The first wave was a response to warnings from scientists in the 1960s of a world imperilled by fossil fuels, water demands, chemicals, and urban sprawl.

In tempo with the times, activists promoted alternatives through moral encouragement in research and promotion.

It failed almost entirely: most didn't perceive the danger, nor did they want a change of lifestyle.

The second wave of regulation came 20 years later, with increasing acceptance of climate change, driving governments to respond.

But their regulations targeted changing people's lifestyles, so-called demand-side management, while allowing, even encouraging, the corporate development of fossil fuels. It too failed spectacularly.

Unwilling to change behaviour and outraged at carrying the burden of ‘carbon reduction', people sought out ‘loopholes’ in defiance, resisting regulation.

The third wave was serendipitous. Public pressure for climate responses coincided with cost-effective technological advances that could save the day.

Solar farms and wind turbines, advocated for 50 years, were suddenly adopted when the ‘price was right'.

The middle-class lifestyle, using photovoltaic cells, home batteries, and electric vehicles, was now sustainable and economically attractive.

Success seemed imminent as “the green karma was running over the brown dogma."

Then the most recent fourth wave threw all that promise into the bin.

Grassroots sustainability advocates saw all the gains reversed, undone by brutal politics and corporate business. A triple whammy struck:

Instead of slowing, atmospheric carbon emissions increased;
So, enthusiasm for addressing climate change dramatically declined;
As a result, we moved from averting catastrophe to adapting to it.

There’s a silver lining possible, but only after we wade through three upsetting events.

Carbon goes up: all around the world it’s “drill baby drill”

Populist politics, rising worldwide, relies on climate denial to blithely increase fossil fuel use and consequent carbon emissions. It’s “drill baby drill” as far as the eye can see.

All the while, Russian, Israeli, and American wars add to it. Besides the weapons bringing death, injury, poisons, fires, and environmental destruction, wars are hugely polluting.

Back home, an accounting trick allows Australia, the world's second-largest fossil fuel exporter, to ship gas offshore without a reckoning on the greenhouse gases and climate change resulting from its use.

Adding insult to the injuries caused, no tax on the gas is levied, money which could help address local issues of rising inequality in addressing climate change effects.

The ideal of limiting the world’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees has now been passed, and there’s no sign of stopping its inexorable rise.

Belief goes down: climate deniers are immune to facts

25% of Australians don’t believe in climate change (as in many OECD countries); witness the rise of One Nation here and Donald Trump there.

Much mainstream media drives denial by challenging the validity of research.

Despite increased scientific evidence and obvious accelerating climate change, climate deniers are immune to facts, and that infects the whole community.

Real commitment to carbon reduction is waning everywhere the right wing is in power. Which includes Australia. PM Albanese’s support for AUKUS, $50,000 arts degrees, and low safety net payments makes him indistinguishable from PM Morrison.

As does his do-little climate approach.

Chris Bowen, pragmatism writ large and author of the 2019 election failure, was appointed to the climate change and energy portfolio, an oxymoron that ensures gas grows without a ripple.

Activists view with deep dismay the hypocrisy of governments professing a commitment to climate change but acting against it.

Tasmanian Richard Flanagan typifies the outrage.

This loss of trust in government policies leads to a loss of belief in climate action, and consequently efforts for sustainable alternatives are declining, except where profits are made.

It’s a deep irony: as climate change increases, the enthusiasm to address it decreases.

From averting catastrophe to adapting to it

There’s a strange, counterintuitive response to the passive acceptance of increased climate change, causing a rise in the Earth's temperatures and consequent adverse events—storms, fires, heatwaves, and deaths—that we see all around us.

We know it’s happening; we know we could address it, but we don’t.

So, we seem to have entered an era of giving up resistance to climate change and, rather, learning to live with it. Architecture and design will now be focused on mitigating its effects.

We have moved from averting climate change to adapting to it.

One example tells the tale: ten years ago, Larry Marshall, then head of CSIRO, announced a reduction in climate change research staff and some projects in favour of increased attention to ‘mitigation and adaptation'.

All hell broke loose; he was criticised from all sides.

On climate change he was blunt: "That question has been answered, and the new question is, 'What do we do about it, and how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with?'"

Marshall countered that CSIRO would continue to support climate measurement in Australia whilst increasing research into mitigation and adaptation: "No one is saying climate change is not important, but surely mitigation, health, education, sustainable industries, and prosperity of the nation are no less important.”

He knew that no matter how much science was conducted, the climate deniers could not be shifted.

The recent dramatic increase in inequality, in income and particularly housing wealth, has left a large part of our population focused on the cost of living (issue #1) rather than climate change (was issue #1, now #11).

We've moved from a social conscience to selfishness, from mitigation to management. Survival replaces sustainability.

In this fourth wave, we have pivoted from trying to stop climate change to trying to deal with its effects. We're no longer fighting; we're folding.

A brilliant silver lining for the future

For better or worse, discussion of sustainability is mainstream. And with that comes a radical idea. What if 'sustainable' doesn’t go far enough? What if just sustaining the current inequitable state of the world doesn’t cut it? What if we should be enhancing, not sustaining?

Many designers still cleave to the modernist ideal that design and technology can make a better life.

Sustainability is no longer tied to reducing climate change. Now sustainability is free to make life better than now in a climate-catastrophic world.

Now design must reduce the effects of climate change and address its consequences.

Cross-Sections are Friday musings from Tone Wheeler, formerly of Tone on Tuesday. Amateurs draw plans; professionals draw sections – never at cross purposes.

Tone Wheeler

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