Lecture by Prof. Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir (Sustainability, University of Iceland)

Students need to register beforehand.

Places to intervene in a system in crisis: Paradigm shift through Wellbeing Economy and Ecocide Law
We live in an Era of ever more calls for interventions due to the evident human impact on the Earth System that have lead to challenges becoming more and more evident through climate change, extreme weather, floods, droughts, ecosystem decline, biodiversity loss, forest fires, inequality, politcal and societal turmoil… While scientists have warned for 30 years what the world would might look like if business as usual plans of operation were followed – we are still on that path. In this lecture I will explore places to intervene in a system using the twelve leverage points of Donella Meadows, one of the Limits to Growth authors in 1972. I will discuss that most of the suggested changes by governments and international organisations have been ´´shallow“ i.e. having impact on the syetem´s parameters and feedbacks (e.g. taxes), wheras ´´deep“ leverage points that can affect the design and intent of the system have not been attempted to a degree necessary to lead toward sustaianbility. I will therefore explore the effect interventions such as changing the goal (with Wellbeing Economy) and changing the paradigm (with Ecocide Law) could have for the overall health of the Earth System.