So it seems sustainability won - the debate I referred to in my previous post was officially closed today and the moderator's concluding remarks are here. I am not sure I agree with some of his observations. For instance, according to me, the issue of fossil fuels and energy sufficiency is an issue now, and will remain one till it is solved (assuming it is, at some point). However, the question of sustainability will continue to hang over our heads as long as we do not transform the way we think, feel, work, play, live and love. If it is not about fossil fuels and their effects on the environment, then it will be the availability of water, and if not that, then food, and if not that then other resources and opportunities, including access to health care and the means to earn a livelihood.
The Western mind does not readily grasp the economics of scarcity because it seldom needs to deal with it (though Great Depression II might have changed some of that). A large segment of the global population lives under conditions that barely support human life, where demand is overwhelming and supply scant and the means to match demand and supply fall short by a few orders of magnitude. This is a time-bomb for economies of abundance. At best, the West has been a benevolent patron of poverty and sickness, when it should have been an active partner in growth and development. (Obama said something to this effect, in the context of Africa, in his Ghana speech.) It should have been teaching people to fish, not just giving them fish for their next meal - to paraphrase an old adage. Not out of noblesse oblige, but out of the recognition that 'prosperity does not happen in a vacuum' (latter expression borrowed from Obama, again, though perhaps not verbatim).
As I pointed out in an old post (when my perspective was only just slightly different): it's the people stupid! A planet with finite resources populated by an exponentially growing mass of humans must worry about sustainability for as long as that mass of humans is growing exponentially - especially because the have-not's are growing much faster than the have's. We are already witnessing wars between as well as within regions and/or communities today. Most of these are exacerbated by socio-economic inequities involving scarcity of resources for daily sustenance and/or a healthy and secure life, and of opportunities for growth and development. While such conflicts may be triggered, on the face of it, by other differences (such as religion or ethnicity), they achieve momentum because one section of the population (of a certain religion or ethnicity) feels cheated out of their land or their water or other resources, by the other section. Religious or ethnic differences serve as good rallying-cries for leaders of hate-based militancy / extremism simply because it is easier to hate on an empty stomach, than it is to love. And easier to love when there is contentment, when there is no need for hate.
In atomic physics, we learn that too many protons in a nucleus make it unstable. Up to a certain point, adding neutrons 'keeps the peace', but beyond that point this strategy doesn't work - the atom becomes radioactive and then starts the process of exponential decay. The story of world population is similar. The glue of love that holds us together seems to be running out, and we might be teetering dangerously close to the tipping point, beyond which the population is just so huge that civilisation as we know it will collapse under the weight of its own hatred - all that is left then will be anarchy and utter chaos. And it won't be about fossil fuels or alternative energy sources (though if that problem is not solved by then, it will only fuel the flames of hate even more - please excuse the bad pun, this is too serious to be funny).
No, I'm not a doomsday pundit. This is real. Worry about it now. And act if you can. If you will.
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