
In this society, we should strive for as many Type II changes as we can. Unfortunately, Type II changes are often playing catch-up with the destruction we reign on the environment because they are often solutions to problems we have created in the first place. It’s great that Brazil has set aside some Atlantic forest for protection, but that’s just touching the brakes of destruction, as only about 12% of that forest remains.
Type III change
You may have noticed that despite all our efforts at clean energy, recycling, and protecting parks, deforestation continues at an alarming rate and atmospheric CO2 levels contiue to rise rapidly:
That's where Type III changes come into play. A Type III change is a radical change that totally goes outside the boundary of our consumerist and capitalistic society.
Going back to the example of Coca-Cola, a Type III change would be to dismantle the entire Coca-Cola corporation by force and globally restrict the production of plastic one-time use bottles. A Type III change would be to form a coalition of countries that promised to use force to stop mass ecosystem destruction.
A Type III change would be to ban most forms of transport including the import and export of nonessential goods, driving to offices (mandatory work from home), etc. A Type III change would be to heavily restrict the rights of property owners and require them to keep most of their land wild for non-human plants and animals. A global agreement to make E.O. Wilson’s Half Earth Project a top priority would be a Type III change.
Type III changes are typically the kind that go against profit and sacrifice economic growth and personal consumption en mass for the sake of the biosphere.
A Type III change at times may be revolutionary. Typically, there are very few Type III changes as it stands because Type III changes go against the all-powerful capitalistic free-market.
Type III changes are the sort of things that weaken the growth economy and threaten to dismantle consumerism itself. Since there are so few examples of Type III changes, I can barely think of any examples myself. However, our society will have to agree to some Type III changes if we are to make any headway at all in the main problem.
Because Type III changes interfere with the profits of the rich and dangerous corporations such as Google, Coca-Cola, and Facebook who only promote consumerism, Type III changes are not welcome by the majority. People like Elon Musk and Sundar Pichai love their empires but in order to become more ecologically sound, their empires must fall.
Summary
I have described three types of societal changes when it comes to making society more harmonious with nature and less consumerist. These can be summarized in the following table:
Type II changes are good and we should keep striving for them. But, at some point, if we are to return to a more sustainable future, we will have to stop living in the world of only Type I and Type II changes and bring down our world of unfettered economic growth with Type III changes.
This does not mean chaos or a return to barbaric times. It can be a controlled burn into a peaceful time, characterized by a more harmonious existence with nature. It can still involve markets, but markets in the future must be regulated heavily by custom that places the health of the biosphere above profits in all circumstances. It is probably not possible to reach such a stage by mere incremental Type II changes, which is why I defined Type III changes.
Of course, such a transition will still be uncomfortable for many people who are addicted to endless consumption.
Whether we do it with relatively little pain or or whether the planet does it for us with unstoppable climate disaster and a lot of pain is up to us.