Making the Case for a Regenerative Technosphere

The word ‘regenerative’ has been applied to many processes, businesses, and practices. As a civilisation, we have exceeded the capacity of the Earth to accommodate the present, let alone the future expected demands on resources. We live in a world that is out of balance and on a trajectory that is taking us even more out of alignment with a stable climate and viable ecosystemsEcosystem. As a response to this movement regarding climate and ecological emergenciesEmergency, this proposes that we must move to regenerative practices in all sectors of our economies. ‘Sustainable’ (and hence the term sustainabilitySustainability) must be exceeded. Ecological movements question the ability of planet Earth to absorb and recycle waste and provide the resources needed to both sustain other-than-human life and provide for the material needs of a highly technological and resource-demanding human civilisation. The practices of regenerationRegeneration have been applied to ecosystemsEcosystem that are in direct relationshipRelationship with biological systems, like farming and land managementManagement, or riparian and ocean systems. What has been less explored is how our knowledge of regenerative practice can be applied to technological, human-made systems that are, to an extent, removed from biological systems. For us to continue to live in an advanced technological civilisation, the technosphere will also need to rapidly adopt regenerative practices and protocolsProtocol. This chapter will examine what the drivers of a regenerative technosphere are, and what some of the possible transitional pathways might look like.