The Big Switch

Hannah McKenna slumped slowly to the ground outside the Hall of the People, her head in her hands.  A small sigh escaped from her lips. “So has it all come to this?” she whispered to herself. Hannah, a SYMON, is one of an elite representative order appointed to link the distributed social and democratic meshworks that have burgeoned in the years after the global monetocracy crisis of 2014.

Having been born late in the 20^th century Hannah lived through the crippling social and political problems of the early 21^st Century. As a young woman she had been a social worker and then a field officer for Healthcare Australia – working to find solutions to the despair and alienation permeating the nation’s youth. Rates of clinical depression and youth suicide had precipitated a mental health crisis that put unprecedented pressure on health and welfare budgets. It also shattered the nation’s confidence once and for all in politicians and the political process.

Whilst there had been a concerted effort by politicians, academics and health care workers to address the situation, the causes of this decline in the nation’s mood were far too ingrained to be resolved by any conventional means. The sense of despair was palpable everywhere Hannah turned. Experts of all kinds queued up to offer rational explanations as to the cause of this escalating human catastrophe.

Typically, state politicians and federal bureaucrats deflected attention away from the failure of domestic policies to the dread generated by a spate of urban terrorist attacks that became a fact of life for Australians as early as 2013 (after the poisoning of Sydney’s water supply claimed almost 6,500 lives, one of whom was Hannah’s younger brother). Although the bulk of media commentary focused on recent immigrant families from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the culprits went undetected.

On the other hand, an outcry from environmental activists, spearheaded by Safe Climate Australia, directed public attention to the large-scale damage continuously wreaked on the biosphere by a largely uncaring population.

Increasingly chronic air pollution had led to oxygen being dispensed (to asthmatics and those who could afford it) at most LNG service stations. Contamination of metropolitan reticulation systems meant fresh drinking water had become a rare commodity by 2015. Hannah couldn’t even remember the last time she’d drunk water from a tap. It was simply too hazardous.

A number of left-wing intellectuals tended to lay the blame on the sustained global depression that threw millions of people out of work between 2007 and 2019. Triggered by events in the US, this was to be the most severe depression in history. Far-reaching plans to inject Western democratic aspirations into the Middle East peace process backfired in September 2012 when extremist groups severed all communications with the PLO and civil war erupted, spreading rapidly across the Arab world.

By June 2013 a number of internecine wars were causing massive disruptions in the production and supply of oil to the West. With hindsight, Hannah thought, it was probably this sequence of events that prompted US-President Barack Obama to channel a record amount of resources into the development of a truly alternative energy economy. All efforts until then had been mere lip-service. At the time, though, it seemed only to herald the end of civilization.

As panic spread across the global financial community, corporations put increasing pressure on governments. Mimicking US policy, the Australian, UK and EU parliaments revoked the 2009 Copenhagen Protocol and started blindly repealing one sustainable policy after another.  What had once been lauded as enlightened pro-environmental policies were now subsumed in a strategy of aggressive technological adoption aimed at kick-starting the economy. Such measures had little discernible impact, however, and community frustration continued to grow.

Hannah, together with many of her colleagues, had always suspected that this tide of despondency was driven not merely by conspicuous factors, such as wars and recessions, but by the greed that appeared to rage out of control during the final years of the 20^th century. A surprising string of corporate collapses laid low many lead enterprises. This was accompanied by the public humiliation of some of the developed world’s leading business figures and entrepreneurs. Not even the very wealthy were now immune from the sense of futility that gripped Western nations. After all, what was the point of greater material wealth if war, social disruption and environmental damage meant that life could no longer be enjoyed to the full?  Where was satisfaction to be found in this increasingly chaotic and toxic world?

Historians mostly agree the turning point can be traced back to 2025. That year was certainly pivotal for Hannah as it was the year she decided to join one of the many democratic reform groups that were springing up around the world aimed at restoring the wealth of the commons. Modelled on specific reforms of the Worker’s Party in Brazil, a bizarre coalition of disillusioned and angry insiders, global thought leaders, disaffected workers and the long-term unemployed, united in a community-based effort destined to restructure the world’s political and economic systems.

Aided by third generation grid technologies, a fledgling system of distributed democracies formed across the planet. Slowly they started to address a range of complex issues impacting society. Engagement at a local level created enormous energy and focus. This accelerated as indigenous wisdom and alternative philosophic traditions were accessed to form the basis of a new consciousness of mind. It seemed so chaotic, Hannah thought at the time, but ‘rational’ thinking and planning had brought them to this. It was time for something new – for compassion rather than logic. The movement began to fill the vacuum that had been created over generations by representative democracy gone stale.

Rising to the occasion, local communities banded together to assist those most in need.  Distributed information systems in the form of virtual town halls connected and informed these localized democratic communities, allowing them to taken collaborative action in ways reminiscent of the old anti-globalisation movements of the early 21^st century.

Business, too, initiated “game changer” reforms. Given the revitalized nature of political will and public activism within local communities, a pioneering regulatory environment emerged requiring closed loop manufacturing systems and whole-of-life responsibility for products.  Companies now felt obligated to make significant changes to their core processes and systems in order to maintain the viability of their brands. In fact their survival depended on it.

The radical establishment of Commons Trusts, together with transparent ecological and social impact reporting, ensured that companies now made considerable advances in the design and reduction of ecological footprints. Those making early gains from adopting climate prosperity principles reaped huge commercial rewards as a wave of principled investment and ethical purchasing took hold.

With the mega-merger of Shell, BP and Exxon-Mobil in 2020, serious effort and resources were at last put into the production of renewable energy. Entrepreneurs such as Peter Meisen, who had first excited Hannah during one of his many visits to Australia in the early years of the century, ridiculed the fossilized thinking of the early 2000s. Thinking to preserve vested interests, policy makers (encouraged by wealthy oil barons) conjured up desperate policies for tackling global warming - including carbon sinks, sequestration and the production of hydrogen by fossil fuels or nuclear energy.  Instead, Meisen was proposing a complete end to the use of fossil fuels and an entirely fresh approach to sustainable industry. Hannah was immediately converted to real sustainability, a subject that was now on everyone’s lips and influencing everyone’s pocket.

Meisen’s ideas included giving green energy priority access, setting standard pricing, scrapping subsidies on fossil fuels and reducing upfront risk. Inspired by the ideas of Buckminster Fuller, whom Hannah had studied at school, Meisen’s Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) created an interconnected electrical energy grid that now spans the globe. Generating and distributing power from the Earth's naturally abundant renewable resources, the GENI grid presently supplies 80 per cent of the world’s energy needs.  Initiatives such as this, combined with sustainable transport and recycling policies, have been responsible for reducing global carbon dioxide emissions to 62 per cent below 1990 levels – vastly more impressive than the timid commitments made to the Copenhagen Protocol earlier in the century.

Naturally enough, not all businesses prospered. Many traditionally managed companies failed to adapt, especially some of the large investment banks. A few collapses had shocked Hannah who’d always assumed that large corporations and dominant global brands such as GE, Phillip Morris and Microsoft would be mostly immune from the turmoil. But the tough economic environment combined with sudden shifts in stakeholder expectations and unexpected demands by customers for ecologically sustainable goods and services decimated enterprises designed around industrial-age efficiencies. In many respects, the fallout resembled a major biological extinction. By 2030 only 15 per cent of all businesses were older than the century.  The rest were consigned to history.

Meanwhile, a culture of dialogue began to enable network government on a human scale. As Schumacher’s principle of ‘subsidiarity’ took hold at every level, from the local to the global, so societal efficiency, effectiveness and viability all noticeably improved.  Intensive participatory processes, supported by the new interactive media and assisted by those who were bent on liberating society from the shackles of the past, enabled communities the world over to continuously review their purpose and to learn from each other. It was one of the most exciting times in Hannah’s life! Unions began to organize around climate change policy, demanding that the government set exacting targets for renewable energy based upon the latest scientific evidence. Even the mainstream press began to devote time and space to reporting this seismic shift in human attitudes.

Territories and boundaries changed, too, as nation states delegated greater authority to the various regional democracies. Although local skirmishes continued to sputter, many enduring conflicts such as those in Africa, Kashmir, China and the Middle East, reached some kind of resolution as local communities accepted responsibility for their own future. Slowly at first, but gathering momentum, poverty, social injustice and environmental degradation became the focus for collaborative action around the world. As more and more people gained access to life’s basics, fewer felt the need to resort to terror. Violence everywhere declined. Even fundamentalist groups such as Hamas and Al’ Qaeda now turned to dialogue.

But perhaps the greatest changes occurred on the land. In Hannah’s region of Oceania, local cooperatives began to practice conservation using advanced forms of pyrolisis to sequester carbon and enrich the soil. Satellite technology was harnessed to better inform an approach to unyielding problems like water salinity and deforestation. Meanwhile, the demand for meat plummeted, allowing organic farming and sustainable forestry and fishing to take hold. Even Hannah was now vegetarian – something she had never imagined was possible!

Despair gradually turned to hope. Then hope to confidence and confidence to optimism. As social interaction enabled new ways to be found for enriching human lives, so “lock-in” to the principles of sustainable industry emerged. It was surely inconceivable that business and government could ever return to the old autocratic and despotic ways, Hannah thought.

In order to connect the globally distributed local democracies by social as well as technological means, Systems Monitors (SYMONS) had been appointed in each region. Regarded by many as the new political elite, SYMONS were required to demonstrate exceptional abilities in systems thinking and mapping, knowledge flow pattern detection, emotional empathy and technological understanding. Hannah was curious. Throwing caution to the wind she applied for one of the vacancies – a portfolio comprising health among other things.

The competition was fierce and Hannah felt overjoyed and privileged to be chosen at the relatively tender age of 48. As a SYMON in the Oceania Hall of the People, Hannah was now charged with the task of coordinating the management and resolution of issues and problems that lay outside the practical scope of local groups. She travelled from city to city in the region, listening to citizens’ groups, sharing their ideas, all the while focusing on her portfolio comprising International Relations, Health & Well-being, Large Ecosystem Management and Technological Adoption Systems.

“Hi Hannah. What’s ailing you now?” Chow enquired, putting an abrupt end to Hannah’s musings. She glanced at her colleague, Chow Ben Oh, who had now joined her on the steps.  “Oh, you know, the usual things. We’ve achieved so much recently. The need to care for each other and the Earth has re-awakened our spirituality once more. In many ways we’ve actually reinvented democracy. We’ve harnessed new technologies in ways that are ethically defensible and socially desirable. We’ve discovered how to access human consciousness in ways our grandparents could not possibly have comprehended. The community is no longer alienated from the political process and we have put in place laws to protect the commons. Against all the odds we’ve even managed to turn the tide of ecological disaster before it swamped us. And now, just because a few recalcitrant diehards lust after personal power, we’re poised to lose everything. It’s just so sad.”

“Don’t fret Hannah” Chow chuckled.  “The Big Switch is too embedded, too network-dependent, for the system to be corrupted now”.

“You don’t understand Chow. The few who are conspiring to shape the system in their own image are the most able among us, those with the greatest understanding. They can do this thing. If they create enough disturbance they can tip the world on its dark side yet again”.

“Perhaps” said Chow.  His smile turned to a frown.   “Perhaps”…