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In the World at large, there is a selfish
philosophy, especially among the most powerful of this World, of
"Think of Today, growth at any cost and forget what we bequeath
to our grandchildren". Plans that are made are, at best,
short term. The policy makers consider only a few short years
and tend to aim at short-sighted economic goals with
personal/political popularity in mind with a view to staying in
power.
But as you have seen, if you've looked at
the previous pages of this site, the decisions that are being
made today have a radical impact on the shape of the World
tomorrow. Now, that has always been true, to an extent, but we
are reaching a crunch point. With World population continuing to
grow and economic/industrial goals set at growth-at-any-cost we
are in severe danger of decimating the Natural World which we
rely on for our survival. The World in which we
lived has changed immeasurably in the past century. But it will
soon change in ways in which Humankind will struggle to survive
within the next hundred years unless we change our attitudes and
practices NOW and embrace a sustainable approach to our
lives and our very existence.
Sustainable Living is a practical philosophy whereby we
strive to use only renewable (sustainable) resources to safeguard
the future for our children.
The most widely held definition of sustainable living
is that of the Brundtland Commission Report of 1987 which stated that we must
"meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs". Another way of putting it is that when people make decisions about how to use the Earth's resources
(water, forests, minerals, food, wildlife, etc.) they must take into account
not only how much of these resources they are using, what
processes they use to attain the resources and who has access to them,
they must also consider whether enough resources are going to be left for
our grandchildren to use?
This is a change that needs to be embraced on two levels:
the most important level is with regard to national governments, who
have the power to change the course of the way we do things on a BIG
scale; secondly we need to change ourselves, personally - and that means
a change in our personal habits. Perversely, it is the second degree of
change that will ultimately cause the governments to change as, no
matter how insignificant you may feel, it is people who elect
governments. I cannot state strongly enough that every single person who
reads these pages and is moved by them should write to their MP,
State Representative, Prime Minister, President or Head of State urging
them to change course for a Sustainable future before it is too late.
In these pages you will find the latest thinking on the
following sustainabililty issues :
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