Linked crises heading our way

In my last writing here, I spoke of protecting our needs by protecting the earth's needs. I mentioned the various ways in which particular people are doing that. This time I want to take another, more sobering step.

As I suggested, there is much evidence of humankind "waking up" to the effects of our way of life on the environment. However, there is still a tendency for many of us to think that we can go on living the way we do, but just be a little more careful about how that affects the natural world. So we respond to the plight of the sea lions, or whales, or the South Island robin, working for a better balance between our needs and the needs of other species and the environment we share.

But this approach tends to reveal the persistence of an age-old idea that the natural environment is somehow separate from us. It's something we visit occasionally, care for and enjoy, while also needing to protect ourselves from it. We tend not to think that we are utterly dependent on it. We are occasionally reminded of this truth by a climatic disaster, but mostly we manage to avoid it.

Over the past 200 years or so, we have come to believe that economic growth is what is important. That's not surprising, given the benefits we have gained. And until recently it seemed like the planet's resources were limitless. But there are signs everywhere that we have been living beyond our planet's means. We are heading for what Paul Gilding, the ex-chief executive of Greenpeace, has called The Great Disruption.

Using various studies undertaken by teams of international scientists he shows that humankind is heading for a massive economic and ecological crisis. These studies show we are currently living beyond our eco-system's limits in a wide range of areas, including the basics of food, water and fibre. It is estimated that by 2050 we will need at least three planets to support the increasing population (9 billion by 2050) combined with their desired economic growth. This is not mere philosophy. It is basic science.

Gilding is not saying that the crisis might happen - he says it is inevitable. The science makes it so. Many, of course, will say things like "It can't be that bad", or "Technology will save us". The latter might help to reduce the impacts, but it will not change the facts. Gilding believes that, just as we have previously in our history, humankind will recover from the crisis, and create a healthier system. Politicians, who are so embedded in the system we have, will make little difference. And even though there are some in the corporate world who see what's happening and are changing their behaviour, the only ones who will finally make survival possible is us. Individuals, community groups and small organisations are the ones who will enable civilisation to recover from the "disruption" which is coming. In many ways we can prepare for it now - by educating ourselves, by organising, by getting involved politically, by changing our behaviour which keeps the system going, by facing and telling the truth about what is happening. Above all, we must rediscover and reaffirm our fundamental relationship with the earth and each other. We are the system, so we can make it change.

Philip McConkey has worked in the human relations field for over 40 years, and is currently the convener of the Whanganui branch of the Green Party.