The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week Two - “Human Wellbeing and Sustainability”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Suresh Kumar, Regional Research Laboratory Trivandrum, India

Moderating team: Suresh comments on the problem of mass consumption and the need to change consumer patterns of over consumption in order to achieve sustainability. Only when politicians and governments support a change in this consumption pattern can any change be achieved.

Suresh comenta en el problema del consume masivo y la necesidad de cambiar los hábitos de consumo para alcanzar la sostenibilidad. Solamente cuando los políticos y los gobiernos promuevan un cambio de este estilo, serán posibles los cambios hacia la sostenibilidad.

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Consumption can be sustainable only if it is for the essentials of existence and not for conspicuous needs. Our elitist oriented consumption patterns are the derivative of a consumer society ,an ethic of mostly the Westernized societies. The television culture based on advertisements and consumption oriented modes play havoc with nature and its resources, as is happening.

Our spiritual values need to be rooted in processes aimed at energy internalization through vital breath focused practices that one comes across in the ancient texts,if correctly understood, and externally more concerned with resource and energy conservation ,simple lives and harmony with nature to the extent possible.

We need politicians and decision-makers who subscribe to these thinking patterns, practices, and living modes, and not simpleton sermons, as such.

Governments need to reward such behavioral modes in individuals and societies, as well as conduct formal training sessions and awareness creation workshops to spread the message and ensure implementation and follow-up.

As I have pointed out earlier i know of one community near Trivandrum, living adequately, appropriately in material terms and affluently, in terms of mental and spiritual terms.