Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
not sufficient because the root problems of overpopulation, over-consumption,
speciesism and ignorance seem to be deeply ingrained in human psychology. Bekoff
and Bexell continue:
Therefore, we must address the important psychological and social/cultural
issues that support our poor stewardship of Earth, our only home, and
psychological barriers that prevent people from facing and addressing these
complex, frustrating, and urgent issues that are human-induced (anthropogenic)
.
. . . We need to extend efforts to inform people as part of a social movement
that is concerned with losses in biodiversity and the implications of these losses
for animals and for us.
(2010: 72)
It is probably self-evident that our disconnection from the natural world and our
tendency to ignore or override conservation regulations, laws and moral imperatives
are sometimes undertaken for material gain, status and/or even human survival, but
this only emphasizes the need for human beings to acquire the knowledge, skills and
understanding to recognize the supreme importance of maintaining a rich biodiversity.
We therefore need to cultivate an ecological consciousness that will enable us to live
with other creatures rather than simply kill them if they get in our way or help us
make some quick money. We consequently need a paradigm shift in human thought.
Communication, sustainable education and political action are ways in which the
current exploitative and irresponsible paradigm of unsustainable development can
be shifted. A useful starting point for this is to go beyond the limits to growth
debates and to actually delineate what a safe planetary operating space for human
life in concert with non-human life entails. Global planetary boundaries, such as
those delineated by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, must be recognized and adhered
to. These boundaries include:
climate change
global freshwater use
biogeochemical flows
rate of biodiversity loss
stratospheric ozone depletion
ocean acidification
change in land use
chemical pollution
atmospheric aerosol loading.
These boundaries are clearly interlinked and changes in one may impact on others,
causing these others to exceed what the Centre firmly believes to be safe operating
spaces for humanity. However, as the authors of an important paper conclude, 'the
evidence so far suggests that, as long as the thresholds are not crossed, humanity
has the freedom to pursue long-term social and economic development' (Rockström
et al
., 2009: 475). In 2012 Anders Wijkman, a former member of the European
Parliament, and Johan Rockström, head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, produced
a Report to the Club of Rome titled
Bankrupting Nature: Denying our Planetary
Boundaries
(Wijkman and Rockström, 2012)
.
The interconnected nature of the
