The term "unsustainable" got thrown around a lot in the 1970's, mostly regarding the environmental impact of consuming as if there were no tomorrow — virtually guaranteeing there will be no tomorrow. Literal extinction is within our capabilities and may already be unavoidable if we have surpassed unidentified tipping points.
With the impact of global warming already well underway and yet countries still measuring their national well-being from their level of using and trading resources, unsustainability is alive and well. Our reaction to the global economic downturn is to feverishly struggle to regain the level of consumption we have "lost," as if it were a precious object instead of a headlong journey toward self-destruction.
The term "unsustainable" got thrown around a lot in the 1970's, mostly regarding the environmental impact of our consuming as if there were no tomorrow — making it entirely possible there will be no tomorrow.
With the impact of global warming already well underway and yet countries still measuring their national well-being from their level of using and trading resources, unsustainability is alive and well. Our reaction to the global economic downturn is to feverishly struggle to regain the level of consumption we have "lost," as if it were a precious object instead of a headlong journey toward self-destruction.
The climate is changing, flora and fauna are moving as fast as they can do adapt, species have been disappearing at an accelerated pace for decades. In truth, the best thing that could happen for the future of life on earth would be if homo sapiens simply vanished tomorrow. The second best thing would be if global trade stopped tomorrow, with families worldwide thrown back into the brutish existence of living off of local resources, using just enough to sustain themselves.
We achieve self-deception via an uncanny ability to define and solve our problems in compartmentalized fashion, noticing only later the consequences for challenges in other categories. In fact, for societies around the world, one group's solution is another group's problem.
Here in the capitalism capitol of the world, economic growth is a mantra, a quasi-religious principle. (Consumerism, after all, is our national religion, separation of church and state notwithstanding.) Not growing is defined as failure. But in living systems, unrestrained growth is the prime feature of cancer, which stops spreading only when the host dies.
Clearly only a fraction of the current population could be sustained living off the land, and the populations would be trimmed the same way nature adjusts the coexistence of other living systems: Starvation, predation, sickness and, for a lucky few, old age. Virtually all creatures are driven to avoid premature death and maintain the species; we're just best at it and have beaten the odds for millennia — which likely means the fall to self-sustaining levels, when we no longer can put it off, will be further. But unless we except for those of us committed to a sustainable future for subsequent generations, little will change till nature makes the adjustments.