Culture and its link to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals, link to the UN-page) has been underused as a topic (as J. Pascal, St. Wyber, E. Yildirim) stress in there article. But culture is not just an enabling factor it also one of the most blocking factors to the SDGs. Of course it can be said that socioeconomic structure of the Western (OECD-) countries is not related to their culture, this is of course a matter of definition, what is "culture", is the economy also part of the culture? If yes, then the enabling and blocking factors shed a new light to the SDGs.
This Blog argues that the lifestyle of the industrialized (OECD) countries that is responsible for global warming (BBC: How many Earth do we need?). The fact that mass-consumption in the OECD-societies make big difference, which is causing the global warming is indeed indisputable. What can and should be argued about is the big question. If mass consumption is causing the global warming, why not just stop mass consumption? But fortunately no single person or group has the power to do this. The Western socio-political system is not easy to transform and the reason for this is it enoumous complexity. The ultimate social scientist for the description of complexity, Niklas Luhmann already stated the difficulty of an anticipated change for the whole (world-)society. The society is changing and evolving constantly, but it is very difficult to change the society in an intended direction. The reason for this due to Luhmann (1986/1989) are the various functional systems, which are responsible for the functioning of the society. Science, Economy, Politics, Medicine and Education are distinct functional systems and no functional system alone, can direct the whole society. Not even Politics, not even Economics. Only co actions between different functional systems can change the society as whole. These co actions are very different to achieve. That is why the reaction of societies are taking so long. The facts of climate change are known since the 1980. At this time only a minority in the OECD-countries was protesting and the facts were spreading more and more, especially in the "Science" functional system, which is showing the world the relevant data. Also the political and economic functional system reacted: Solar energy got cheaper ("climate change project" with more information) and the Kyoto protocol was an important step for international cooperation (see the Guardian article of 2012 for some results). So something was and is happening. But on the other side the data show, that it is not enough, the climate is changing, the earth is getting warmer and warmer, and also other ecological data are bad and getting worse (the data from Raworth 2017, can be downloaded as pdf here).
Only a cultural change on a global scale could prevent a disaster. This is not going to happen on time. There a changes, important changes, but they are not sufficient and it unlikely that this global change is happening on time. But that does not mean to do nothing! The disaster is already there, but it is still time to build resilience, which is also a change, is following the same rules as all changes. It is most effective if several functional systems are involved, if there is a cross fertilization as this article in Ecology & Society states. A culture of resilience has to emerge and of course language is in the center of it.
Raworth, Kate (2017), Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Vermont: White River Junction.
This Blog argues that the lifestyle of the industrialized (OECD) countries that is responsible for global warming (BBC: How many Earth do we need?). The fact that mass-consumption in the OECD-societies make big difference, which is causing the global warming is indeed indisputable. What can and should be argued about is the big question. If mass consumption is causing the global warming, why not just stop mass consumption? But fortunately no single person or group has the power to do this. The Western socio-political system is not easy to transform and the reason for this is it enoumous complexity. The ultimate social scientist for the description of complexity, Niklas Luhmann already stated the difficulty of an anticipated change for the whole (world-)society. The society is changing and evolving constantly, but it is very difficult to change the society in an intended direction. The reason for this due to Luhmann (1986/1989) are the various functional systems, which are responsible for the functioning of the society. Science, Economy, Politics, Medicine and Education are distinct functional systems and no functional system alone, can direct the whole society. Not even Politics, not even Economics. Only co actions between different functional systems can change the society as whole. These co actions are very different to achieve. That is why the reaction of societies are taking so long. The facts of climate change are known since the 1980. At this time only a minority in the OECD-countries was protesting and the facts were spreading more and more, especially in the "Science" functional system, which is showing the world the relevant data. Also the political and economic functional system reacted: Solar energy got cheaper ("climate change project" with more information) and the Kyoto protocol was an important step for international cooperation (see the Guardian article of 2012 for some results). So something was and is happening. But on the other side the data show, that it is not enough, the climate is changing, the earth is getting warmer and warmer, and also other ecological data are bad and getting worse (the data from Raworth 2017, can be downloaded as pdf here).
Only a cultural change on a global scale could prevent a disaster. This is not going to happen on time. There a changes, important changes, but they are not sufficient and it unlikely that this global change is happening on time. But that does not mean to do nothing! The disaster is already there, but it is still time to build resilience, which is also a change, is following the same rules as all changes. It is most effective if several functional systems are involved, if there is a cross fertilization as this article in Ecology & Society states. A culture of resilience has to emerge and of course language is in the center of it.
(book) References
Luhmann, Niklas (1989), Ecologicial Communication, translation of "Oekologische Kommunikation" (German original 1986), by J. Bednarz Jr., University of Chicago Press Raworth, Kate (2017), Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Vermont: White River Junction.
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