Are social and environmental solutions on a collision course?
At the WorldChanging book launch on October 28, Bruce Sterling made a quip about the most environmentally-sustainable people being dead people. He talked about how so much of what we do damages the environment, and most of our talk about environmentalism involves reducing the impacts - but is rarely about getting to the point of fully eliminating the harm we impose on the earth. He then expressed an aspiration to do better, though I wasn't quite clear on how he was proposing to do that.
On November 1, I attended the North America launch of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and heard some compelling statistics about worldwide hunger and malnutrition. The most memorable was the number of child deaths that can be attributed to the underlying cause of malnutrition - each year, this number is approximately the population of Japan. And tragically, it isn't even particularly difficult or expensive to provide vitamin and mineral fortification. This is why the Gates Foundation is underwriting the GAIN - because the money invested has potentially very high social returns, in terms of lives saved.
Why am I telling these two stories back-to-back? Because they seem to shed light on a very difficult reality: the social and environmental causes are somewhat opposed. The Earth is suffering, in some sense, from overpopulation. We can do a lot to reduce each individual's impact on the earth, but we still don't know how to get that impact to zero. And humanity is suffering from poverty and disease, which are obviously in need of attention from those of us lucky enough to live healthy and wealthy lives.
Does anyone see the disconnect here? What if the world's population grew even faster than it is today - say, by the size of Japan every year? What would happen to the planet? Would our eco-friendly innovations be able to keep up?
The WorldChanging team embraces a philosophy of hope, with contributors promising to avoid "apocalism" and the presentation of problems without corollary solutions. I like that attitude, in the sense that it creates a website where people go for solutions. Such a website is a useful thing for the world to have.
At the same time, I can't be lulled into thinking that every problem has a known or easy solution. The conflict between saving lives and saving the earth appears to be a case in point. What are the solutions? Will we need to moved toward a worldwide "One Child" policy? Will our innovations be sufficient? I don't have the answers - but I hope that, by asking the toughest questions out loud, perhaps we can bring more attention to the search for solutions we haven't yet found.
If you believe that I'm wrong about this "collision course" (and I hope I am wrong), please write to tell me why. I'd be very happy to post another viewpoint on the issue.
On November 1, I attended the North America launch of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and heard some compelling statistics about worldwide hunger and malnutrition. The most memorable was the number of child deaths that can be attributed to the underlying cause of malnutrition - each year, this number is approximately the population of Japan. And tragically, it isn't even particularly difficult or expensive to provide vitamin and mineral fortification. This is why the Gates Foundation is underwriting the GAIN - because the money invested has potentially very high social returns, in terms of lives saved.
Why am I telling these two stories back-to-back? Because they seem to shed light on a very difficult reality: the social and environmental causes are somewhat opposed. The Earth is suffering, in some sense, from overpopulation. We can do a lot to reduce each individual's impact on the earth, but we still don't know how to get that impact to zero. And humanity is suffering from poverty and disease, which are obviously in need of attention from those of us lucky enough to live healthy and wealthy lives.
Does anyone see the disconnect here? What if the world's population grew even faster than it is today - say, by the size of Japan every year? What would happen to the planet? Would our eco-friendly innovations be able to keep up?
The WorldChanging team embraces a philosophy of hope, with contributors promising to avoid "apocalism" and the presentation of problems without corollary solutions. I like that attitude, in the sense that it creates a website where people go for solutions. Such a website is a useful thing for the world to have.
At the same time, I can't be lulled into thinking that every problem has a known or easy solution. The conflict between saving lives and saving the earth appears to be a case in point. What are the solutions? Will we need to moved toward a worldwide "One Child" policy? Will our innovations be sufficient? I don't have the answers - but I hope that, by asking the toughest questions out loud, perhaps we can bring more attention to the search for solutions we haven't yet found.
If you believe that I'm wrong about this "collision course" (and I hope I am wrong), please write to tell me why. I'd be very happy to post another viewpoint on the issue.
posted by Melissa Paschall at 11/07/2006 09:56:00 AM
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