A transition from the Holocene to Anthropocene
For 12,000 years, human civilization flourished within a fleeting, precious window of climate stability.
This Holocene Era brought something unique and important: predictability and prosperity. Predictable, favorable seasons enabled agriculture and settlement, art and culture, economies and cities. Humanity could innovate and advance.
Now in the 2020s, we have left that era of stability, and are now deeply in the Anthropocene. Despite stark evidence of climate change, biodiversity loss and social erosion - and countless scientists' warnings - humanity has not brought about the crucial transformative change needed.
We've entered a highly unstable, unpredictable period which is already disrupting our civilization.
For decades, people avoided discussing population or questioning wasteful consumption. But this taboo is catastrophic. Population and consumption are the 'multiplier threats' undermining all our other environmental and social crises globally. Climate change. Biodiversity loss. Ocean plastics. Even inequity, xenophobia and racism, injustice, unemployment and the erosion of social services.
Without addressing population and consumption, we cannot make progress on all the others.
At Stable Planet Alliance, we're re-igniting this conversation to shift our global trajectory. The world needn't careen off a cliff. We can change our future. And we are taking action: top-down and bottom-up.
Shifting the conversation on population and consumption
Our alliance members convened in late 2021 as a global coalition: a broad tent of like-minded, determined, respected and energized organizations and individuals. We're committed to better outcomes: a wiser, gentler global society that learns from its mistakes. A healthy and sustainable population. A global culture of sufficiency. Transformative public policies. Free, open conversation, especially by women, about better options. And a resilient life-affirming planet as a legacy for our children - seven generations forward.
We're collaborating to shift public policy and public narratives about these two gravely mistreated issues by 2030. Our ambitious goal? To stabilize, then steadily, ethically reduce population and consumption - with conversations and policies led by women, youth and men around the world.
Humans drove Earth overshoot in a horrifyingly short time. We can change it. We'll collaborate on policies and norm-shifting media narratives to bring about a healthy and sustainable population of c. 3 billion by the mid-2100s, and a growing culture of sufficiency - rather than waste, excess, and soullessness.
Stable Planet Alliance (SP) is a coalition of social, health, legal, scientific, economic, media, policy, women's leadership, faith, culture, and solutions-focused organizations. We're making progress on reducing human planetary impact through collaborative norm-shifting and policy change on Earth overshoot, where others cannot succeed alone. We bring leadership voices of global women, men and youth on social and planetary justice, indigenous wisdom, global change science and the arts.
Our progress will be measured through social and planetary metrics - in progress. Join us!