2005-03-31
Bankruptcy
The report just submitted to the United Nations on the (piteous) state of the planet is not a product of the sometimes provocative alarmism often criticized in environmental organizations. More than a thousand of the most highly qualified experts have compiled and analyzed all the available data on the impact of human activities on the ecosystems that make life on earth possible.
Conclusion: that life can no longer continue and will not continue at the rate we are spending down the treasure of the terrestrial family.
The ever more frenetic exploitation of natural resources has permitted an improvement in the lot of a rapidly growing population, whatever the critics of progress may say. This development, however, has occurred at the expense of an accelerated degradation of most vital ecosystems. For the first time in the history of life on Earth, the permanence of that life no longer seems assured - even leaving out the hypothesis of human species self-destruction by war.
By dint of sounding the alarm and piling up reports, we risk that no one pay attention anymore, so limited is the human capacity to project into the future. We don't, however, have the luxury of ignorance any more. Unless we intend to bequeath our descendents a world that is (literally) unlivable, we must meet the challenge of sustainable development: i.e., call a halt to the destruction of the fragile ecosystems upon which we depend for our existence as a diver depends on his bottles of oxygen, even as we continue to exploit them for our growing needs.
The first step seems the hardest. We must radically change our method of calculating wealth and accept the idea that neither wealth nor development are measured by dollars per inhabitant. And accept the idea that we must integrate the price of services nature provides into our analyses. Nature, or rather its destruction, has a price. Sooner or later, we'll pay the bill. At this moment, humanity is threatened with bankruptcy.
