Contents
Statement of Support
- Introduction: The Need for Change
- Towards the Stable Society: Strategy for Change
- The Goal
Appendix A: Ecosystems and their disruption
Appendix B: Social systems and their disruption
Appendix C: Populations and food supply
Appendix D: Non-renewable resources
The Movement for Survival
References
The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos
of expansion is that it is not sustainable. Its termination within
the lifetime of someone born today is inevitable - unless it continues
to be sustained for a while longer by an entrenched minority at
the cost of imposing great suffering on the rest of manklnd. We
can be certain, however, that sooner or later it will end (only
the precise time and circumstances are in doubt), and that it
will do so in one of two ways: either against our will, in a succession
of famines, epidemics, social crises and wars; or because we want
it to - because we wish to create a society which will not impose
hardship and cruelty upon our children - in a succession of thoughtful,
humane and measured changes....
Radical change is both necessary and inevitable because the
present increases in human numbers and per capita consumption,
by disrupting ecosystems and depleting resources, are undermining
the very foundations of survival. At present the world population
of 3,600 million is increasing by 2 per cent per year (72 million),
but this overall flgure conceals crucially important differences
between countries...
The combination of human numbers and per capita consumption
has a considerable impact on the environment, in terms of both
the resources we take from it and the pollutants we impose on
it....
It should go without saying that the world cannot accommodate
this continued increase in ecological demand. Indefinite growth
of whatever type cannot be sustained by finite resources. This
is the nub of the environmental predicament. It is still iess
possible to maintain indefinite exponential growth - and unfortunately
the growth of ecological demand is proceeding exponentially
(i.e. it is increasing geometrically, by compound interest)...
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