A seeming corrosion and failing of our systems, natural, political, social and financial, appear to be the unfolding story of our age. There is a widening, negative disconnect, compounded by inequality, between what people believe in and want and what they feel they can achieve. The populist upsurge in many developed economies reflects a sense that the cards are stacked against us/me and that no one credible is looking out for us/me.

There is, however, an accelerating disconnect between the narrative of big systems, whatever the domain, and the reality of regular people the world over. The old saw that good news does not sell is true and in an era of always connected digital media, hope is always on the back foot struggling to be heard above the buzz of the bad.

One of the great failings of the sustainability movement over the decades is that it has been far more comfortable selling doom and gloom - - the poverty, pollution, waste, extinctions, habitat destruction, over population and climate change - - to engender a sense of urgency, rather than in promoting trust and hope.