Culture and behavior: The human nature of unsustainability

September 1, 2011

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CULTURE AND BEHAVIOR: The Human Nature of Unsustainability by William Rees

EXCERPT:

The Unsustainability Conundrum

In 1992 the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued the following gloomy assessment of the prospects for civilization:

We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.

Thirteen years of continuing eco-degradation later, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the most comprehensive assessment of the state of the ecosphere ever undertaken, was moved to echo the UCS sentiments:

At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.

Just what is going on here? The world’s top physicists, ecologists, and climatologists have warned the world repeatedly that current development strategies are undermining global life-support systems, that we have “overshot” long-term global carrying capacity, and that human-induced impacts on global systems threaten catastrophe for billions of people. Yet still the dismal data accumulate with the accelerating loss of ecosystem integrity around the world. Despite decades of rising rhetoric on the risks of global change, no national government, the United Nations, or any other official international organization has seriously begun to contemplate—let alone articulate publicly—the revolutionary policy responses evoked by the scientific evidence.

Humans may pride themselves as being the best evidence for intelligent life on Earth, but an alien observer would record that the (un)sustainability conundrum has the global community floundering in a swamp of cognitive dissonance and collective denial.

Indeed, our alien friend might go so far as to ask why our reasonably intelligent species seems unable to recognize the crisis for what it is and respond accordingly.

To begin answering this question, we need to look beyond conventional explanations—scientific uncertainty, societal inertia, lack of political will, resistance by vested interests, and so on—to what may well be the root cause of the conundrum: human nature itself.

About The Post Carbon Reader

Image RemovedHow do population, water, energy, food, and climate issues impact one another? What can we do to address one problem without making the others worse? The Post Carbon Reader features essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. This insightful collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary and presents some of the most promising responses.

Contributors to The Post Carbon Reader are some of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers, including Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, Stephanie Mills, David Orr, Wes Jackson, Erika Allen, Gloria Flora, and dozens more.

William E. Rees

William Rees is an ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. He is the originator and co-developer (with his former student, Dr Mathis Wackernagel) of ‘ecological footprint analysis’ and author of 150 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and numerous popular articles, on humanity’s (un)sustainability conundrum. Dr Rees work is recognized worldwide. The Vancouver Sun named Prof Rees one of British Columbia’s top public intellectuals in 2000. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 and has since been awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Laval University), a Trudeau Foundation Fellowship, the 2012 Boulding Prize in Ecological Economics and a 2012 Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Wackernagel) , and is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute.


Tags: Building Community, Culture & Behavior, Post Carbon Reader