The Future: 10 Challenges for Sustainability
Growing concerns about climate-change pollutants, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, resource shortages, and the world’s gamut of ecological problems have placed new pressures on sustainists. Creating a sustainable society that thrives within its biophysical limits is no longer seen as a distant and utopian objective; it’s now an urgent matter that, if neglected or mismanaged, will bring devastating consequences for the planet and the human economy that lives off of it. The increased political attention, institutional support, and financial commitment to the cause of sustainability means heightened expectations for immediate, tangible results. The public doesn’t want idle chatter; it wants workable solutions to very real problems. Can sustainists seize the moment and lead the transition to the sustainable future? The quest to create a sustainable society faces a host of obstacles, and many pressing questions remain unanswered: How can the entrenched political and corporate interests that perpetuate unsustainability be overcome? How can society willingly transform itself? Where will the money and political will come from to coordinate the transition? Will this sustainable society be “industrialized” or “post-industrial,” “globalized” or “localized”? Will the changes be top–down, bottom–up, or both? By charting the growth and development of sustainability since 1700, this book has not meant to imply that ecotopia is an inevitable end point. Even optimists concede that it’s quite possible that the task is too tall, that industrial society could drive itself straight into the ground, that collapse is a real threat, and that the Industrial Revolution was the first phase of humanity’s protracted extinction event. If sustainability does succeed in undoing the many harms that have caused our ecological predicament, it will only do so with the broad support of the public and through a cooperative effort to adapt and transform. At the risk of bombast, it will have to change the course of human history, and that’s no easy task. This book ends with a discussion of 10 challenges faced by the sustainability movement.