Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) The University of Manchester James.jackson-2@manchester.ac.uk
Dr Mark Doidge
Sport for Climate Action and Nature group Loughborough University m.doidge@lboro.ac.uk
Dr Oscar Berglund
Cabot Institute for the Environment University of Bristol Oscar.berglund@bristol.ac.uk12
Jennifer Amann & Samuel Toscano (postgraduate researchers)
Introduction
The relationship between football and climate change has become increasingly significant. Recent reports highlight the environmental impact of football, especially in the context of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This tournament is expected to be the most polluting ever, due to the vast distances teams and fans will travel and the involvement of major polluters like Aramco as sponsors. These impacts are not accidental but are politically produced, as outlined in this report.
Historical Context and Growth
Football’s spread and growth have always been linked to the expansion of carbon-intensive industries. The sport, while now a significant industry, primarily serves a cultural role in promoting and embedding these industries. According to the World Trade Organization, football contributed $200 billion to global GDP in 2022, a small fraction of the world’s total GDP, but its cultural influence is unmatched. The sport’s global reach surpasses even that of religion, music, or film.
Historically, football grew alongside industrialization in Europe, particularly in Britain. The Factory Act of 1850 allowed workers Saturday afternoons off, leading to the tradition of 3 pm kick-offs. Industrialization enabled larger crowds and broader competitions, and football spread from England to industrial regions across Europe and Latin America. Many early clubs were founded by British industrialists and had strong ties to local industries. After World War II, football became more professionalized, with clubs often linked to major industries, such as Juventus with Fiat and Wolfsburg with Volkswagen.
Globalization and Commercialization
The 1990s marked a period of globalization for football, with the creation of the Champions League and the Premier League. This era saw increased investment from fossil fuel interests and a concentration of elite clubs in major cities. The expansion of competitions, such as the Champions League and the World Cup, has led to more games, more travel, and greater resource consumption, further increasing football’s carbon footprint.
There is a tension between football’s sustainability efforts and the growth pursued by governing bodies like FIFA. While some argue that expanding competitions increases inclusivity, critics contend that the primary motivation is financial gain, often benefiting fossil fuel sponsors. The construction of new stadiums and infrastructure for major tournaments also contributes significantly to environmental degradation.
Sustainability Challenges
Sustainability managers in football clubs often face the challenge of balancing environmental initiatives with commercial realities. Clubs tend to focus on increasing revenues rather than minimizing costs, making it difficult to prioritize sustainability unless it can be framed as revenue-generating. The costs of climate change, such as flooding or heat stress, are often overlooked in favor of short-term financial considerations.
Sportswashing and Fossil Fuel Influence
Football has become central to the petrostate strategy of sportswashing, where fossil fuel interests use the sport to maintain cultural dominance and legitimacy. Sponsorships, ownership of clubs, and major events in petrostates embed fossil fuels within football culture, making it harder to imagine the sport without them. This strategy differs from greenwashing, as it seeks to normalize fossil fuel involvement rather than merely improve public perception.
FIFA’s partnerships with fossil fuel companies and its willingness to host events in petrostates raise questions about its commitment to sustainability. The organization’s sustainability strategies often align closely with the interests of host nations, undermining its credibility as an independent governing body.
Policy Recommendations
The report makes several policy recommendations to address football’s destructive relationship with climate change:
Stop hosting events in petrostates: FIFA should avoid awarding major tournaments to countries with strong fossil fuel interests, focusing instead on nations that would benefit more from development opportunities.
Restrict fossil fuel ownership: UEFA should limit the ownership of clubs by petrostates and fossil fuel companies to reduce their influence over the sport.
Focus on costs as well as revenue: Clubs should consider the long-term costs of climate change and prioritize sustainability initiatives, even if they require upfront investment.
Fan representation on boards: Fans should have a voice in club decision-making, especially regarding sustainability, through democratically elected organizations rather than commercial mechanisms like fan tokens.
Ban fossil fuel advertisements: Sponsorships from fossil fuel companies should be prohibited, similar to bans on tobacco advertising, to reduce their cultural influence.
Fund adaptation for grassroots football: Financial support should be provided to grassroots football to help adapt to the impacts of climate change, following the example of UEFA’s Climate Fund.
Embed sustainability managers: Sustainability managers should be fully integrated into club operations and involved in all major decisions, not just as a formality.
Stop expanding competitions: Football’s governing bodies should halt the expansion of competitions and focus on optimizing schedules to reduce environmental impact and improve player welfare.
Encourage player activism: Players should be empowered to speak out on sustainability issues and organize collectively through unions and associations.
Conclusion
Football’s environmental impact is deeply rooted in its historical and political context. Addressing these challenges requires systemic changes at all levels of the sport, from governance and sponsorship to grassroots participation and fan engagement. By implementing these recommendations, football can begin to break its destructive relationship with climate change and move towards a more sustainable future.
It has long been accepted amongst various communities of academics that both political ideas and discourses matter in framing political issues, rendering actors and phenomena visible or invisible, and shaping political outcomes.1 A pertinent example of this is the phrase ‘Anthropocene’ – used to denote a new geological era in which human activity has significant impacts on planetary ecosystems – but which is itself contestable for the phenomena it captures and elides. Some have put forward the alternative term of ‘capitalocene’ to reflect the understanding that the primary driving force of ecological change in this era is not human activity per se, but the capitalist systems which continue to drive resource extraction, greenhouse gas emissions, and rising inequalities.2
“The far right discourse on the ecological crisis has historically been to deny its existence”
The ecological crisis is subject to a series of political discourses which each imperfectly capture the complex myriad of social, economic, and technological dynamics that are degrading planetary ecosystems. These discourses shape the public understanding of the environmental crisis and the appropriate strategies for its resolution, with each discourse purveyed by distinctive but evolving political factions and social forces.3,4
The far right discourse on the ecological crisis has historically been to deny its existence.5,6 This denial has taken many forms, but most commonly the science of ecological degradation has been disavowed and this has been matched by the refusal to accept any national responsibility for addressing the unfolding global ecological catastrophe. Customarily, the scientific evidence has been pronounced as a conspiracy designed to benefit ‘globalist elites’ or a plot to undermine national sovereignty through the ratification of multilateral agreements. This has served to bolster resistance to effective environmental policies.
However, this environmental discourse is no longer as central to the far right movement as it was in the 2000s and 2010s. Increasingly, climate science is tacitly accepted, but the finger of blame is being disingenuously pointed towards the far right’s traditional enemies.
The shifting environmental discourses of the European far right
As environmental issues have risen up the political agenda (becoming salient to younger voters in particular), far right parties have seemingly shifted away from denialism of the science. This shift has not led to a recognition of the need for a just economic transformation or, indeed, any political action commensurate to the scale and character of the environmental crisis. Instead, the increasing (albeit belated) recognition of environmental issues (primarily those which exist within national borders) has been fused with an anti-immigration agenda to create a new invidious framing of environmental politics. The emerging discourse, which we have conceptualised as ‘ecobordering’ elsewhere,7 is characterised by climate nationalism and seeks to depict immigration (of which migration from the Global South is made hyper-visible) as a threat to local and national environments.
This discourse takes two primary forms. First, it aims to politicise the environmental impacts of ‘mass immigration’ from the Global South, while depoliticising the impacts of ‘natives’. This includes linking ‘mass immigration’ with rising demand for natural resources and local environmental problems such as the pollution resulting from greater traffic and consumption. Immigration, it is suggested, is to blame for such problems, which were not issues of concern for local areas prior to multiculturalism.
At the same time, this narrative stokes fears that mass immigration will lead to population growth amongst non-white communities which will exacerbate these local environmental issues further and deplete finite natural resources, in what could be termed ‘racialised Malthusianism’. This was particularly exhibited by the British National Party (BNP),8 the National Rally,9 the Swiss People’s Party,10 Vlaams Belang,11 and Alternative for Deutschland.12 The Swiss People’s Party repeatedly claimed that it is the bulwark against “the greatest environmental killer, overpopulation… by urging people to limit immigration”,13 while the British National Party adopted the same Malthusian logic that it “is the ONLY party to recognise that overpopulation – whose primary driver is immigration, as revealed by the government’s own figures – is the cause of the destruction of our environment”.14
“The depiction of Global South migrants is juxtaposed with the depiction of ‘natives’ as responsible stewards of their ‘homeland’”
The second form this discourse takes is the depiction of Global South migrants as environmental hazards, with no personal aptitude for managing natural resources due to a lack of belonging to, or lack of financial or emotion investment in, local areas. This has been most strongly exhibited by far right parties such as Golden Dawn,15 the National Rally,16 the BNP,17 the Swiss People’s Party,18 and Vox.19 This has included the disparagement and scapegoating of migrants in numerous ways, such as littering, causing forest fires, the inhumane treatment of animals, and the destruction of ‘indigenous wildlife’ amongst other environmental offences.
“The purported threat posed by immigration and migrants… seeks to vindicate the notion that border policies are key forms of statecraft for the protection of the environment”
The lack of belonging is key to understanding this portrayal; as Le Pen explicitly put it: “environmentalism [is] the natural child of patriotism, because it’s the natural child of rootedness… if you’re a nomad, you’re not an environmentalist… Those who are nomadic… do not care about the environment; they have no homeland”.20 The depiction of Global South migrants is juxtaposed with the depiction of ‘natives’ as responsible stewards of their ‘homeland’ and adept stewards of their ‘little platoons’ (to invoke the eco-fascist and Burkean logics which this framing draws upon). This typically entails glorifying the historic stewardship of pastoral national citizens (such as farmers21 or foresters22) and the proclaiming the sound management of domestic natural resources by ‘natives’23 over the ‘homeland’.24,25 The National Front and Golden Dawn have even established wings of their movements called ‘New Ecology’26 and ‘Green Wing’27 designed to protect “family, nature and race”28 and “the cradle of our race”29 respectively.
Both of these discursive traits have since been identified more recently in Marine Le Pen’s recent presidential campaign in which she obtained 41.5 per cent of the vote. Dubbed ‘patriotic ecology’ by her followers, the fallacious depictions of culprits and saviours in the environmental crisis have become normalised in French politics to the extent that they are echoed by rival conservative politicians.
The purported threat posed by immigration and migrants to previously ‘pure’ and ‘sustainable’ spaces of European nature seeks to vindicate the notion that border policies are key forms of statecraft for the protection of the environment. As a senior figure in Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jordan Bardella, declared in 2019: “borders are the environment’s greatest ally… it is through them that we will save the planet”.30
A shift away from climate denialism, but at what cost?
The potential electoral potency of fusing border securitisation and climate issues – however fallaciously – underlines the importance of recognising and challenging these discourses. Should the ascendant far right in Europe gain any further power, or have further influence on traditionally conservative political parties, this discourse could more forcefully shape public understandings of the environmental crisis and the strategies for its resolution in the future.
“To ignore the root causes of the ecological crisis at this juncture would be catastrophic for the natural world”
This would be catastrophic on two fronts. On the one hand, the discourse prescribes a form of statecraft centred on border security rather than systemic economic transformation, which represents an apocryphal programme of environmental protection. It does so by focusing narrowly on ‘national’ nature (peripheralising global issues) and obscuring the material economic drivers of ecological degradation (such as the heavily polluting energy and aviation industries, for which Global North populations are primarily culpable). To ignore the root causes of the ecological crisis at this juncture would be catastrophic for the natural world, but that is precisely what this political framing inculcates.
Just as importantly, ecobordering seeks to inflict further structural violence on those who those exploited at the peripheries of the global economy. The nationalistic framing emerges at a time when immigration is rising because of climate change, and the discourse thus seeks to diagnose the symptoms of ecological degradation as the causes of it. There is already evidence that the rise of the far right strengthens political resistance to climate migration,31 and this framing serves to justify this resistance from an environmental perspective. At a global scale, these framings threaten to rationalise a de facto climate apartheid; with Global North populations and elites in the Global South enjoying the spoils of an environmentally deleterious global economy, while poorer Global South populations become confined to increasingly uninhabitable areas facing escalating risks of climate shocks and deteriorating health conditions.
The meaning and practical implications of climate justice will become an increasingly hot topic in the Anthropocene. Challenging the depictions of culprits and saviours purveyed by far right figures is only an initial step to preventing injustices mounting further.32 Recognising the historical constitution of the global economy and the inequalities and vulnerabilities resulting from it underlines the injustices of far right framings and the need for progressive actors to advance more transformative approaches.33 Progressive responses to the rise of the far right in the Anthropocene requires formulating and advancing notions of a just transition which accounts for the movement of people affected by climate change as well as other less privileged groupings in society.34 This will require far more progressive forms of statecraft which are a world away from those advocated in the framings of the far right.
Biographies
Dan Bailey is a senior lecturer in international political economy at Manchester Metropolitan University. His is interested in the evolving and complex interactions between the global economy, climate change, the objectives and strategies of political institutions, and the ideas and discourses that shape public understandings of the ecological crisis and sustainability transitions. He has authored a series of academic publications and policy reports on topics relating to these interactions.
Joe Turner is a lecturer in international politics at the University of York. His interdisciplinary examines how border regimes in post-imperial states like Britain are structured by imperial and colonial histories and hierarchies of human value. He recently published the book Migration Studies and Colonialism with Lucy Mayblin.
April 12, 2020 Updated:January 7, 2026 16 Mins Read
By Kathleen Kesson
We have entered the Anthropocene — a new era in geological history — a phase of planetary development in which human impacts on the Earth may cause or have caused irreversible damage. We are witness to “the great acceleration” in which geothermal, biological, ecological, and atmospheric changes threaten to bring about irreparable changes in the planetary ecosystem, and by extension, our social and economic systems. Every day brings news of wildfires, drought, floods, conflicts, hurricanes, locusts, extinctions, and the latest, a Coronavirus pandemic, which has managed to shut down many of the global systems we rely on for survival.
Humans (GR: ánthrōpos) have been blamed for the tragic despoliation of our Earth. It is not humans in general, however, but a specific human civilization that has driven the processes of resource extraction, labor exploitation, capital accumulation, and what we can only call “ecocide.” While historically, empires have come and gone and laid waste in countless ways to people and planet, the current modern era of industrialization/capitalism, paralleling a centuries-long narrative of conquest, genocide, plunder, slave labor, and economic imperialism has created the conditions of this new age that some scholars suggest we more rightly call the “Capitalocene” (see Moore, 2016).
Given the climate and other ecological crises, the rise of authoritarian/totalitarian governments, and the general breakdown of multiple systems, there is an urgent need to create new, nimble configurations of communities, ecologies, and learning centres to respond to the uncertain and rapidly changing environment. The education (not necessarily “schooling”) of young people is at the heart of the future; it is only through education that a “new human” might emerge, capable of enacting the mindset and behaviors that might create a livable world. Education alone, however, absent substantial changes in culture, thinking and behavior, is incapable of bringing about the fundamental changes necessary to survival.
I offer here three scenarios for the future of education, each of them tied to various components of a dominant governing ideology. Each Scenario is accompanied by structuring metaphors as well as a dominant “binding quality.” The notion of a binding quality comes to us from an ancient Indic episteme; it is said that consciousness and matter operate in three fundamental modes: sattva (sentient), rajah (mutative), and tamah (static), collectively known as gunas in Sanskrit. Understanding the gunas is a complex philosophical matter; I use them here metaphorically, to describe the predominant energy of each Scenario. I have drawn largely on the comprehensive projections of P.R. Sarkar (1992; 1999) for the vision of the future portrayed in Scenario 3, though it must be said that the various components of this vision are emerging from multifarious directions and under different appellations at the present time.
Futures thinking is an uncertain art. It is likely that the future of humanity will include dimensions of each Scenario; in fact, the present moment contains all of them, though Scenario 2 dominates because of the globalization of the economy and hegemonic forms of culture. I believe, however, that the survivability of humanity is dependent on learning the lessons of the multiple current crises we face, and figuring out how to navigate through complexity, chaos and the general breakdown of systems to facilitate the self-organized, positive evolutionary outcomes highlighted in Scenario 3.
An important caveat: When considering the “Big Picture,” generalizations are unavoidable. These scenarios are mapped in very broad strokes, and we must remember that the map is not the territory. Details, diversities, exceptions, and contradictions certainly need to be taken into consideration.
Scenario 1
Regression/Devolution
I start with the grimmest of the forecasts, in order to disabuse us of the modernist notion that history is an inevitable trajectory of progress, of increasing individual freedom and rights, of economic growth, constantly improved standards of living, and the capacity of positivist reason and logical thinking to solve all human problems. As in the aftermath of the Roman Empire or perhaps more vividly, in modern dystopian films, societies can deteriorate rather swiftly.
Pixabay
In European history, the years between 500-1250 AD are usually considered the “Dark Ages.” After the fall of the Roman Empire, and due to many factors including ineffective leadership, economic failures, internal struggles for power, external invasions, and yes — climate change — the western territories of the Roman Empire entered a long period of decline. Historians disagree on many of the details, though there is a general consensus that it was a period of breakdown and change of the social and economic infrastructures. Schools were closed, and illiteracy spread. Travel and trade were restricted, epidemics wiped out huge populations, and conflict was prevalent.
While our modern era may seem to have little to do with the European Medieval period, it’s altogether possible that we (at least in the “West”) are living through the deterioration of an empire begun in the European colonial period and culminating in late capitalism and the economic imperialism that is an essential component of the globalized economy. This world-historical empire has been engaged in endless wars throughout its reign, has deep internal fractures and multiple external pressures, not least from other empires. Most important, as noted above, the bio-systems upon which life depends, and upon which so much of its wealth was created, are deteriorating.
In times of collective stress such as the current pandemic, it is tempting to withdraw, to retreat from the forward flow of life and pull into individual and social cocoons, burrow into the past. That tendency is currently exacerbated by the pandemic related strictures to isolate, to distance ourselves from the social world. Should these tendencies persist after the disease is brought under control, we could see a “devolution.” In such a regressive move, we are likely to see rising xenophobia, racism, religious prejudice, sexism, strong borders, and ever-increasing economic inequality.
Scenarios and metaphors
Worldview/Philosophy
Power
Social/economic organization
Ecologicalperspective
Knowledge
Education Institutions
Spirituality
Regression/DevolutionBinding quality: Tamah (static)Contraction, decay, degeneration, ignorance, death and inertia.
Pre-Humanist submersion in forces thought to be beyond human control. Recycling of medieval ontologies and philosophies. People concerned with their own immediate land, clan, family and social group.
Power/over-exerted through superstition and propagation of false ideas; patriarchal structures control behavior, social life, and education.
Provincial, feudal, mostly dispersed rural populations. Centralization of (weak) control in urban centres. Subsistence economy for the masses; wealth flows upward—vast inequalities.
Nature as a force to be feared. Attempts to exert dominion over nature. The exploitation of natural resources benefits the few.
Past knowledge valued over experimental, new knowledge. Knowledge distribution restricted as a form of social control.
Knowledge production concentrated in centres of power.Private teachers/schools for the wealthy. Survival skills adequate for the general population.
Traditional/orthodox/dogmatic; power centralized in the clergy.Metaphysical beliefs grounded in irrationality and superstition—emphasis on domination and control of thought.
Scenario 2
Status quo/Business as usual
Wikimedia commons
Thinking optimistically, we’re unlikely to sink into the miasma of Medieval Europe, but young people who have not lived through a Depression, or an epidemic, or a war on their own territory cannot be blamed for fearing that this is the “end of the world as we know it.” This pandemic, however, and the economic dislocations, the social isolation, the fear and uncertainty that it has brought, while perhaps not the apocalypse much fear, may be a harbinger of the future. It is human nature to want to “get back to normal” following a crisis of great magnitude, to restore a sense of equilibrium and stability. But what if “normal” forms of social, economic, and ecological behaviors are themselves at the root of the crisis? Astute observers of our current modernist trajectories, including a majority of the scientific community, warn us that we are now living through a transition period, which, depending on collective decisions we make in this next decade, have the potential to transform the conditions of life as we know it on Planet Earth, and not for the better. If we continue the rate of petroleum extraction, fossil fuel burning, deforestation, unrestrained consumption, pollution, and so much more, it is clear that humanity is in for a century of increasingly deadly wildfires, droughts, floods, ocean acidification, pandemics, rising sea levels, and massive extinctions on a scale heretofore unimagined. If current power relations persist, and we do not affect a deep reordering of our economic system, power structures, worldview and ways of thinking, if we merely tinker with existing conditions while hoping to achieve what could only be a “false equilibrium,” elites will prosper while our life systems continue to degrade and masses of people suffer. The kind of thinking that has created the multi-faceted crises we face is unlikely to help us solve them, but humans may not, in this Scenario, demonstrate the will or the capacity to radically transform their thinking and their behaviors, or challenge the existing power structure.
Scenarios and metaphors
Worldview
Power
Social/economic organization
Ecologicalperspective
Knowledge
Education Institutions
Spirituality
Status quo/ Business as usualBinding quality:Rajah (mutative)Pulsation, change, growth, movement, restlessness and activity.
Secular. Mainstream rejection of spirituality based on widespread materialistic worldview. Man is seen as the pinnacle of creation. Humanistic emphasis on individualism, independence, personal autonomy.
Power/over-exerted through economic domination and hegemonic media; Power/with only mythology of democratic capitalism. Dramatic concentration of wealth; oligarchical rule.
Increasing inequalities. The illusion of a relatively prosperous (if shrinking) “middle class” sustains myths of growth and progress.
Humans are seen as separate from nature (dualism). Nature understood as a resource to be exploited for profit.
Conventional, hierarchically organized. Positivist thinking dominates. Scientific and technological advances are double-edged (i.e. air travel creates mobility + air pollution, greenhouse gases and rapid spread of disease). Sifting and sorting mechanisms maintain inequities of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class.
Increasing concentration of influence over standards and curriculum in the interest of global economic competition. Higher education commodified, fewer young people have access. Western forms of education spread globally, resulting in loss of languages, local cultures and epistemes.
Mostly secular. Fundamentalisms operate at the fringe, often with major impacts on systems (re 9/11). Commodified “new age” practices amongst middle classes are oriented towards individual well-being.
Scenario 3
Evolution/Revolution
The current crisis has brought into sharp relief the injustice and unsustainability of socio-economic systems that value profits over human needs and the well-being of the planet. It is possible that this moment in time could signal the “great awakening,” the tipping point that pushes us into creative new ways of thinking about what it means to be human and how we should live our lives. What if the present moment were a space of “liminality” — a moment between what has been and what will be? A space between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ A space of transition, a season of waiting, during which we collectively question where we have been and where we are going. A space in which we reconceptualize the entire edifice – the mental and the material structures that have brought us to the current crossroads in our evolution.
In Scenario 3, we find the courage to design and implement new economic structures that serve the welfare of the whole of humanity, not just the elite few. We begin to understand our essential embeddedness in nature and explore how to cultivate relations of harmony and reciprocity with the “more-than-human-others” with whom we share the planet. And perhaps most important, we overcome the false notion that matter and spirit occupy independent realms, separated by an impassable abyss. We begin to understand that the purpose of life is not the mere accumulation of material goods, or the acquisition of political power, or even the development of a brilliant intellect, but the unification of body, mind and spirit in the quest for spiritual enlightenment.
Unlike the “tinkering” referred to in Scenario 2, Scenario 3 represents a radical paradigm shift, an evolutionary transformation of consciousness, values, and human behavior. Education has a core role to play in that it is young people who will carry the present into the future. A philosophy of Neohumanism (Sarkar, 1999), in which we reconsider the fundamentals — the nature of human beings, the nature of knowing, what we value, and how we are to live — asks us to rethink the purposes of education. Rather than educate so that a tiny sliver of people rise to the top of the global income chain, a Neohumanist education would prepare all people for the art of living well on a fragile and sacred planet. It would emphasize not just academic achievement and high test scores, but shift the focus to fostering compassion, community, empathy, imagination, insight, friendship, creativity, communication, justice, practicality, pleasure, courage, humor, wisdom, introspection, transcendence, ethics, service, and the ability to live well within the carrying capacity of our ecosystems. It would tear down the walls that have separated school and community and invite local and intergenerational knowledge and traditional ways of knowing into conversation with modern empirical science and technological know-how. Importantly, Neohumanism would welcome our inner lives into education and foster multiple epistemologies (embodied knowing, intuitional knowing, narrative knowing, aesthetic knowing, mythic knowing). Adults and young people together would plant gardens and reinvigorate forests, clean up our waterways, and regenerate the soil. We would “rewild” our children and ourselves so that we might begin to understand the vital part we all play in a living web of interconnection, a web that encompasses not just humans, but the eight million other species with whom we share the planet. Only with such an educational process might we “elevate humanism to universalism, the cult of love for all created beings of this universe” (Sarkar, 1999, p. 7).
Scenarios and metaphors
Worldview
Power
Social/ economic organization
Ecological
Knowledge
Education Institutions
Spirituality
Evolution/Revolution Binding quality:Sattva (sentient)Awareness, purity, happiness, sensitivity, expansion and lightness.
Human life an integrated whole encompassing the material and spiritual worlds. Neohumanism: the liberation of the intellect and the expansion of mind. Emphasis on interdependence of all species. Resilient local cultures, universal, inclusive outlooks.
Power/with radical democracy, people organized to resist domination. Co-creation of new systems that serve the whole. Gender partnership, full inclusion. Moral leadership based in service replaces corruption and self-interest. Cooperative global governance regulates international affairs.
Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) — Social equality fostered through worker’s cooperatives, caps on wealth accumulation, food sovereignty, the gift and sharing economy, the rights of all people for a decent job, housing, food, health care and education, and the protection of biodiversity and natural habitats. (see Sarkar, 1992).
Deep connection and sense of interrelatedness of all species; humans learn to live in balance with the ecosystem and practice reciprocity. All living beings accorded moral standing and rights.
Integration of modern science/technology and ancient wisdom and indigenous perspectives. Epistemological pluralism. Elimination of dogma.Knowledge balanced between introversial and extroversial.
Schools take on new role as centers of resource, connections, healing, community building, mentorship. Self-organizing learning groups form around real life problems and issues. Eco-versities. Decolonizing pedagogies.
Transformative, new understanding of human potential and the cosmic dimensions of individual life. Pragmatism and contemplative practice exist in mutual harmony (subjective approach/objective adjustment); intuition and rationality complement each other.
Scenario 3 is not a pipe dream. In this present crisis, multitudes of people are acting selflessly to care for others and serve the greater good. Heroic health workers are struggling to mitigate suffering without adequate resources. Teachers are working to reinvent schooling so that children might stay connected to their peers and engaged in learning. Regular folk creating mutual aid societies, ensuring that those who are sick, disabled, or elderly are not forgotten. In many places, small organic farms are beginning to supply much of the local food. Young people are inclined towards egalitarian socio-economic formations, and they are willing to challenge the status quo and struggle for the future of their planet. People the world over are awakening to spiritual wisdom. We are making the road by walking.
The world right now is in a state of chaos – a “far-from-equilibrium” state. Chaos is unpredictable and destabilizing, and small inputs can have huge effects, illustrated by the compelling image of the fluttering wings of the butterfly in the Amazon, causing a cyclone in China.
Pixabay
But chaos theory also teaches us that systems re-organize, often in surprising new ways. A far-from-equilibrium state is a liminal space; liminality is described by one author as “the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.” (Rohr, 1999). Will we find the courage to allow this dissolution, in order to make way for the world we hope to create? Or will we eagerly seek the status quo, business as usual, or worse, regress into barbarism? I believe that we are in the thick of what may come to be understood as the “great transition” – the death of an old era and the birth of the new. Such a birth is not accomplished painlessly, but with extraordinary labor. Those of us who share the values of Scenario 3, who hold a Neohumanist vision of human potential and a social vision of a just, ecological and joyful Earth home (PROUT) share a responsibility to be midwives to this birth. Systems demand that we evolve and adapt. The butterfly effect reminds us that small actions can have big impacts. Our small collective actions, mindfully taken, could have important collective impacts, so let us proceed with Scenario 3 as consciously and compassionately as we can.
About the Author
Kathleen Kesson is Professor Emerita, LIU-Brooklyn, and is the former Director of the John Dewey Project on Progressive Education at the University of Vermont and Director of Education at Goddard College. She currently lives in Barre, Vermont and is actively engaged in the work to make Vermont schools more equitable, sustainable, and joyful. Her latest book is Unschooling in Paradise. You can read other writings by her as well as an excerpt from this book at https://www.kathleenkesson.com
References:
Moore, J. (2016). Anthropocene or capital scene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
In a world increasingly defined by climate disruption, biodiversity loss, rising inequality and the accelerating risks of AI and emerging technologies, The Club of Rome is calling for a fundamental rethinking of what peace means today. Its new paper, Planetary Peace for Human Security: Responses to Existential Risks in the Anthropocene, introduces a bold new paradigm, one that moves beyond the outdated notion of peace as merely the absence of war.
With 56 armed conflicts currently active, global military spending exceeding $2.3 trillion and the escalating threats of AI-driven warfare and climate collapse, the report asserts that traditional, war-centric models of peace are dangerously obsolete. In many cases, the very systems designed to promote peace instead reinforce entrenched power imbalances and exacerbate tensions.
At the heart of the report lies the concept of planetary peace, a dynamic, regenerative force rooted in justice, sustainability and global cooperation. Rather than addressing the symptoms of insecurity, this vision targets its structural causes: ecological degradation, extractive and exploitative economic systems, technological misuse and the enduring legacies of colonialism.
“Planetary peace invites us to redefine security for a world of deep interdependence,” says Paul Shrivastava, co-author and co-president of The Club of Rome. “It’s about creating the conditions for people, communities and ecosystems to thrive, not just survive. This is an opportunity to replace fear with trust, competition with collaboration and extraction with regeneration.”
The report positions peace as an active, systems-based process that centres the wellbeing of people, planet and future generations. It calls for long-term global cooperation that prioritises regeneration over depletion, equity over domination and collective flourishing over individual gain.
This vision also emphasises the essential roles of youth leadership, intergenerational dialogue and the integration of diverse knowledge systems, including science, indigenous wisdom and systems thinking, in shaping sustainable and peaceful futures.
“Planetary peace is not just about avoiding conflict,” adds co-author and Secretary General of The Club of Rome, Carlos Álvarez Pereira. “It’s about creating the conditions for people and planet to flourish together, through just economies, inclusive governance and a renewed relationship with the Earth.”
The report argues that the current peace architecture, largely shaped by a few dominant powers in the post-World War II era, is no longer fit for purpose. A post-hegemonic, pluriversal future is needed, one that embraces diverse worldviews, rebalances global power structures and cultivates harmony between humanity and nature.
The report Planetary Peace for Human Security: Responses to Existential Risks in the Anthropocene provides suggestions for how to catalyse holistic transformation across economic, political, cultural and technological systems in service of planetary peace, and the authors invite governments, civil society, business, academia and young people to join this initiative to co-create a world where peace is not only possible, but essential.
Momentum is already building through collaborations with partners such as the Elders for Peace, the World Academy of Art and Science and Kyung Hee University. These alliances bring together expertise in peace diplomacy, education and systems thinking, reflecting a shared commitment to tackling existential risks and creating the conditions for a regenerative, peaceful future.
Institute for Interdisciplinary Research into the Anthropocene 
