Humanity’s Journey: Deciding Between Social Breakdown or Worldwide Progress

Humanity finds itself at a pivotal moment, facing the potential for either gradual societal decline or a significant shift toward sustainable prosperity, as indicated by recent modeling research that projects human wellbeing through 2100.

The Earth4All study, published in Global Sustainability, illustrates how escalating inequality and environmental degradation foster a perilous feedback loop, eroding governments’ capacity to tackle existential challenges such as climate change.

The research presents two sharply contrasting scenarios for the rest of this century. In the “Too Little Too Late” scenario, ongoing economic policies continue to escalate inequality while global temperatures surpass 2°C, resulting in what researchers characterize as “a progressively grayer and more fragmented world.”

Social Strife as a Barrier to Climate Policy

This study’s distinctiveness lies in its incorporation of social dynamics into climate forecasts. The researchers created innovative indices to monitor both social strife and wellbeing, illustrating how these elements influence governments’ ability to formulate long-term policies.

“By weaving together a social tension index and a wellbeing index, we’ve been able to underscore the role of social dynamics in climate scenarios,” said co-author Nathalie Spittler from BOKU University. “Reaching climate objectives involves more than just technological and economic progress.”

The modeling indicates that when individuals perceive their living standards stagnating while elites advance, social tensions escalate significantly. This decline in trust initiates a vicious cycle where governments lose the necessary political capital to pursue ambitious climate initiatives.

Five Transformative Shifts to Alter Everything

The alternative “Giant Leap” scenario illustrates that change remains achievable through five concurrent policy transformations that the researchers term “extraordinary turnarounds”:

• Eliminating poverty through substantial investments in developing nations
• Decreasing inequality via progressive taxation and enhanced workers’ rights
• Empowering women by improving health, education, and economic opportunities
• Revamping food systems through sustainable agricultural practices and dietary modifications
• Reinventing energy through swift renewable implementation and efficiency improvements

If these changes are enacted together starting in the 2020s, it could maintain global warming below 2°C while simultaneously enhancing wellbeing worldwide. The model indicates that inequality would diminish, social tensions would subside, and governments would regain the capacity for long-term strategic planning.

Technical Advancements Meet Social Contexts

Lead author Per Espen Stoknes from BI Norwegian Business School highlighted the research’s key revelation: “We posed a straightforward yet pressing question: can human wellbeing improve while alleviating pressures on planetary boundaries? Our model affirms this – but only if we enact these turnarounds through decisive shifts in our current economic policies.”

The Earth4All model builds upon system dynamics concepts from the 1970s “Limits to Growth” study, incorporating essential social feedback mechanisms absent from prior research. Unlike traditional economic models that presuppose equilibrium, this method captures how social and environmental factors interact over the long term.

The model analyzed global trends from 1980 to 2020 to establish baseline patterns before projecting forward under various policy scenarios. A noteworthy innovation was modeling how perceived advancement affects social cohesion, which subsequently influences the political feasibility of significant reforms.

Urgent Action Required, Significant Consequences

The research highlights the immediacy and scale of action needed to avert civilization’s collapse. “The Giant Leap scenario reveals a technically feasible yet ambitious route forward,” Stoknes remarked. “It necessitates a level of global cooperation and political leadership we have not yet witnessed, but such a political shift could still create a prosperous future for humanity on a stable planet.”

In the absence of such coordination, the “Too Little Too Late” scenario leads to temperatures exceeding 3°C, widespread ecological collapse, and societies increasingly unable to govern effectively as internal fractures deepen. The researchers caution that this path could precipitate “a series of interconnected disasters for humanity.”

The timing of the study is particularly pertinent, as current global policies suggest a 3.1°C increase by 2100, placing the world on a dystopian course unless extraordinary actions commence immediately. The research posits that reducing inequality and rebuilding social trust may be prerequisites for achieving the political consensus essential to effectively address climate change.