EMBRACING CHAOS

It’s not surprising if you feel uneasy right now. In fact, it would be strange if you didn't. The world has become a very turbulent place and it feels like we’re in a state of permanent crises. We are living on the cusp of a new era, in which everything that we took for granted is being called into question. COVID-19, climate change, loss of biodiversity, energy crises, migration and droughts regularly make the headlines.

In this ground-breaking book, Professor Jan Rotmans, a global authority on sustainable development and transition, analyses the world through a set of systemic crises: a financial-economic crisis, an ecological crisis, a moral crisis and a democratic crisis, all of which interact and reinforce each other. This multiple-system crisis affects us deeply and confronts us with persistent problems in our vital social systems. These systems are nearing their end and no longer meet the demands that we, as humans, place on them. The systems must now reinvent themselves, but we humans must reinvent ourselves too. That is the essence of system change.

Exploring these crises from an individual, corporate and national perspective - including a bold 100-year plan for the future of the Netherlands - Rotmans offers fascinating examples of successful change and encourages us to act decisively and embrace the chaos in order to build a more optimistic future.

Jan Rotmans is a full professor in Sustainability Transitions at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Mischa Verheijden is a freelance interviewer, storyteller and web copywriter.