Transformation for Earth System Governance

ABSTRACT

Our planetary system is threatened by accelerating human impacts from a materialistic economy out of control. Governance failures due to a lack of political will result from sovereign nations and multinational corporations catering to short-term material benefits for the few, not the common good of all. There is no global governance of the Earth system being pushed far beyond its boundaries. The science of complex systems can generate models that warn of catastrophes to come, but also alternative ways to organise society sustainably through cooperation and justice within planetary limits. Wealth needs to be returned to its utility function, not an end in itself, and the economy given a social responsibility in harmony with nature. Such a fundamental transformation in society towards planetary citizenship with institutions of Earth system governance at multiple levels, reflecting a higher human purpose and spiritual values, can help us to emerge from the disintegration now facing us.

KEY WORDS

systems science, economy, environmental governance, social organisation, higher human purpose, cooperation, community, justice, values

Introduction

Our amazing and beautiful planet, that has seen the creation of life and ultimately the emergence of human beings, is now in danger from that very creation. We have short-circuited the laws of nature, and are rapidly devastating our Earthly home. Despite all our progress in philosophy, in science and technology, in culture and the arts, we seem bent on our own destruction. With the contributions of many great thinkers, the highest motivations of civil society organisations, and the amazing social experiments around the world, we know what to do, but there is generally what is termed a failure of political will, and therefore of governance. Underlying this is a structural problem, with many of the institutions of our society, both political and economic, created for short-term selfish benefits rather than the common good. The best efforts in the world are more than neutralized by forces in the other direction. This essay explores the roots of this dilemma from multiple perspectives, and proposes ways forward before it is too late.

A systems perspective

First, let us look at this ball of matter in space, Earth, from a systems perspective. The planet is covered by a thin layer of solids, liquids and gasses containing the biosphere, which is home to all life. Once primitive photosynthetic life emerged, it altered the environment to make it even more suitable for life, removing excess carbon from the atmosphere and adding oxygen to make animal life possible, while moderating the greenhouse effect. Life occurs in great diversity all around the planet, and is interconnected in many ways to form a single planetary ecosystem united by winds and currents, flows of energy and materials, interactions between multiple forms of life from bacteria to mammals, with many homeostatic mechanisms to keep all this in dynamic balance. There have been shocks and mass extinctions in the past, but each time the system has recovered and improved even further.

This Earth System is our amazing inheritance that we are still far from understanding completely. Evolution has produced millions of species of plants and animals, not to mention the thriving microbial life with an unbelievable diversity that genetic techniques and DNA analysis are only beginning to reveal, forming complex ecosystems with thousands of species living in close cooperation and reciprocity.

I chose as a young scientist to study one of the most complex ecosystems, the coral reef, to try to understand unity in diversity in nature (Dahl et al.1974). With a team of 80 specialists, we tried to develop a conceptual model of the coral reef ecosystem, how it functions to capture energy from the sun and transfer it within the system so efficiently, to recycle scarce materials in a resource-poor environment, to support thousands of species each with its own role in the system no matter how apparently insignificant, to be resilient in the face of inevitable shocks, and to construct its own environment more complex than a city, forming structures along thousands of kilometres of coastline at or near the ocean surface where conditions are right, built on layers of skeletons that can be more than a kilometre in thickness. There is no central control or direction, but close integration and flows of materials and information that enable an organic and dynamic unity among all the system components. Such examples in nature can serve as models for how we can create human systems able to form an ever-advancing civilisation. However today, with climate change raising ocean temperatures, and carbon dioxide dissolving in the water to make carbonic acid, coral reefs around the world are bleaching and dying. This marvel of nature may be the first major ecosystem to be driven to extinction by human impacts.

This is only one example of the heritage nature has bequeathed to us, in which so many species including us are capable of thriving at the level of the whole planet. Every part is more-or-less dependent on every other, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. There are, for example, three global energy systems. Solar radiation heats the planet in a thermal system, maintaining temperatures suitable for life. Sunlight also powers the photosynthetic system of plants, where light energy is converted to the chemical energy upon which all life depends to function. Much less significant is geothermal energy from radioactive decay within the planet, which we see in volcanic eruptions and ocean bottom hydrothermal vents, and have domesticated in nuclear power plants. Similarly, there are chemical cycles of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and many others that function in part at the planetary level and have been kept in balance by physical and biological processes. Today we have invented many new substances for the benefit of our civilisation that are now so abundant that they have planetary impacts, such as plastics, antibiotics, pesticides, fertilisers, and many others that are increasingly impacting and unbalancing planetary systems in ways that we are only beginning to discover.

Risks to the Earth System

Today there is an invasive species, Homo sapiens, that is putting all this at risk. Our numbers and our consumption of resources have multiplied beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of the Earth, living off the planet’s capital rather than the resource interest, and going far beyond six of nine scientifically-defined planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2023). With modern technologies we can transform the surface at an ever-expanding rate, creating impacts so remarkable that this is being called the Anthropocene epoch. We have become a globalised human society, linked by communications, transport and trade, but with what could best be described as global anarchy. There is little or no effective global governance corresponding to our impacts on the Earth system.

Institutionalised irresponsibility

It may help to look more closely at the governance issue, which could well be described as institutionalised irresponsibility. We have inherited a system of governance based on national sovereignty, from a time some centuries ago when that was a reasonable scale of human organisation. In this governance paradigm, each nation can do what it wants within its own borders, with no right of interference from outside even if its actions represent a threat beyond its borders. Today each country is free to choose what international norms or principles it will accept, and how it will apply them. National sovereignty is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter. Even the theoretical power of the Security Council to intervene to maintain the peace is neutralized by the veto of the five permanent members. Most international agreements operate by consensus, which means the lowest common denominator, and there is nothing to stop a country from withdrawing if that is in its perceived self-interest.

Then there is the way much economic activity is structured in corporations and similar business entities, with legal charters that give priority to their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. Profit is all-important, and the ends often justify any means. Beyond some national legislation that they can generally avoid, they accept no social or environmental responsibilities, which are seen as externalities for someone else to worry about. They have no social purpose to improve society or human well-being. Even advanced technologies are pursued primarily for profit. Whole industries are built around arms and weapons of destruction, tobacco and alcohol with addictive health impacts, gambling, luxury goods, fast fashion, fast food and other pillars of the consumer society that are physically, socially and environmentally harmful. Now we have the new information technologies and social media carefully designed to be similarly addictive, with psychological, social and even political impacts only now being discovered. In this system, wealth and power become increasingly concentrated, with mergers creating monopolies and eliminating anything resembling a free market, and private institutions more powerful than most governments doing whatever is in their own short-term interest. They have carefully avoided, if not blocked, any kind of governance while they rape the planet of its natural resources, exploit workers and damage human health.

It is no wonder that there is a lack of political will, which economic actors have done much to block. Corruption is rife. Powerful lobbies defend corporate and political interests. Wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top, the middle classes see no benefit from economic growth, and half the world population struggles to meet basic needs. The result today is war and conflict, persistent poverty and growing inequality, failures of human rights, stubborn gender inequality, racism, factionalism, nationalism, hatred, and the triple environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Governments are struggling to maintain some semblance of stability if not progress, and are yielding more and more to populist pressures, autocratic leaders, if not terrorist movements. People are suffering everywhere. The global system is increasingly vulnerable, as if there were a race between the climate catastrophe already happening, the probable burst of the debt bubble with economic collapse, the next pandemic, and a third world war with a nuclear holocaust.

Governance failures

Since failures of governance are a large part of the problems with the Earth system, can a systems perspective help us to design a framework and identify some principles for new models of governance? In a unified world system, where it is clear that we are one human family, we need to develop an awareness of our planetary citizenship belonging to one global homeland. Human diversity should be seen as a source of richness, not division. National attachments are secondary. Obviously, we need multilevel governance at the scales of the system as it exists today, with an evident gap in global governance, perhaps too much power at the national level, and insufficient subsidiarity with a need for strengthened approaches to local governance closest to many problems where the suffering is most evident.

The United Nations Charter dates from 1945 and has never been revised, despite provision to do so in Article 109. Coming out of World War II, the first priority was to ensure peace and security so that there would be no more wars. The mechanisms are there, but the political compromise of 1945 to get acceptance by the victorious powers gave us the five permanent members of the Security Council with a veto, and the wars of today show the failure of this system. Eliminating this fatal flaw must be a priority for UN reform. Since such reform is also subject to the veto, it will be more reasonable to simply adopt a Second UN Charter by the great majority of states, to bring global governance into the 21st century (Lopez-Claros et al. 2021; Global Governance Forum 2023, 2024). Those who resist will eventually have to catch up.

Economic and social development is the second pillar of the UN, and while much progress has been made, and there are effective specialized agencies in the UN addressing many critical problems in the global system, poverty is still far from eliminated, extremes of wealth and poverty are increasing, and the great wealth created by the world economy has not been redistributed effectively, with development assistance and loans to poor countries more than offset by resource extraction, debt repayments and net wealth transfers from poor to rich countries.

Human rights were added as a third pillar of the UN with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Again, while there has been great progress, parts of the world are going backwards, prejudices are still deeply rooted, and reactionary forces are becoming stronger.

Need for Environmental governance

What is missing in the UN Charter is any mention of the environment. This was not an obvious issue in 1945, but today it is a critical global priority, and governance of the Earth System as a whole should become the fourth pillar of the United Nations, of equal importance with peace and security, economic and social development, and human rights (HLAB 2023). This could include an Earth System Council alongside the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and the Human Rights Council. The UN General Assembly of states, alongside a new Parliamentary Assembly of peoples, would become the supreme legislative body.

The recent definition by science of nine planetary boundaries shows that we have already overshot six of them with enormous risks ahead (Richardson et al. 2023; Rockström et al. 2023). The rapid acceleration of climate change beyond most scientific predictions shows how urgent this is, with the destruction of biodiversity and major ecosystems like coral reefs and tropical rainforests close behind. The present approaches to environmental governance through multilateral environmental agreements and conventions is fragmented and largely ineffective due to the consensus rule and the voluntary nature of national commitments. Again, these are intergovernmental agreements, when most of the damaging activities are caused by corporations, public or private, to which these commitments do not directly apply. The science is clear and the technologies exist. What is missing is a mechanism of global environmental governance, perhaps a Global Environment Agency, able to propose binding legislation with respect to planetary boundaries, and to negotiate the equitable sharing of responsibilities to return to and remain within those boundaries, based on historical contributions, ability to pay and capacity to implement (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and Dahl 2021). Such legislation should apply to all actors, whether governments, corporations or individuals.

Once such a mechanism is in place, it would be able to review all the existing global legislation on environment, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Conventions on Biological Diversity and on Desertification, the chemicals conventions, various nature conservation conventions, and others, and retaining all that has been learned and accomplished, gradually combine them into coherent global environmental legislation with stronger powers of implementation. An appropriate source of reliable funding, such as global taxes on environmentally-damaging activities, fines for breaking global environmental laws, and assessed contributions from governments, would need to be established.

One difference between environmental governance and the other United Nations responsibilities is that it can be based largely on science. Planetary boundaries are defined scientifically. The mechanisms through which human activities impact the environment and our health and well-being are largely known and our understanding is being continually refined and perfected. Governance decisions can therefore be based on a concrete scientific reality that cannot easily be denied on political or ideological grounds. The planet is telling us that it is in great difficulty, threatening our future and that of succeeding generations. We must listen to it and respond accordingly.

Scientific advice

This therefore requires that global environmental governance be supported by an effective scientific advisory process. The Earth system is an integrated whole, with every part influencing and depending on every other part, with complex dynamic interactions maintaining an equilibrium that has evolved and been perfected over millions of years, just like the coral reef ecosystem on a planetary scale. To understand and monitor this system requires integrated scientific assessments, well beyond the existing issue-based assessments for climate change (IPCC), biodiversity (IPBES), chemicals and other environmental challenges. We need to understand the state of and change in each resource and system process maintaining the planetary environment, and how they interact with our human system in its economic and social dimensions. An International Panel on Earth System Science, or Science-Policy-Action Network, including the natural and social sciences as well as Indigenous knowledge could provide this integrated overview. As the planet is changing rapidly, this scientific assessment needs to occur in near-real-time, able to give early warning of thresholds and tipping points requiring immediate corrective action.

The assessment process will need to be supported by multiple systems of observation, which modern technologies make possible. Remote sensing by satellites can provide near-real-time data on the whole planet, not only with imagery of land cover and vegetation, but also weather, temperature, release of gases and pollutants, and many other processes. There are extensive networks for surface observations of many kinds. The data can be processed and assembled relatively quickly, artificial intelligence can highlight significant changes, and computer modelling can provide projections and scenarios of alternative futures depending on the actions to be taken. Professional scientific work can be supplemented by citizen science, where people provide their own local observations with potential coverage far beyond what can be done directly by scientists. There is also the extensive wisdom of Indigenous peoples based on many generations of living within and observing their environments that is compatible with and often goes far beyond the understanding of modern science.

New models of governance

The only way to reverse the continuing deterioration of the planetary environment will be to create a system of effective planetary governance at the scale of our global impacts, as described above (Dahl 2024). To make such a transition will require more than just creating the necessary institutions. We must rethink the very purpose of governance itself and the kind of society it can enable to evolve. Here, systems science and the examples of systems in nature can suggest ways forward. They can help us to question the assumptions upon which our present materialistic society is based: that humans are naturally selfish and aggressive, striving to maximise their own benefit at the expense of others; that life is a zero-sum game where there are always winners and losers; that poverty is inevitable and there is no point in helping the poor while we honour the rich and powerful; that what is important is the here-and-now and the future will take care of itself. These assumptions arose in the nineteenth century to justify colonialism and slavery. They are contrary to the values of most religions and the example of many indigenous peoples and other communities that have flourished for centuries in solidarity and compassion. We are free to abandon these false assumptions, to choose the future we want and to determine the effort required to get there.

What has changed is the scale at which social organization has to operate. In local communities where everyone knows everyone else, cooperation and reciprocity are seen as immediately advantageous. You help someone in difficulty, and they will in turn help you when you have a problem. To operate at larger scales, these values need to be incorporated in some world-view or social perspective that is generally accepted and transmitted through education. Today, the perspective needed is of planetary citizenship, that the Earth is one country and all humanity its citizens. All our lesser identities that make up human diversity are valuable but should be subordinated to this overriding reality.

Such a perspective makes justice and equity fundamental values for social organisation and environmental governance. Planetary science is giving us a new definition of justice. Every human being should be entitled to a healthy and sustainable environment that provides for essential needs and reduces physical suffering as far as possible. The UN accepts this as a fundamental human right. Today’s environmental crises are producing violent storms, extreme heat, massive wildfires, drought, flooding, crop failures, water shortages, desertification, disease, food insecurity, famine, forced migration, and many other disruptions with greatest impacts on the poorest and least able to respond. Since those crises are the consequence of our own actions, especially of the wealthiest parts of the global population, in causing climate change and degrading the planet, this is a clear injustice.

Recent research has now demonstrated the justice dimensions of crossing planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2023; Obura 2024). It is the poorest regions and populations that are the most vulnerable and are already suffering the most without the means to protect themselves. Today’s climate and environmental disasters have been caused by the lifestyles and resource consumption of the affluent, who could most easily have done differently, and who, in exploiting and monopolizing the major share of the planet’s natural resources in today’s economic colonialism, have prevented the poor from developing, trapping them in poverty. Unacceptable limits of suffering are often reached by the poor well before limits are reached at the global level. A ‘just’ limit from climate change has already been crossed in the last decade, as demonstrated by millions of people presently impacted by climate-related hazards. The accelerating rise in sea level from global heating is already condemning some small island states to disappear in coming decades, with all that that implies in loss of nationality and cultural identity. Where will the many millions of displaced people go, and who will welcome them? With our failure to respond in time, we must already prepare for increasing disintegration and breakdown.

What is needed is multilevel environmental governance at all the scales of the Earth system. Since people are first impacted at the local level in their communities and local ecosystems, priority should be given to the community level of governance where problems can be identified in reading the local reality and immediate action taken by consensus.

Some levels of governance should be adapted to the geographic and environmental realities of resources and processes regardless of the political boundaries defined by present nation states. A river basin is connected by shared ecosystems and the flow of water through it, requiring coherent management at that scale. A forest ecoregion will have specific needs across its whole area. An island is a bounded system with geographic and functional limits to be respected. Migratory species require management over their full range of movement. As noted above, there are an increasing number of processes and resources that are planetary in scope and need to be protected, restored and managed with effective mechanisms of global environmental governance.

Return to a systems perspective

The science of complex systems can give us guidelines for more effective human systems of governance based on cooperation and reciprocity, justice and equity. As noted above, an efficient system maintains a dynamic state of balance, with each component contributing some role or service and receiving its share of benefits, demonstrating emergent properties and complex relationships. There are generally multiple levels of systems, with large-scale organization linking many systems built of other nested systems, improving efficiency at different levels of functioning.

A coral reef ecosystem, as we saw above, consists of thousands of species each contributing in some way to the high productivity, efficiency and resilience of the whole, with high levels of symbiosis, cooperation and reciprocity. It builds its own environment, captures solar energy efficiently, recycles scarce materials, and maximises total productivity. In the natural world, diversity is the dynamic driver for greater systems complexity, integration, efficiency and resilience. Through long processes of evolution, and both individual and group selection, interactions are selected for that enhance the interrelationships beneficial for all concerned. The greater the number of potential interactions among diverse entities, the greater the capacity of the system to evolve higher levels of complexity. What works in nature can also inspire human society.

The information in complex systems and the rules by which they function are coded differently as the layers of complexity increase. Physical laws determine how the sub-atomic entities of the quantum realm create atomic matter as we know it. Chemical interactions are determined by the atomic structure of each element. At the biological level, information is coded in DNA defining the development and reproduction of organisms and ecological interactions. Today’s information systems are coded in the detailed instructions of computer programmes. In human systems, the coding can be in cultures, religions, laws and ultimately values that determine how people relate to each other. We can choose the basic rules that define our human system. If they are maladapted, we are free to change them.

An inefficient system, perhaps where a few components dominate and exploit other components, or where environmental conditions or external resources have changed so far that the system is upset beyond normal variation, can be driven to collapse. When a system gets severely out of balance, overshoot and collapse are the normal response. If a system becomes too rigid and inflexible, fails to respect resource limits, is unable to innovate in changing conditions, collapse is a mechanism to sweep away obstacles to change and to allow evolution to proceed.

The potential collapse of our Western civilisation founded in materialism, selfish assumptions about human nature, and the myth of endless growth, has been widely discussed. Already in 1972, the report to the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth, and subsequent editions, used computer modelling to predict the collapse of civilisation by about now in the 21st century as growth and pollution overshot planetary resource limits (Meadows et al. 1972, 1992, 2004). Other experts in complex systems followed with similar predictions (Homer-Dixon 2006; MacKenzie 2008, 2012; Turchin 2008, 2010, 2016; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2013; Diamond 2005, 2019), and the Club of Rome returned to the topic 50 years later (Dixson-Declève et al. 2022).

On the positive side, modelling and scenarios can also explore what could be an efficient social and economic system with all contributing to its success, and meeting the needs of all peoples with equity, which might, in human terms, be a definition of justice. Complex systems science can help to reveal how well a community or society approaches the ideal and where there are inefficiencies or errors to be corrected. One clear correction needed is to integrate natural systems and the human system in a larger planetary framework of human and natural well-being and sustainability. It is no accident that many of the most creative proposals for addressing the problems of the world today come from systems thinkers, such as the Club of Rome (Dixson-Declève et al. 2022).

Values for governance

Beyond the multiple scales of governance, there is a more fundamental level that must underlie effective governance: the definition of its social purpose and the values on which it is founded. This is where justice and equity can find practical expression. Donella Meadows led the team that produced the first computer-generated scenarios of the global system for the Club of Rome more than half a century ago, demonstrating the limits to growth and the danger of overshoot and collapse (Meadows et al. 1972, 1992, 2004). Based on this experience, she explored the best places to intervene in a system, with values as the most effective leverage point. Rising up the pyramid, the fourth from the top is the power to evolve or self-organize, as we see in complex evolving systems. Above that are the goals of the system, and next to the top is the paradigm of values out of which the system arises, which is where most system interventions reach their limit. Beyond even this is the power to transcend paradigms for a millennium, such as by founding a new religion (Meadows 1999). It is clear today that we need a values shift and paradigm change, perhaps even a new religion, for our survival.

In exploring a complex system, it is not just the number of different entities and their distinct qualities, but how they interact, that is important. Will they simply fight until one comes out the winner, or do they have a common purpose, with complementary functions, each contributing to the well-being and productivity of the whole? How do they communicate and share information, and what values are reflected in system behaviour? Is the system more than the sum of the parts, and has it evolved higher levels of complexity and efficiency? Systems thinking is a useful tool to understand human realities that otherwise may seem too complex to comprehend.

The dominant economic paradigm today is materialistic, defining well-being only in material terms, and wealth creation as the ultimate measure with indicators such as GDP. The result is a consumer society where happiness is defined by what you own or consume while following the latest fashions and gadgets sold through intensive advertising, all produced by corporations maximising their profits. Yet there is no correlation between increasing wealth and happiness once basic needs are met. We need to ask if there is a higher human purpose than material satisfaction.

Human fulfilment goes far beyond the physical side of life, as demonstrated by civilisations and Indigenous cultures flourishing through the pursuit of science, the cultivation of arts, the deepening of human relationships, the interplay of nature with our emotions, and the satisfaction that comes from altruistic acts of service. All religions have defined a higher human spiritual purpose, and even an existence beyond our physical body, sometimes called a soul, that has an afterlife beyond death. The purpose of religion could then be defined as happiness in the afterlife and civilization and the refinement of character in this life (Abdu’l-Bahá 1875). Our physical existence then has as its ultimate purpose the cultivation of human spiritual attributes, expressed through selfless love, humility, trustworthiness, and other emergent properties of a human life well lived. These are also the values that empower communities and societies to advance in their organisation and collective performance as complex ever-evolving systems. Historians have demonstrated that the great civilisations have arisen in part through the cohesion that comes from shared religious values (Turchin 2016).

To support this in a governance context, we need to select alternative indicators of human progress and well-being that reflect this higher purpose and are founded in other world-views than that of Western materialism (Dahl 2022). Bhutan has long done this with its Gross National Happiness (Bhutan 2022), and a number of countries are now using well-being indicators, some based on the alternative value systems of Indigenous cultures, as in Vanuatu and New Zealand (Vanuatu NSO 2021; New Zealand n.d.; McMeeking et al. 2019).

By breaking free from the dominant Western philosophy and materialistic paradigm and opening to the many other world-views that are in fact preponderant in the global population, we create a whole new systems perspective more in harmony with the need for a sustainable civilization within planetary limits, and we can define the multiple dimensions of the transformation needed to get from here to there.

Towards a sustainable transition

A sustainable transition away from our disintegrating material civilisation towards a better future requires that we connect material, social and spiritual progress in a comprehensive systems perspective. The Club of Rome has called for five extraordinary turnarounds in transformational economics to avoid economic and social collapse: eliminate poverty, reduce inequality, empower women, transform food systems, and turn around the energy system (Dixson-Declève et al. 2022).

It is clear that putting the world on more ecologically sustainable foundations requires a fundamental transformation of the global economic order. Profit and amassing material wealth by a few are driving social disintegration. We need other definitions of progress, development and prosperity that put both people and the planet at the centre.

The over-emphasis on economics as our central focus has produced corrosive materialism among the wealthy, and persistent poverty for a majority of the world population. It has ignored the social and spiritual capacities that are also inherent in human nature. Development should really focus on cultivating the potentialities in human consciousness which are without limit. The design principles for a new values-based economic model would aim for a dynamic, just and thriving social order, that is strongly altruistic and cooperative in nature, provides meaningful employment, and helps to eradicate poverty in the world (Bahá'í International Community 1998).

This means rethinking our approach to wealth, which should be applied with justice. The individual is not just a self-interested economic unit striving for an ever-greater share of the world's material resources, but should see economic life as an opportunity for the expression of honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, generosity, and other qualities of the spirit. The accumulation of wealth should not be an end in itself, as the central purpose of an individual, an enterprise or society as a whole, but a means to higher ends. True wealth creation comes from agriculture, crafts and arts, commerce and industry, and service to others. The aim should be to make everyone wealthy. The wealth so created should be used to do good, such as promoting knowledge and education, innovation and industry. The collective wealth of a society should be the means for providing people with basic necessities, fostering social progress and welfare, and contributing to an advancing world civilization. These concepts provide a whole new way of defining the purpose of a business entity such as a multinational corporation, and which should be at the heart of every corporate charter.

The financial system of today is out of control and out of touch with humanity, just serving the wealthy and powerful. The concept of wealth generating more wealth through investment for individual or corporate benefit has little place from the systems perspective of a higher human purpose, where work as a form of service is an obligation for everyone as an instrument for refinement of character and spiritual growth. Moderate interest may be reasonable, but today’s financial system of stock markets, financial instruments, speculation, manipulation, corruption, exploitation and ever-increasing debt is irrelevant to the productive economy and need not be part of our economic future.

Governance with justice can be financed by a graduated income tax of up to 50 percent of revenue above expenses, with a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate extreme poverty. This could be implemented first at the community level to finance education, healthcare and social security, with any excess going to the national treasury. Global governance could be supported by a voluntary contribution of one fifth of any increase in individual wealth after basic needs are met. Institutions of governance intending to serve the common good will be well placed to allocate finance to all the economic activities and innovations that further these ends, complemented by philanthropic contributions from all those with the means to help others. These principles inspired by the Bahá’í writings can provide the framework for a local, national and global economy that empowers both system progress and individual fulfilment.

A cooperation economy

Beyond rethinking a corporate social purpose, we also need to develop the collective concept of a cooperation economy in which each entity consults with the others to strengthen solidarity in achieving the social purpose of wealth creation and collective prosperity. Such an economy based on cooperation and reciprocity would even increase economic productivity and human well-being by avoiding all the losses from competition. Complex systems science can give a more objective understanding of economic potentials of all the potential actors. Furthermore, since the economy has globalised, so must its integration and regulation to create a level playing field in the common interest.

What values are needed to accompany such a fundamental transition? Cooperation is the principle that governs the functioning of a system. It results in a civilisation that emerges from the interactions among closely integrated, diverse entities whose purpose is more that ensuring their own existence. What humanity needs today is cooperation and reciprocity, fellowship and solidarity. We need to rise above the old competitive struggle for power between individuals, communities and institutions. Acknowledging that they all have a higher social and spiritual purpose lays the foundation for such a transformation.

On this basis, we can imagine an efficient economic and social system in which all the component elements are in a dynamic state of balance, where each component receives its optimal share of benefits while performing its service or role efficiently. Without any leadership or hierarchy, the system can evolve increasing complexity and higher total productivity, demonstrating emergent properties and higher levels of relationships. Among the needed transformations in the business sector would be profit sharing with all the workers, moderation in executive salaries, and aiming for the optimal size of an enterprise or activity rather than endless growth and monopolies.

One question that needs to be addressed is the distinction between resources that can be developed for profit, and those that should rather be seen as a human right to which everyone has access regardless of ability to pay. Water, for example, is essential to human life, and should perhaps be available in necessary quantities as a public service. Knowledge and information, unlike material resources, increase in value the more they are shared. Science, art, culture, values and other forms of information do not have physical limits and can grow forever. They are essential to the definition and operation of any human system. If the knowledge and information that define the system are declared "intellectual property" and privatised for profit, this creates a monopoly position, allowing the owner to out-compete others, and restricting access only to the wealthy who can afford to buy it. On the contrary, the aim of innovation and creation should be to benefit everyone, being of service to the whole system.

What should be clear from the above is that we need more than a transformation in the economic paradigm and the institutions of society, but also in each individual, in keeping with our higher human purpose as part of one human family. Each individual human needs to be educated to be transformed from a self-centred individualist wanting immediate physical gratification to a humble, selfless servant building unity out of love. This is and has always been the fundamental purpose of religion. Religion in its essence, freed from dogma and fanaticism, provides a set of systems rules and instructions for learning and developing human capacity, building a new level of social complexity and human well-being. Today this is needed to build a global human society of planetary citizens, enabling emergent properties of integration and cooperation, just as in highly evolved ecosystems (Dahl 1996). Beyond that, cultivating faith in a greater reality, absolute and unknowable, towards which we can turn outward in love, helps us to love the unknown in ourselves, in others and in the world through science, creating an open door towards a better world. With so many people today plagued with anxiety and depression at the state of the world, this can be an important antidote giving hope (Dahl 2019).

A new concept of governance

Returning to the governance needed for the Earth system, this can also be approached from our learning in complex systems science. The rationale for governance should be to achieve our higher human purpose and general well-being through systems that function effectively. There are several dimensions to this: the importance of values like justice and equity, the need for multilevel governance from the grassroots to the global level to manage planetarity, and institutions of governance that could be free of the all-to-human failings of everything we have tried so far.

Justice must become the guiding principle of governance at all levels, allowing every individual and group to make their full contribution. Only in this way can unity of thought and action be achieved and sustained among diverse peoples, leading to collective prosperity and well-being through justice and generosity, collaboration and mutual assistance.

A just civilisation requires coherent societies, depending on moral and ethical values. It should enable us to achieve our true purpose and spiritual potential, maximising love and selfless service. This will open up a whole new dimension of social systems enabling an ever-advancing civilisation. This also requires justice with the natural world, integrating human communities into the ecosystems and resources appropriate to each locality. All parts of society must contribute, including business entities taking on social and environmental responsibilities.

The community or neighbourhood is the foundational level of social organization, where people can interact directly, build relationships and work for their common good. Science needs to be accessible at the community level, since some critical planetary boundaries are revealed and experienced first at the local level. It is important to raise the capacity of local communities to consult together, to read their local reality, and to take measures available to them to reduce their vulnerability and increase their resilience, protecting critical local resources and adapting to unavoidable changes. Nature-based solutions can be within the capacity of local people and can provide local benefits with equity. Local institutions should facilitate consultation and consensus on measures to take within their means, guided by both science and local experience. For example, a priority might be classes for the education of children and youth, as well as continuing education for adults. Another can be to strengthen spiritual ties through devotional meetings open to those of all faiths and no faith. Higher levels of governance should enable and support these efforts with resources as needed. At a time when disintegration is affecting all levels of human organisation and could result in the collapse of economic relationships and political institutions, building unity and solidarity at the community level can be an important insurance and source of resilience during troubled times.

One of the challenges today is our governance paradigm based on national sovereignty. We need a national level of organisation, but the borders of too many nations have been arbitrarily determined by colonial powers, past empires, wars, population displacements, and physical constraints that are meaningless in the technological world of today. Some natural resources might be better governed in geographic entities defined by physical characteristics like watersheds and river basins, ecosystems or climatic characteristics. Governance should also take into account cultural dimensions, languages, shared experiences and historical ties. Special attention should be given to Indigenous peoples for whom the tie to their land, waters, sea and resources is fundamental and should be protected. Ideally, all the nations should come together, negotiate and agree on the most reasonable national boundaries acceptable to all. This would eliminate a major source of conflict and enable an effective national scale of governance everywhere.

The big gap is in global governance, as discussed in detail above. This is essential to the management and protection of the Earth system, as well as ensuring human security, protecting human rights, and creating the enabling conditions for a cooperation economy and the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, providing economic and social justice for all. This is the capstone of multilevel governance, with a global framework, national autonomy and great subsidiarity and empowerment at the community level.

The remaining challenge is to rethink the institutions of governance themselves. None of the present systems, from representative democracy trapped in the short-term interests of the majority, to autocracy and dictatorship where ego runs wild, is up to the requirements of today. There is an alternative, now more than a philosophical ideal, that is actually functioning for a global community of over 8 million in almost every country around the world. It is non-Western in origin, defined in a religious framework, but intended as the model for an emerging global civilisation. It is the Bahá’í administrative order. Its unique characteristic is that no individual has power or authority in its system, allowing it to escape from human ego-centric governance.

Described briefly, Bahá’í governance consists of elected consultative bodies of nine members at the local, national and international levels, elected from all the community with no nominations or campaigning. A local administrative body is elected annually by all the Bahá’ís of the village, town or city. At the national level, the Bahá’ís of the country elect delegates to a national convention, which then elects annually the national administrative body from all the Bahá’ís of the country. At the global level, all the members of national administrative bodies are the delegates to an international convention every five years that elects the global institution. The members of these institutions, referred to as the rulers, consult and make decisions collectively, responsible to their conscience and to God, not to those who elected them. These institutions are provided for in the Bahá’í scriptures, which also furnish the laws and spiritual principles on which they base their decisions. A separate set of institutions, considered the learned, are individuals appointed for their wisdom and experience to provide encouragement, inspiration and protection, but who have no decision-making function. This system, which will evolve in the future as required, provides all the governance functions needed without giving any individual power or authority, with all the dangers of ego that the latter represents.

Visions of an ever-advancing civilisation

The Earth system is today suffering from material civilisation carried to excess, which has become as great a source of evil as it would have been of good if kept within the constraints of moderation. To bring it back into balance will require the complementary characteristics of both science and religion, material and spiritual dimensions in harmony. Science without religion has fallen into extreme materialism, while religion without science becomes superstition and fanaticism. To fulfil this potential as outline in this paper, we can either have the courage to take the necessary steps forward as an act of consultative will through a governance process that we can now set in motion, or wait for the inevitable catastrophes that seem to be already upon us to force those who survive to rebuild on the ruins of our failure.

We need to escape from the consumer society that has become the opiate of the people, feeding our basest desires to generate corporate profits. Choosing simpler lifestyles in harmony with nature will have physical, social and spiritual benefits. This will enable us to restore the natural capacities of the planet to meet our needs and to recreate the marvellous beauty and productivity of the Earth system we inherited and must pass on to future generations. The ever-evolving future spiritual civilisation will concentrate on those intangible dimensions that are culture, science, art, social relationships and all the other non-material things that make a great civilisation, and that can grow without limit. The development of this civilisation will be organic within a framework of spiritual values, dynamic, evolving and adapting. In restoring the Earth system, we shall see a multispecies flourishing, and the whole planet thriving. Our children and future generations as planetary citizens will inherit the green garden of the Earth.

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