Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
It also prophesised that '… no nation can escape from conflicts over
increasingly scarce resources'.
Einstein warned that the atomic bomb necessitated new ways of thinking
if we are to avoid unparalleled catastrophe. The confluence of weapons of
mass destruction with the increasing willingness of young people to vio-
lently sacrifice themselves in attacks aimed at populations perceived as exces-
sively privileged and indifferent means, at the least, a highly uncertain future
for civilisation.
The nuclear brinkmanship of the Cold War is being replaced by a less
defined but equally intractable threat. Ahead, climate change, ecosystem
degradation, and continuing population growth are likely to exacerbate
resource scarcity, thus increasing the potential for violent conflict. Unpalata-
ble as contemplation of this future is, the best hope for civilisation lies in
openly confronting these challenges. Facing up to the reality and limits of
carrying capacity, and the risk of inequality to
privileged
as well as impover-
ished populations appears deeply threatening to political and economic
elites. The intensity of this denial is intriguing. Although military and polit-
ical strategists may have cogent reasons for the suppression of discussion of
these matters they cannot deny that humanity is now in a precarious state.
Australia is an island, but its sustainability depends upon many interna-
tional phenomena, both social and environmental. Though contested, the
emergence of global terrorism is a plausible response to the perception and
reality of excessive global inequality. Terrorism threatens to unravel the sus-
tainability transition by destroying infrastructure, eroding trust and its
numerous opportunity costs. The current response to terrorism threatens to
generate a 'fortress world', in which bunkers of good governance and pros-
perity huddle against an increasingly lawless, hostile and barbarous outside.
Globalisation means that it is increasingly meaningful to analyse the
world as a linked, interdependent economic, political and strategic unit.
This means that, unlike one hundred years ago, poverty in the back blocks of
Afghanistan, Nigeria and the Solomon Islands has widespread strategic as
well as humanitarian significance. This world, awash with resentment,
maldistribution, and weapons of mass destruction requires a clearer discus-
sion of the root causes of conflict to avoid calamity. Military conflict threat-
ens to undermine sustainable development, and is also more likely to occur
as a consequence of approaching environmental limits, whether manifest as
