Rough road to a sustainable future

In relation to our article The situation – and why we can’t fix it

Chris Young, Surrey Hills, VIC, Feb 10, 2025

Hope in a crisis is the drowning man’s straw: people grasp it, however unlikely it may seem, and cling to it. So it is with the climate crisis. We have scientists arguing powerfully, passionately, for the urgent action that we still need to preserve a liveable Earth. This gives hope, in the face of ever-worsening expectations.

Trainer argues that those hopes are doomed, unable to overcome the greed of capitalism before capitalism itself collapses under its own internal contradictions. He pins his hopes, instead, on small, self-sufficient, co-operative groups. The approach he advocates for — he calls it The Simpler Way — may provide a sustainable approach to living for a much-reduced population one day. It could be valuable to sow the seeds of this possibility now.

My hope remains that realisation will dawn on enough people, in enough countries, to bring about global change to avoid climate calamity. My expectation, however, is, like Trainer’s, that this will not happen: that tipping points will breach, that we’ll see Trainer’s forecast societal collapse. If this eventuates, sustainable communities would surely come under attack from the starving hordes ill-prepared for foreseeable calamity. The road to Trainer’s “simpler way” is likely to be rough.