Interview with Folke in Dutch investigative journalism magazine De Groene Amsterdammer.

Climate is not the only system crucial to the biosphere – the twenty-kilometer thin shell where all life and civilizations take place. It is intertwined with other planetary processes that regulate life on Earth, such as the ozone layer, oceans, forests and fresh water. Each and every one of them is complex systems that threaten to be disrupted by human intervention. To map this out, Folke and his colleague Johann Rockström have developed a famous model: Planetary Boundaries. In it, they link the nine processes to limits that we must stay within in order not to endanger life on earth, from the loss of biodiversity to deforestation and from plastic pollution to the acidification of the oceans. It is a scientific model, about which researchers are still writing new publications.

This year they looked at ‘green water’ for the first time, says Folke. “That is the water vapor on earth that makes rain possible. For example, if the Amazon rainforest is cut down, where water evaporates, the patterns of rainfall will change as far as China. As it turns out, we are going far beyond the borders.’ Measurements worldwide show that the soil is abnormally dry or abnormally wet in many places. “That brings tipping points closer that only accelerate our path towards what is called the Hot House Earth: a warm planet, like a greenhouse, where it is difficult to live.”

It worries Folke. “In general you could say: the more we dive in, the more we discover that we – with the exception of the ozone layer – are crossing all boundaries. We are setting in motion irreversible changes that entail a great deal of uncertainty.”

Thanks to the internet and social media, today we are well aware of everything that is happening all over the world. “If we use that ability to become more sustainable, then that is a real strength. But it also seems that it creates new behavior that doesn’t fit with how we are put together. Genetically, we haven’t changed much since we were hunter-gatherers. Due to current technology, we are overloaded with stimuli. We can’t handle that mentally at all. The information can help us to know more points of view, but often it polarizes and only makes us more convinced of our own belief system. Systems theory teaches us that a system becomes less resilient as its diversity decreases and the number of direct interrelationships increases.’ So our capacity to deal with the problems also becomes more vulnerable.

Folke and his colleagues therefore do not look linearly at man and nature. They see our behaviors and beliefs as part of a complex ecosystem. So they don’t just believe in laws and techniques to make the economy ‘sustainable’. They believe that you need to change the guiding framework that people base their choices on. “I don’t look so much at quantitative quantities. I look at processes and relationships, at the capacity to change. We need to look for a narrative of hope.” A law to reduce emissions is important, but it is only part of what is needed. ‘We need to combine that with stories that intrinsically motivate people to live more sustainably. Then they start doing things differently and that creates a new reality.”

It is therefore norms and rules and value systems, including religion, that we should look at, says Folke. ‘The challenge is to broaden it to the earth, in order to add the insight that we are dependent on this unique planet.’ And that, says Folke, is an area where he can certainly say something positive about. “I can see this movement happening. Humanity is moving out of the industrial age, where we thought the world was big enough for us to do whatever we wanted, to a new age where we recognize that we are part of the biosphere. People are starting to see that they depend on the earth. And that is directly due to climate change.’

You need the farmers. They understand how nature works. But we made their knowledge disappear, pushed them towards a monoculture with subsidies’

Sometimes you can’t change until you hit the wall. In the Netherlands and Flanders, nitrogen is now such a wall. But what if that wall only brings polarization? ‘I don’t know the nitrogen situation in the Netherlands very well,’ says Folke, ‘but I can imagine how difficult that is. Flexibility always decreases as turbulence increases. As we get closer to the limits of the planet’s carrying capacity, conflicts increase, and so does agriculture. In 2019, we published a study in Nature about the global food system. That has become hyper-efficient. Politics has driven farmers to produce as much as possible. In this way we have shaped our entire landscape to the few species of animals and plants that we find useful, and then also a very limited number of varieties.’

But that has a price. “The price is vulnerability. You can increase yields through efficiency, but resilience decreases.” A shock or a change – a virus, a price drop, a dry season, a policy rule – quickly leads to a total crisis. “The challenge for you, just like in the rest of the world, is: how do you make agriculture resilient again in the landscape, so that it becomes a buffer again against flooding, drought or other challenges.”

It reminds him of a similar problem in Sweden. Forestry is very important to us. For years, a monoculture of mainly pine and spruce has been planted, but that has created the conditions for a major crisis. In 2018 we successively saw drought, flooding, forest fires and then a beetle that killed the trees. We then put together the CEOs of various companies involved and concluded that more diversity is crucial for a resilient forestry industry. That also means: fewer conifers and more deciduous trees between the pines and spruces. Then you no longer get so much production of one thing at once, but you get more production of different things.

In the 1990s, I researched how indigenous communities have survived for thousands of years without fossil fuels or markets. How could they always have enough food? I saw the same everywhere from Polynesia to Canada: their agriculture is always diverse. A portfolio approach, as an investor would say. They spread the risk. They always have some kind of safety net crop that they can use in times of crisis. We, on the other hand, have subjected the planet to a kind of planned economy. Using all the space for one thing. And now we have to pay the price for that, because now that we need the resilience, it is no longer there. Our systems are therefore far too simple and not diverse enough. And the systems for dealing with the problems are also too simple.”

Back to the farmers: ‘That’s the group you need. They are the ones who understand how nature works. But we made their knowledge disappear, we pushed them towards a monoculture with subsidies. We must therefore stimulate and stimulate them again to make them come up with new ways. Help them become stewards and stewards again, as providers of vital services. Farmers are essential to the city. They not only provide food, but also manage the landscape, which provides us with countless services, from water buffering to cooling and pollination and much more. It must once again become a profession that is valued and paid for by society. We don’t need fewer farmers, but much more. People who will take care of the land and the seas and derive pride and dignity from the services they provide, as a carpenter can be proud of his work.”

All this does not mean that things will have to disappear. Sectors and industries that pollute too much will have to stop. “But let that also be done with dignity. We have to find social forms together to help people mourn and say goodbye when a company has to close, just like when someone dies.

Just as there are tipping points in the wrong direction, there are also tipping points in the right direction, which ensure that there is a sudden breakthrough and that a great deal changes at the same time. “You cannot achieve this through a specific measure or law. You have to change the field. This is only possible with attractive, alternative directions or paths. So that people can get excited and feel new connections that give meaning. That meaning formation is really fundamental. That’s how we are as human beings, that’s how we evolved. The environmental debate is often about disasters and dystopias: we go to hell and everything breaks down. But we need meaningful stories. No fabrications, but true stories.”

Are people open to that? Or should we first plunge into a real crisis? Many small crises are always better than one big one. The classic lesson of resilience is: never shut yourself off from the problem. If we shut ourselves off from it, the crisis will deepen and we will ultimately be worse off. A well-known example is the industrial air pollution in cities in the past. In England the solution was simple: build taller chimneys. Until finally there was acid rain all over Europe and the fish in the Swedish lakes died of acidification. Only then did the world agree on limiting sulfur dioxide.”

So we must be willing to face the crises so that we can transform. Much has been written about resilience in psychology. And the same applies there: painful events, such as the death of a loved one, can become moments when we grow and renew, so that we become more resilient as human beings. That also applies to ecosystems and the way we deal with them.’

An example of such a learning process, in which Folke plays an active role, is SeaBOS (Sea Business Ocean Stewardship). “Ocean fishing is coming up against all kinds of limits, from overfishing to warming sea water and diseases in fish farming. We have mapped out which players on Earth have the greatest influence. We ended up with a group of thirteen important multinationals that have a decisive influence on the marine ecosystem. Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean fish companies, but also trading houses and the Dutch Nutreco. These were the companies doing the most lobbying and connecting the ecosystems. We started a dialogue with those players. How can you be not only a producer, but also a steward? How can you reduce plastic waste and take better care of fish stocks? This is not only a matter of rules, but also of meaning.’

It led to a huge transformation, says Folke. ‘For example, the three Japanese companies all saw that shrimp farming was threatened by antibiotic use, but they had never talked to each other. Now they work together, they talk to the government and work on joint policy. And the whole group now has science-based climate targets. Five years ago none of them had that. They make their value chains transparent and make agreements about exploitation. We have only changed the field through an attractive vision around which they organize themselves, and they themselves proceed differently.’ The network also has an effect on all kinds of other sectors and international agreements, such as the UN Global Compact. “You can see that it is not about a linear change, but about a complex system that shifts.”

The question is always: do we use a crisis to achieve transformation, a real transformation, in which we will work together with the biosphere to keep the earth livable? “During the financial crisis that started in 2007, there was also a debate about a green shift. Just nothing happened to it. Now, after a pandemic and also a war, things are starting to shift. We are moving away from fossil very quickly now. It is a hopeful example of a transformation that is coming.”