The concept of thresholds, is an ecology principle that can help us to better understand the unraveling world around us. Within a stable ecosystem, the diversity of relationships and resources create resilience to shock. A strong and diverse ecological community can endure shock again and again, and can actually begin to deteriorate without showing the impacts, until a threshold is reached. And then collapse happens, abruptly. What we learn through the concept of thresholds is that all collapse is really transformation.

There is another principle that has a lot to teach us– the Adaptive Cycle. At the beginning (though as a cycle, it is never-ending), abundant energy is available, relationships are not yet established, and potential forms are infinite. It is a blank canvas. Imagine a meadow. Slowly the first pioneers arrive, creating structure, and over time stability is established. Shrubs arrive, and then trees. Given the right conditions, an ecosystem will want to move toward an old growth model– a highly resilient system in which relationships are well-established, many niches are created, and all the available energy is held fast in biomass, with little change over time. This climax state is resilient to most shocks, and only a catastrophic event like a flood, fire, or clearcut can upend the order, and discharge the energy to be redistributed in new forms.

This week we are rejoined by Zayaan Khan to discuss water scarcity in South Africa. Local communities are experiencing a threshold being reached; a point of no return at which culture can change rapidly. Suddenly people become accustomed to the unthinkable —no showering! no laundry!— and they begin to ask, how could we have ever been so wasteful, so indulgent? Meanwhile, those who worship capitalism as more sacred than human life go on doing so, until irreversible thresholds are crossed and cultural change is unavoidable even for those who have had the means to insulate themselves from the realities of the majority. This week we discuss what’s on the other side of the threshold.

♫ Music is "The Day" and "Noontime Twin" by Eola.