 |
| You
are here: Home
> Explore
Sustainability
> Step
One - Understand |
|
The Challenge
An old Kenyan proverb states that we should “Treat the Earth well. It is not inherited from your parents, it is borrowed from your children”.
A brief look at the global socio-environmental condition suggests that we have not taken heed of this ancient advice. Rather, we have shown a tendency to live for the day.
Desertification, deforestation, climate change, local air pollution, declining biodiversity, and ozone degradation are just some of the key, pressing issues that scientists have identified as being detrimental to the environment within which we live. Delicate and interwoven biological and chemical systems that are the basis of life on earth are being put in jeopardy. Using ecological footprinting methods, research by the US National Academy of Sciences has shown that in 1999 the human economy (primarily based in the developed world) was absorbing 120% of the Earth's productive capacity, this is compared with 70% in 1961.Worldwide, they estimate that the biologically productive space available per person is 5.4 acres; the average British citizen demands 13.34 and the average American citizen demands 23.97. Our appetite for persistent, relentless consumption grows year on year.
And it’s not just our environment that is in trouble. According to a fact sheet published for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development “There are 1.2 billion people living on less than one dollar a day, and about half the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day. With few choices or opportunities, they are condemned to lives that are prone to hunger, disease, illiteracy, joblessness and hopelessness. Too often, they lack access to food, safe drinking water, sanitation, education, health care and modern energy services”. Even in the developed world we are not free from social troubles; basically we are running out of young people to generate new wealth and at the same time we are accumulating overwhelming numbers of older people (retired, and claiming state benefit) who will drain wealth from our economy creating a fiscal challenge like no other.
And of course, nowhere in the world today is protected from the
clutches of AIDS - over 28.5million people worldwide are currently
living with HIV/AIDS - most without access to adequate treatment.
These trends are not sudden, or unpredicted: over the past 40 years numerous studies have eloquently reminded us of these issues. Why are we so concerned now, all of a sudden? What has changed? Perhaps it is the fact that by virtue of the ‘global goldfish bowl’ the prosperous developed world is able to observe the effects of this degradation first hand: the effects of war, environmental destruction, famine and disease are now discernible in great detail and in real-time. The issues have come to our doorstep and we are finding ourselves asking firstly who is responsible, and secondly what can be done to ameliorate or reverse the consequences.
Many governments, companies and individuals alike have been forced
to take a step back, in doing this they seem to be coming to the
fundamental realisation that society only thrives because of the
environment within which it is seated. In turn, the economy, powered
by the environment (in the form of resource consumption) thrives
on a healthy society. This realisation forms the basis of the challenge
that is sustainable development. Development should and must continue,
but not by eroding societal capital, or by degenerating our environment
- it is our innate responsibility to ensure that subsequent generations
inherit sturdy foundations.
Using the words of Niall Fitzgerald, CEO of Unilever, “Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be”.
Wackernagel M, Schulz NB, et al. (2002).
"Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy." Proc Natl Acad Sci 99(14): 92669271
back to top
|
|
|
|
|
HOME
