The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week Three - “The New Economy and Biodiversity”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Steven Earl Salmony, AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population

Moderating team: In highlighting the issue of human population growth, Steven Salmony also argues that too many policies focus on development, neglecting the need for sustainable progress. Ecological indicators should be developed to demonstrate how healthy economies are dependent on the Earth.

Al referirse al tema del crecimiento demográfico, Steven Salmony afirma que muchas políticas se han enfocado en desarrollo y han obviado la necesidad de progresos hacia la sostenibilidad. Indicadores ecológicos deberían desarrollarse para demostrar como las economías saludables dependen de la tierra.

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The human community needs many opportunities like this one to "meet" and share ideas and data concerning real challenges of the 21st Century.

What has too often been missing from discussions at the United Nations, in NGOs and among many scientists are the potential challenges posed to humanity by the continuous increase of absolute global human population numbers and the magnitude of per human consumption and human production capabilities on the surface of Earth. These distinctly human activities could soon irreversibly disrupt the delicate balance of the relatively healthy ecosphere that is required to sustain life as we know it in the planetary home we inhabit.

Does it not make sense to consider ways the human community could begin to effectively, humanely and voluntarily encourage the regulation of per capita consumption of limited resources, maximum expansion of human production capabilities and the unrestrained increase of human population numbers?

Just for a moment, let us imagine that increasing human population numbers, rising per capita consumption and the seemingly endless expansion of the man-made world economy could reach a point in Century XXI where these distinctly human activities irreversibly upset the delicate balance of ecosystems required to maintain life as we know it on Earth, if that were so much as a slim possibility does it not make good sense to consider how the human community begins to come together for the purpose of humanely, effectively and voluntarily developing policies and programs of action specifically designed to regulate per human consumption, human propagation and human production activities.

In my lifetime, there has been much talk about sustainable development; however, we have seen the implementation of many too many policies that focus primarily on development and treat the needs for sustainable progress with benign neglect. There has been much too little discussion of what could be the patently unsustainable growth of economic globalization: that is to say, the infinite expansion of the world economy in a finite world.

If a certain synergy in human "over-growth" activities could produce unexpected and unwelcome outcomes that extirpate biodiversity, degrade Earth by too rapidly dissipating its limited resources and, perhaps, endanger humanity, has the moment not arrived when we enact such human "laws" as are necessary to stem the rising tide of certain human activities?

Take the Kyoto Protocol. Some leaders say that to fulfill its bare minimum requirements would wreck national economies. These leaders appear to not yet possess a sufficient awareness of biophysical reality, one clearly indicating that a failure by humankind to preserve resources of the planet and health of its ecosphere could put the world economy at risk. How can an economy favorably function on a depleted and denuded planet? What leads to the belief that the Earth is like a cornucopia, an eternally providing teat at which humankind, like a suckling babe, can endlessly have its wishes and desires continuously satisfied?

Where are the ecologic indicators to match economic indicators? Could we invite the captains of economic globalization to make direct investments in the development and use of ecologic indicators that do as much to monitor and assess the integrity of Earth as economic indicators do to measure the success of the economy. Can a healthy economy exist in an unhealthy world? It does appear that Earth can get along without economic globalization; but it is difficult to see how the world economy can continue to function adequately, given its current scale and rate of growth, without its managers recognizing that the economy is dependent upon the Earth for its existence.

With good wishes and many thanks.