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The Overview Project intends to ensure people and the planet flourish in the twenty first century, by changing the way we think. We cannot fix the planet unless we understand ourselves. And we cannot achieve fulfilment unless we learn to live in balance with the Earth.

The unreasonably ambitious sub-goals of the Project are for people to achieve personal happiness and an enlightened society, unlock our inner superpowers, fix the natural world and reverse global warming. 

Sustainability of our system and finding purpose as individuals are one and the same. They must both be addressed by one very simple question.

The one question we must always come back to.

How I should live today?  

About Dan Wells

Dan is a sustainability and finance professional, and is a Partner at Foresight Group, a fund manager which specialises in sustainability-led investment themes. He is a father of three, a runner and a writer, and lives in the UK.

About

The Overview Project

The objective of the Overview Project is to promote new ways of thinking to help us adapt to, and flourish in, the 21st century.

The Overview Project is a collective of people from science and the arts, government and business whose work in various ways contributes towards bending the arc of our future towards sustainability.

Its work takes the form of periodic articles and is intended to be relevant to anyone who has curiosity to better understand our world, suffers from anxiety about our future or seeks a more fulfilling life. Specifically, it aims to develop:

  • Clarity and a deeper understanding of the world we live in through curiosity and open-minds;
    • Connection through empathy with the perspectives of others and an understanding of the interdependence between us; and
    • Energy to contribute to a better future, fuelled by love for this world and sustained over lifetimes by happiness in our existence.

    The approach of the Overview Project is underpinned by objectivity, high quality science and clarity of communication. It strives for excellence through humility.

    It seeks to move minds through powerful communications that inspire awe in, and love for, this extraordinary world we live in and are part of.

    Its output is anchored in three themes:  

    • Theme 1: Building an “Overview Perspective” – explaining certain key concepts that are the necessary foundations to seeing the world more clearly. Understanding why things happen, what we really are, why we feel the way we do and why see things like we do, enables what we an “Overview Perspective”.
    • Theme 2: The 21st century world crossroad – enabling a deeper understanding of our current world – in particular our relationship with the biosphere, climate and our future – enabling us to understand the risks we face, while also seeing the pathways to a better society where we can flourish along with the Earth; and
    • Theme 3: Living well in this world – helping us all to live with greater happiness and contentment in this world that is unique in human history to-date, while contributing meaningfully a greater good.

    Essays

    The Tiger and the Cathedral: Sustainable Investing, Climate and Longtermism

    “What we do in life echoes in eternity” General Maximus Decimus Meridius[1] For most of human history humans have sat squarely in the mid-table of the food chain. We think of our ancestors as spear-wielding masters of the animal kingdom, but in fact we were often prey ourselves. John Valliant’s The Tiger (1997), a truly …