Imagine the following:
You live in Germany in 1939. Or perhaps it’s 1938, or even as early as 1935. The Nazis are in power. If you’re an average German, your material conditions are probably quite good. Unemployment is low, and the Nazis have introduced extensive “welfare programs,” so you’re likely living a decent life.
But if you’re not a Nazi, you’re likely troubled by the persecution of Jews you witness, the street terror, and the dictatorship you live in, with corresponding risks to your life and safety if you express your opinion. Perhaps you have the courage to join a resistance group. Perhaps you dare to say what you think in closed circles, among people you trust.
Or maybe you don’t dare, perhaps you lack the energy, and you simply live your life under the circumstances given to you, grateful that you can create a materially comfortable life for yourself and your loved ones.
Imagine now: One day, one evening or night, when you’re alone, you receive a visit from someone from the future, from the time after 1945. This person tells you and shows you images of what the world will look like after World War II. How millions of Jews will be exterminated in concentration camps. How millions of Germans, perhaps even you, depending on gender and age, will be sent to war, where most will die. How you, if you’re a woman or for some other reason don’t need to worry about conscription (though everyone was drafted when “total war” was declared later on), will still see your life shattered. Most likely, you will understand that you will become one of millions of refugees in your own country; your home will likely be bombed, and famine and misery will spread.
Through this person from the future, you learn exactly how the coming years will unfold and the catastrophe this will bring to you and your loved ones, not only to millions of unknown people.
How would you react? What would you do?
Escape? Try to find out which country will be least affected and take refuge there?
Fight? Join the resistance and give everything to stop what’s coming? Hope that, with your insight, you might make a difference?
I’m not here to judge any of these ways of reacting. But if you truly had proof that this person from the future was real, that everything they told and showed would indeed happen, I find it hard to believe that you would simply bury your head in the sand. The knowledge that this would personally affect you and your loved ones would be hard to ignore. Escape or fight. Yes, maybe you would become deeply depressed and paralyzed. That would be understandable too.
So, why am I writing about this?
Well, because we are there, right now. We are Germans in Germany in 1939. But with the difference that we know about the escalating catastrophe.
In just a few decades, as we approach 2050, the climate crisis will force between 200 million and up to 1 billion people to leave their homes, creating massive waves of refugees. We are already seeing its effects in regions where living conditions are rapidly deteriorating, such as India, Pakistan, and Africa.World Bank Group IPCC
At the same time, agriculture will be severely affected; rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more extreme weather will likely create significant uncertainty in global food supplies, and food prices will soar. Mckinsey
You and your children will have less and less money to live on as everything becomes more expensive, especially food. Meanwhile, plastic pollution, which already causes you to ingest about five grams of plastic per week, will have increasingly clear health effects, although we still don’t know exactly what these are. Science
Human sperm quality has decreased by about 50% in recent decades, which already concerns scientists. If this trend continues, it may become difficult for future generations to start families naturally, meaning that your children and/or grandchildren may face challenges in having children.
The Amazon is at risk of reaching a tipping point, where large parts of the rainforest could turn into savannah, which could happen within a few decades unless significant efforts are made to protect the forest, risking further accelerating global warming and making it uncontrollable. The Guardian
Maybe by now, you’ve already checked out: “What a doomsday prophet!”
Unfortunately, none of this is fictional. All of this has been written about and discussed for a long time in various scientific journals, some of which, as you see, I have linked here. If I got any detail wrong, please feel free to correct me. However, the overall picture is indisputable.
But for now, it’s only 1939, or 1935, in Germany. Even though the catastrophe is already here for millions of people, you are not yet directly affected. Yes, there’s plastic in your blood, but your health seems to be holding up so far. For most of us, anyway, although we don’t know how much plastic concentration our bodies can handle, and it’s increasing.
And I’m not telling you what to do. Nor do I want to say that there is no hope. There is plenty of hope. We have solutions to all of these problems that lie ahead. But, as you know, we are not acting sufficiently.
And maybe it’s because we only hear about one aspect of the catastrophe at a time. Now the fish in the Baltic Sea are nearly gone. Now there’s almost no ice left in the Arctic. Now another record-breaking hurricane is hitting the U.S. Now new floods are hitting Asia or Europe.
Too rarely do we get a picture of the whole. We are living in the middle of a catastrophe for humanity and for most animals and plants on Earth. In the middle of a mass extinction, in the middle of a die-off of life on Earth.
The direct consequences have not yet affected everyone, not you, but they are coming, and they will hit you, your children, and your grandchildren hard within just a few decades.
With that knowledge – what will you do? Escape (where could you escape to?), fight (what could you do?), or become paralyzed and bury your head in the sand?
World War II was a catastrophe. But it could have been even worse. All of Europe could have been transformed into a Nazi dictatorship if the Allies and the U.S. had not acted.
Humanity has managed major transformations and changes before. Apartheid in South Africa was dismantled with less bloodshed than anyone could have foreseen. If someone had said in the 1990s that one day we wouldn’t be allowed to smoke in public places and that smoking would be seen as somewhat disgusting, no one would have believed it. When we realized the ozone layer was disappearing, the whole world managed to agree to stop releasing gases that destroy the ozone layer, and now the ozone hole over Antarctica is on the mend. BBC
So there is still a chance to do something.
For many years, I buried my head in the sand. I knew about the climate catastrophe, I knew about many of the problems, but I couldn’t bear to think about it.
When I became involved in the “Inner Development Goals” organization, I became aware of something:
In order to actually do something, one must reflect and work on one’s own capabilities. There are several skills that are useful for being able to work toward change, to be able to effect change. And I realized that the same skills I’ve used as a change leader and organizational coach for software companies are the skills needed to bring about change in the world.That’s what IDG (Inner Development Goals) is about. And that’s why I’m writing this article – so that, if you didn’t already have the full picture, and with the analogy from World War II, I can make you think, just as I do:
What can I do? Not only to save the world, but to save myself and my children, as best I can.
And explore the Inner Development Goals, which have helped me turn despair into hope and new perspectives on how I can actually contribute to a better world.
