The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

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

Riitta Wahlström, Taiga Institute, Finland

Moderating team: Riitta Wahlström agrees with Lester Brown that western culture cannot continue as it is. All activities need to be evaluated for their impacts on nature. Some changes may be inconvenient – but climate change is inconvenient. Adopting renewable energy systems is important but is not enough.

Ritta Wahlström afirma igual que Lester Brown que la cultura occidental no puede continuar como ha sido hasta ahora. Sus actividades deben ser evaluadas por sus impactos en la naturaleza. Algunos cambios podrían ser inconvenientes, pero el cambio climático es inconveniente también. LA adopción de sistemas de energía renovable es importante, pero no suficiente.

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I agree totally with Lester Brown. It is impossible to continue this kind of civilization. There has to be a change and it means changing a lot in our western culture. Every kind of activity now needs to be evaluated for its impact in nature. There should be new eco-evaluation groups at the national or global level and new environmental laws created as soon as possible. Many of our consuming habits just have to be denied. Paper consumption is one example. Do we really need those hundreds of thousands of "full of adds magazines"? Do we really need formula car racing anymore? Smoking and the tobacco industry has a big environmental impact and could be made as illegal as drugs. We need to have a strict legislation process for promoting sustainable development. Renewable energy is a very important issue, but it is not enough on its own. I know this sounds very inconvenient, but climate change is very inconvenient. We should use proceeds from the military budget globally: there should be 2 % given as soon as possible to environmental projects (of course militarization itself is a very polluting system, but humanity has such a low consciousness level, that disarmament globally might not be realistic yet). The human race needs to have evolutionary leap from materialistic and ego-centric values to eco-centric and more spiritualistic values and belief systems. It needs a new education process, where the environmental responsibility and environmental sensitivity should be the most important intellectual ability to be promoted within all age groups.