From ‘Sustainability’ to ‘Survivability’
the challenge we now face
In recent years ‘sustainability’ has been the byword of people concerned about the relationship between humanity the the natural environment in which we exist as material beings. It refers to lessening the pressure we put on that environment in providing the material needs and wants of human beings.
That pressure takes many forms. In spreading across the land we obliterate existing ecosystems. We overwhelm that environment with products and, worse, byproducts of their production that are lethal to other forms of life. With our exhausts we pump clouds of pollutants into the air. We are even changing the very climate of the entire planet.
The last of those effects is the most dire. It is the most far-reaching. It is the hardest to stop. It is the most irreversible. Its effects, once they arrive in full force, will be the most sudden — though no one will be able to say that they were unexpected.
All of those affects have been known to us for at least a century. Yet, we have continued to seek after more than we needed without due regard for the natural environment that sustains human life. As a result, we have gone from concerns about sustainability to a new standard of anxiety: survival.
There is a solution. It also would accomplish more good things for society. The outcomes it promises are absolutely, positively irrefutable. All people who can read and understand this article have the ability to understand it. It could be implemented in any nation with a single legislative Act.
I keep writing about it. People keep ignoring it. I don’t know why.
It can’t be that human beings are by nature irredeemably lazy, stupid, foolish cowards. I am a human being. I know I am not those things — or at least that I am able to transcend them when I know I simply must.
So I know all other people can do that, too. That is why it is all so puzzling.