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Confronting an environmental debt?
The planet earth is a wondrous and complex ecological system. Not until our technology enabled us to rise into space and look back were we able to fully realize how unique it is in the universe. Unfortunately, the same development that sent humans into space has become a threat to the planet.
The “modern age” with a central belief in the inevitable dominance of humans over the rest of the world, began about 300 years ago with the development of technology to use energy locked in fossil fuels. Fossil energy freed humans from dependence on solar energy, the way of life for all of previous human history and opened many exciting new areas of activity. This “age”, which many regard as humanity’s finest hour, has been marked by an almost endless succession of technological achievement.
As a measure of our success, the promotion of the earth utilized by humans has increase vastly. Our numbers grew from about 500 million in 1650 to 6 billion in 2007and with this came an even more rapid growth in our use of earth’s renewable and non renewable resources.
This Cornucopia of humans’ benefits has come with a price. We are now altering environmental processes on a global scale in ways that are making earth less habitable for humanity. Using the much discussed national debt as a model, we can consider the accumulated negative environmental alterations that threaten human’s future as the environmental debt. Example of this debt are discussed include climate change from increased greenhouse gases, destruction of ozone layer by CFCs at a fasted pace than its creation by naturally occurring processes and the increasing loss of biodiversity and ecological integrity.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg, for the environmental debt can be expected to grow rapidly. Human numbers are expected to double in less that a century, perhaps by 2050. This staggering increase an additional 5 billion people in as little as 55 years-means utilization of vastly greater amount of fossil and nuclear fuels and other minerals, along with sharply increased land, water and air pollution, greatly increased competition between humans and rest of the nature for the use of the biosphere, and stunning increases in environmental debt.
It is unlikely that the environmental debt will destroy or diminish human society directly. A more likely scenario is that in the not too distant future, as the environmental debt interacts with social and economic factors, it will contribute to rising political and economic chaos, with profound disruption of the everyday functioning of society. Increasing numbers of people will live in extreme poverty while a privileged few may continue to prosper.
However, we are not helpless! There are things we can do. What we need right now is a real commitment to slow down the growth of the environmental debt, policies that buy time so that humanity can have a better chance to develop a new age of environmental accountability and truly sustainable society.
The most fundamental policy for all nations should be to reduce the rate of human reproduction and eventually achieve a smaller human population. There are also many technological and social policies by which we can buy time. For example, we can use science and technology to a far greater extent than is now done to make more efficient use of energy and other natural resources; doing so would reduce the stress on nature. Substantial reductions in agriculture’s toxification of land, water and air can be achieved.
A great potential to reduce the environmental debt rests in the hands of individuals. Often we are frustrated by the resistance of our economic and political systems to change, but many decisions are controlled by individual citizens. Examples are how many children we have, the things we buy, how we drive our cars and our willingness to conserve natural resources. The actions of an individual are probably the strongest force for changing social and economic policies.
Unfortunately, as things are now, individual citizens have minimum responsibility for sustainable world. Economic development policy is left to industrialists, financiers, politicians and technologists who believe in the “Modern Age” philosophy of inevitable dominance of humans over the rest of nature; such people have a deep commitment to profit and to endless growth of human enterprise.
An example of modern age thinking can be found in the debate concerning the failure of the educational system to prepare children for the future. “Modern age” thinkers are calling for education that is primarily designed to fuel competitiveness and growth of the human enterprise, whereas the reality of the future demands education for sustainable world.
To meet the impending crisis brought on by a surging human population, burgeoning and careless use of natural resources, and the threatened collapse of many nation states, we need a new thinking and new leadership. Leadership that seeks planetary stewardship and sustainable world aims at reducing the environmental debt by understanding the role of humanity plays in its interconnectedness with the rest of the nature.
Ultimately, we must make a commitment to loosen human pressure on natural systems. That will mean fewer humans demanding less from the Earth, and new philosophies and technology designed to allow us to live in dignity within constraints set by nature.
The planet earth is a wondrous and complex ecological system. Not until our technology enabled us to rise into space and look back were we able to fully realize how unique it is in the universe. Unfortunately, the same development that sent humans into space has become a threat to the planet.
The “modern age” with a central belief in the inevitable dominance of humans over the rest of the world, began about 300 years ago with the development of technology to use energy locked in fossil fuels. Fossil energy freed humans from dependence on solar energy, the way of life for all of previous human history and opened many exciting new areas of activity. This “age”, which many regard as humanity’s finest hour, has been marked by an almost endless succession of technological achievement.
As a measure of our success, the promotion of the earth utilized by humans has increase vastly. Our numbers grew from about 500 million in 1650 to 6 billion in 2007and with this came an even more rapid growth in our use of earth’s renewable and non renewable resources.
This Cornucopia of humans’ benefits has come with a price. We are now altering environmental processes on a global scale in ways that are making earth less habitable for humanity. Using the much discussed national debt as a model, we can consider the accumulated negative environmental alterations that threaten human’s future as the environmental debt. Example of this debt are discussed include climate change from increased greenhouse gases, destruction of ozone layer by CFCs at a fasted pace than its creation by naturally occurring processes and the increasing loss of biodiversity and ecological integrity.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg, for the environmental debt can be expected to grow rapidly. Human numbers are expected to double in less that a century, perhaps by 2050. This staggering increase an additional 5 billion people in as little as 55 years-means utilization of vastly greater amount of fossil and nuclear fuels and other minerals, along with sharply increased land, water and air pollution, greatly increased competition between humans and rest of the nature for the use of the biosphere, and stunning increases in environmental debt.
It is unlikely that the environmental debt will destroy or diminish human society directly. A more likely scenario is that in the not too distant future, as the environmental debt interacts with social and economic factors, it will contribute to rising political and economic chaos, with profound disruption of the everyday functioning of society. Increasing numbers of people will live in extreme poverty while a privileged few may continue to prosper.
However, we are not helpless! There are things we can do. What we need right now is a real commitment to slow down the growth of the environmental debt, policies that buy time so that humanity can have a better chance to develop a new age of environmental accountability and truly sustainable society.
The most fundamental policy for all nations should be to reduce the rate of human reproduction and eventually achieve a smaller human population. There are also many technological and social policies by which we can buy time. For example, we can use science and technology to a far greater extent than is now done to make more efficient use of energy and other natural resources; doing so would reduce the stress on nature. Substantial reductions in agriculture’s toxification of land, water and air can be achieved.
A great potential to reduce the environmental debt rests in the hands of individuals. Often we are frustrated by the resistance of our economic and political systems to change, but many decisions are controlled by individual citizens. Examples are how many children we have, the things we buy, how we drive our cars and our willingness to conserve natural resources. The actions of an individual are probably the strongest force for changing social and economic policies.
Unfortunately, as things are now, individual citizens have minimum responsibility for sustainable world. Economic development policy is left to industrialists, financiers, politicians and technologists who believe in the “Modern Age” philosophy of inevitable dominance of humans over the rest of nature; such people have a deep commitment to profit and to endless growth of human enterprise.
An example of modern age thinking can be found in the debate concerning the failure of the educational system to prepare children for the future. “Modern age” thinkers are calling for education that is primarily designed to fuel competitiveness and growth of the human enterprise, whereas the reality of the future demands education for sustainable world.
To meet the impending crisis brought on by a surging human population, burgeoning and careless use of natural resources, and the threatened collapse of many nation states, we need a new thinking and new leadership. Leadership that seeks planetary stewardship and sustainable world aims at reducing the environmental debt by understanding the role of humanity plays in its interconnectedness with the rest of the nature.
Ultimately, we must make a commitment to loosen human pressure on natural systems. That will mean fewer humans demanding less from the Earth, and new philosophies and technology designed to allow us to live in dignity within constraints set by nature.
