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The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say! Week Three - “The New Economy and Biodiversity”
---- The markets by themselves do not react to causes such as sustainability. Meaning that multinational business and other business firms will not espouse the cause without sustained public pressure. After all, the bottom line for them is profit not saving the planet. This does not mean to suggest that the private businesses do not care. They do but that this is not their number one priority. The seriousness of the environment and sustainability situation requires a rethinking of our human existence on this planet. In this the leadership role is that of individuals, and conservation movements networking with political forces to make the change happen. By themselves the markets or private businesses will hardly act. They have to be prodded, cajoled and pressurized to do the right thing. Very few businesses will change their businesses practices on their own. This is however also true of states and societies. Thus, the hope placed on the market may be misplaced as such. Public pressure will have to be mounted to change course. Dr. Lu Zhi correctly states that “in the future, every single organization should automatically measure its ecological footprint and pay for it”. We must hold the business organizations accountable for their conduct vis a vis the sustainability and conservation agendas. We have to work harder to define what these standards are globally. These standards will then have to be turned into laws and implemented. Dr. Zhi reminds us that at the moment we are deficient in the area of measurement of environmental successes as such. All the more reason to mobilize public opinion and thereby pressurize the ruling and businesses elites to fund such needed research and technical knowledge. The plan A will not work as Lester Brown puts it. This is very obvious. The plan B, as suggested by Lester Brown, can only be implemented by a grand coalition of global networks in the sustainability field with that of political groups which will in turn put pressure on the businesses and states to change policies and behavior. The quest for a sustainable future will require even more effort. As suggested by me last week nothing less that a momentous spiritual redirection drawing on all the world’s traditions can possibly work. Meaning that we must have the resolve to change individual behavior when calling for a change in the production of goods and services by the businesses or even the state itself. Committed individuals networked around the world present in large numbers and exercising their combined power at the right time and the right place> this brings in the significance of the issue of politics. The modern living and lifestyles glamorized by our consumer society now global is not easily altered. This requires stupendous efforts to change human behavior. Given our bad habits, change will not be forthcoming easily. Education is the first step in partnership with a grand spiritual reawakening movement. The right political pressure to make change sustainable is inevitable. Not many people are convinced about its inevitability, as suggested by many of our colleagues in this forum. In simple terms, only political pressure of the right kind will force behavior change. Certainly, a change in direction can be made to happen. It will not happen on its own by efforts of well-meaning and good people associated with conservation groups like the IUCN. We have to simultaneously work at several levels and areas. The new effort will be made across the continents. First, a new plan B (Brown) is certainly called for. Second, the new plan B can be achieved, if and when, we start the cumbersome process of global education, networking, political lobbying. Plus, the new role of the businesses must be spelled out primarily by outsiders and the state agencies. The conduct of the “engines of growth” of the global economy must be refashioned as per changing human needs. This is a question of our survival. We must act forcibly and soon. |