sagansense:
A recently published article from Laboratory...
A recently published article from Laboratory Equipment highlights another less-than-shocking study indicating humanity’s global footprint is…wait for it…environmentally unsustainable.
"Our article mainly focuses on understanding the interdependence of the different types of footprints and the role that businesses, consumers and governments play in creating our overall footprint. We know that we are not sufficiently sustainable in our actions. But the interdependence has not previously been shown in this way. The various players have divergent interests and take too little responsibility. Consumers do not feel responsible for what producers do and politicians focus too much on growth, exports and cheap imports. For example, who feels responsible for the distress caused when we deplete the resources in China because of cheap imports? If you buy a stolen bicycle, you are liable to punishment and individually responsible. But isn’t the consumption of products that are not produced sustainably also irresponsible behavior? Rethinking the global supply chain, that’s what it’s all about.”
— Arjen Hoekstra, Professor of Water Management, Univ. of Twente.
From the article:
Hoekstra, mainly known for his work on the water footprint, has published the research together with his counterpart Thomas Wiedmann, from the Univ. of New South Wales in Australia. In Science, the authors describe how intertwined the global economy, politics, consumption and trade are in their effect on global land, water and raw material consumption and on the climate.
Hoekstra and Wiedmann map out mankind’s total environmental footprint in a scientific, unique manner, but also realize that a solution is not immediately obvious.
Hoekstra asserts, "This of course requires fundamental changes in the global economy and international cooperation. But understanding the role of the various parties and the enormous complexity underlying our overall footprint is a first step. Everyone should assume and be given greater supply-chain responsibility; only then can we sustain our society."
We are continuously receiving clear indications from our planet that the ecosystem which sustains us is being neglected and abused, while religious and political leaders alike perpetuate the most arbitrary squabbles over territory, finite resources, rhetoric, opinion, class warfare, all revolving around money, one way or the other, while the science - the natural reality-interrogating process responsible for you know, our entire survival - delivers a plethora of alternatives and detours around the shadows of our mistakes.
Image art courtesy of indiedb
If you haven’t seen the 76-minute film END:CIV, you can watch it HERE or HERE. The film examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on 'Endgame', the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”
I’m not suggesting direct action and anarchy are a solution worthy to our cause. I’m simply recommending a film worth your time to consider what’s at stake if we continue “business as usual." For those of you who haven’t discovered The Venus Project yet, get to know a man named Jacque Fresco first (this 1971 video clip from his interview on Larry King provides a nice segue). He’s a self-proclaimed futurist and social engineer whose credentials you can browse HERE.
My referencing The Venus Project doesn’t mean I vouch for everything they propose, because we need an “all-minds-in” approach to progress. I support the project like I support many others, because it’s progressive, forward/critical-thinking, and bolstered by STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math), education reform, scientific literacy, and a true intellectual (r)evolution of human society.
The assessments from these studies, the statements made by acclaimed conservationists, environmental policy holders, congressional staffers, scientists, activists, …they all have one thing in common: they are all human beings, living on a single planet with a meticulous interconnected system governed by the physical laws of nature. And one of these human beings - one of us - stepped away (in the early 1980’s) from the narrow day-to-day perspective to remind us of something which ripples throughout our society today (which you can listen to here)…
"Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled ‘impractical’ or ‘contrary to human nature’…as if there were only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made, we’re surrounded by them. In the last two centuries, abject slavery, which was with us for thousands of years, has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring world wide revolution. Women, systematically mistreated for millennia, are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied to them. And some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations. The old appeals to racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism, and to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism, and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet."
— Carl Sagan; Cosmos: A Personal Voyage; Episode 13 “Who Speaks for Earth?”
