By 2050, 9 billion people will live on Earth, all hoping to participate in an expanding global economy.

Consider that the opening line – the scene setter – for what’s likely to be one of the defining stories of this generation and the next. Because for the first time ever, the scale of human activity is hurdling headlong into the natural limits of the planet’s ecological systems.

What to do? How do we get to sustainability – or the art of living well within those limits? How will our generation, in a patchwork of big, small and surprising ways, bend itself in the arc of a future that works?

That story is way bigger than any single writer, or even Olympic Dream Team of writers with late-model MacBook Pros could possibly tell. Instead, it’s being written by all of us, every single day. So since telling is out of the question, this blog is trying to follow, interpret and hold a conversation about that story, as seen, at least, from one little corner of the world.

What is The Butterfly Generation?

Literally and metaphorically, the life of a butterfly is about as dramatic as it gets. Eager for growth, a caterpillar eats like crazy, transforming the edible world around it into energy and useful materials. Then change comes, in the cocoon, when a qualitatively different life form emerges: the butterfly.

Now, in the fading days of an era of booming quantitative growth — a near guaranteed 9 billion people, an industrial revolution, globally interlacing economies — we face a similar challenge as the caterpillar. Change is coming. We are the first species on this planet to truly be everywhere and affect everything. Can we also be the first generation to trade all that growing for something more intelligent, connected and qualitatively improved? Can we ditch the culture of “bigger” for a culture of “better”?

Can we become The Butterfly Generation?

About the Author

Scott Gast is an aspiring environmental journalist, sustainability advocate & student. He works currently at YES! Magazine, where he uses the web to edit and produce solutions-based, community-engaged journalism. His writing and project managing also finds a home at Nonprofitmapping.org – one of the first attempts to use open source data and visualization to help nonprofits and the journalists who cover them tell their stories better.

Before all that, he was lucky enough to have his own desk and adjustable swivel chair at Orion Magazine, where he poured over many books, sent many emails, and got to sit in on the occasional editorial meeting. He really dug that job.

When not writing about himself in third person, he’s blowing his savings on records, biking around the city in spandex shorts, and wishing he was a character on Seinfeld. He’s a graduate of the Environmental Science program at Allegheny College and hails from Chicago, IL.

Scott is on the look-out for new projects, collaborations and interesting conversations – so drop him an email or leave a post!

Email: gast.scott(AT)gmail.com