Too Little Too Late Too Much

January, 2021

I read another one of those articles forcing thought about our collective impact on the environment. Afterward I could not help but ask myself the question: When will too little too late be too much? You can skip to the end of this opinion essay to read my answer or you can read through my reasoning first to put the answer into context. I should also point out this essay expands my thinking explained in a previous essay completed in July 2020.

Believe it or not dramatic and comprehensive change is inevitable in response to our past and future impacts upon this, our only world. On a daily basis we are told the prognosis concerning decline in the quality of natural and human systems is not good. Declines are occurring at an increasing rate and our required demonstrable change is happening too slowly. Hence the question posed above stated in another way goes as follows: Are we beyond the threshold of preventing disaster?

Reports from around the world suggest we are already courting a variety of growth and global warming induced dramatic ecological declines. The litany of examples is long indeed. I could set out a list of examples once again, but really you the reader are already familiar with the list. More important are the reasons getting us to this place in time with a confluence of serious issues. Misplaced and misguided choice and decision drivers should be our focus so we understand the causes of the current dilemmas and so we can change our ways.

With apparently unlimited resources humanity grew growth and gain oriented societies around the world gradually transitioning into the global economy of today. A great amount of finance and energy was required. Simply human societies scaled up to compete and achieve. Of course we now know resources are limited both the raw materials and the sinks where waste is deposited. Our tendency to become drunk on too much is now being identified in research as the cause of many of the ills we now experience and the findings are sobering for sure. We must change our ways of thinking and doing. Transitioning away from old habits will not be easy.

I think the title of this essay is much more than just a catchy phrasing. By doing too little now our problems are just going to become a lot worse. As time passes the windows of opportunity for change will pass by making our inevitable final attempt to correct much too late. As we continue to support past trends and practices into the future the issues will grow becoming too much to sort out. Unfortunately the growing number and scale of hurdles are rapidly becoming transition nightmares. These issues are not just about climate and ecology. Absolutely central and at the same time parallel to the proliferation of extremes in the environment are similar developments in our societies. Indeed, these societal developments it can be argued are the causes of  the environmental issues facing us. But, also the general move away from community to the individual to the nuclear undermines community resilience. If there is one societal transformation we must endeavour to realize it would be increased local community engagement and to achieve such a transformed state will require fundamental adjustment to our values, attitudes, beliefs and organizational systems. Rather than centralizing into fewer and fewer hands as a cost saving and power focusing measure, decentralization with real influence needs to be pursued. That is not to say we should abandon large scale coordination. Rather, it is to say the value of bottom up contributions needs to be recognized and encouraged. By using the whole of our human capacity to think and do to achieve collective and environmental good, we can begin to make the transitions necessary to get off this spiral into environmental and societal degradation.

Among the lessons we should be learning from our experiences with Covid-19 is we are not adequately prepared for the crises on the horizon. They will be coming at us, indeed they are already coming at us thick and fast. It will become worse. The time to act to transform was yesterday. By delaying, stalling, denying, pursuing personal gain, diminishing everyone’s contribution, attacking with disrespect our environments and cultural differences, we have made our future into a grim one. Currently some people are making a huge amount of money in this Covid-19 period while others struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent. Sharing financial windfalls would be ethically and broadly socially helpful in a political and economic system requiring disposable income. So much to be changed going forward. 

To answer my question directly and in today’s context, Joni Mitchel got it right in Big Yellow Taxi with the words, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it is gone.” When will too little too late be too much? The answer is sometime in our recent past. Now mitigation has to change into prevention and rapid transition into a new set of values to catch up on lost time and to repair the damage of decades of neglect. We are already experiencing “too much.”