The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week One - “Global Challenges to Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Dr. Stephen C. Jameson, President, Coral Seas Inc. - Integrated Coastal Zone Management

Moderating team: Dr. Stephen Jameson believes that Homo sapiens are currently behaving naturally and that to get people to behave in a sustainable “unnatural” manner requires a new system of governance.

El Dr. Stephen Jameson afirma que el Homo sapiens actúa de manera natural y que para lograr un comportamiento sostenible “adquirido” se necesitan nuevos sistemas de gobernanza.

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Taking a look at the big picture (I am lead author of the International Coral Reef Initiative book, "State of the Reefs: Regional and Global Perspectives" ( www.coralseas.com ).

Our species, Homo sapiens, is a natural creature (animal) and part of the global natural ecosystem.

I would argue that our historical "unsustainable" behavior, when acting in large groups (i.e., tribes, countries, etc), is "natural" behavior. As such, Homo sapiens are acting as most natural creatures do, they follow the rules of survival of the fittest and increase in numbers until they outstrip their carrying capacity and get reduced in numbers.

To get Homo sapiens to act in an "unnatural" manner at the country level (i.e., in a sustainable manner) is a huge challenge that will not be accomplished without leadership (pressure/laws) at the Presidential level among countries.

The problem is Presidents in democracies (and politicians in general) tend to give the people what they want (natural behavior) so they can get elected. Plus they give business what it wants because business controls government through lobbying and campaign contributions.

It seems our basic challenge is to get Presidents around the globe to lead/force people and business to do what they do not naturally tend to do.

This not only flies in the face of normal political behavior but also flies in the face of natural human behavior at the country level (ex. Tony Blair's failed attempt to get the G8 to take meaningful action on global warming).

To live in a sustainable manner, we must come up with a "new system" of leadership/government that fundamentally changes our species natural behavior when operating as a large group - in mass on a global scale.

This will probably not happen until the effects of outstripping our carrying capacity are felt - if even then. Only time will tell.

The big question is: CAN Homo sapiens change its natural behavior (does it have the genetic ability when functioning as a large group) and evolve into a species with fundamentally different "unnatural" (sustainable) behavior?