The Return of the Lorax

“At the far end of town, where the griggle grass grows, and the wind smells snow and sour when it blows, and no birds ever sing except for old crows, is the street of the lifted Lorax.” This is the opening line of Dr. Seuss’s book The Lorax. Dr. Seuss goes on to tell a tale of a society overrun by society and without a Truffula Tree in sight. Dr. Seuss’s story is not a happy one, but a fable with an obvious environmental message. Dr. Seuss painted a sad picture of the future, but in the end, the Once-ler gives the little boy the very last Truffula Tree seed for him to plant and take care of, potentially regrowing the forest and resulting in the Lorax’s return. This is where I will pick up.  I would like to think of myself as a positive realist. I am not naïve, but unlike a pessimist, I have hope for the future—I do not believe that we are doomed to failure. In order for me to envision a sustainable future I know that I will have to think in terms of “best case scenario.” I think that some key characteristics that will define my vision have been stressed in some of my previous blog posts, they will include: complete transparency, replacing synthetics and organics with sustainable materials, and replenished resources. Habitual beliefs (aka lies) that I will have to overcome might include doubting the possibility of my vision occurring and doubting that the solutions I picture would actually work. In order to believe my vision I will have to believe that anything is possible and if you dream it you can achieve it. In order to communicate my vision clearly I want to paint a picture of a world so colorful and promising that it seems fantastical. Taking after Dr. Seuss, but with a happy story to share, I plan to tell a story. I don’t want to just discuss the future, I want to show it to the reader. A mental mode that will be required to create my future is that if you believe it you can achieve it. I think this is the bottom line, if our future is going to change we are going to have to see what we want it to look like and then make it look like that.

From the readings this week I picked up some new tips and information to spur me on to visioneer. In Thinking Ahead, Tom Lombardo introduced psychotherapy to me. He explained what it is (opening the mind to future possibilities and raising one’s perceived self-efficacy in realizing positive possibilities) and the discussed the goals: helping people to see that there are alternatives to negative future scenarios by involving clients to set new goals, articulate plans, and monitor follow-through on these plans. Lombardo writes that “one thing is certain: the future is the only reality that we can actually do anything about…the future is a vast arena of possibilities—and the only arena of existence over which we have any practical influence or control.”

In Limiting Consumption, Alan Durning writes that it is not possible for the entire population of the world to live by the American lifestyle. We are a wasteful people, especially for being some of the most educated people in the world. Durning goes on to acknowledge that the goal of creating a sustainable culture (a culture of permanence) is a challenge that will last several generations. So flash forward several generations (to the return of the Lorax), and that is where my vision will be. “Living by sufficiency rather than excess offers a return to a true materialism that does not just care about things but cares for them.”

Visioneering probably provided the most direction for what visioneering is. Joon Kim and Taikan Oki write that visioneering for problem solving in social-ecological systems (SES) requires the integration of three processes: vehement envisioning of the world works and how we want it to be, systematic analysis conforming to the vision, and implementation appropriate the vision. They also offer definitions of sustainability that reflect a paradigm shift like: use of environment of resources to meet needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, process that is farseeing enough, flexible enough and wide enough, and the possibility that human and other life will flourish on Earth forever. I learned that my goal is to visioneer (engineer a clear vision) as opposed to simply visioning (imagining).