Note to reader.

Social unrest and the collapse of governance worldwide are spreading fast and we need a view of where we could go, a goal that is plausible even in the face of the anarchy of events. We are now, hopefully, approaching the down ramp from COVID but certainly we are already on the up ramp for climate change. Leadership is absent. We have no strategy for COVID and no strategy for climate change. Policy proposals, yes, but not courses of action. Policies aren’t proposing what governments should do. But policies could upset the status quo with new agencies and missions.To remind us of the predicament

Gardenworld faces new possibilities. We start with the fact that there is no shared strategy for dealing with COVID-19 and many are coming to the conclusion that it will be with us for much longer, longer than a generation. At the same time discussion about climate has fallen way off. We have the following curves of emissions and their impact on global temperatures

Gardenworld faces new possibilities. We start with the fact that there is no shared strategy for dealing with COVID-19 and many are coming to the conclusion that it will be with us for much longer, longer than a generation. At the same time discussion about climate has fallen way off. We have the following curves of emissions and their impact on global temperatures. My view is that even 1.5 degrees is disastrous because of its uneven distribution on the earth, meaning that the impact will be larger in some places. In fact, some agriculture has already been curtained or even devastated as of July 2020. It is clear and unfortunate that we have no shared strategy for dealing with climate especially how to start now to cut CO2 use.

Looking at the larger context a few steps out, a major reaction against mechanization and the deadening of the human was the romantic movement in literature and the arts which led to the Arts and Crafts movement. These, and WW1 failed to stop, nor even slow, the tsunami of industrialization. Basically enough people were rewarded, or imagined a better life through mass produced products and mass producing jobs, that the wave continued.

But the success of industrialization / consumerism / mass media has seriously slowed under the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. The new major blows to easy continuity, COVID and climate, are worse than just putting on the breaks. We must add to this terrible picture the failure of governance, especially in the US but also in Russia, Brazil, the middle east, to develop a centralized empowered capacity to give meaningful guidance.

But this means that the conditions for helping each other and rethinking the romantic world view and the place of arts and crafts now faces a world that needs such an approach and is not mesmerized by stuff and money consciousness. It is a long term but promising project. May you do better than we did. Much better.

The book makes suggestions on how to act when collapse and rebuilding are happening at the same time, often hidden by chaos. But more, this series of crises is also an invitation to new ways of being and acting. As the Dalai Lama says, compassionate action makes you feel good. Gardenworld is a post crisis goal, but one we can begin to implement now. The idea is to blend the way we meet the needs for food and habitat in the context of a craft mentality ftht taken together multiplying out to a new culture — familiar, but with a new emphasis, blending civilization and nature. Gardenworld is more of an intent than a plan. Plans are rigid and tend to break. Gardenworld is not encyclopedic but suggestive. Everything is changing rapidly. There are challenges at the local and at the global level, and all in between, and for all these layers climate change is a leadership problem to which you are a participant. It also is a challenge for ideas. How can we face climate issues and keep people engaged making the suff that supports food and habitat? A major leverage point is to explore the implications of Aristotle’s “We can have growth without development (water into wine) and development without growth.” Here might be the possibility of growth without extraction, without burning, without damage to people. But this will be hard even given the opening.. Can we rearrange what we have without destructive exploitation of earth and society?

To help keep you engaged the book is backed up with a website where new ideas are being posted, www.dougcarmichael.com