Sustainability

The key thing for humanity in the 21st century is the notion of sustainability. Though in geological time, we, as a species have been here a very short time, what we have achieved and the sacrifices we have made are significant. By we, I mean us, Homo Sapiens, we are animals like any other but at the same time animals like no other.
We have come up with many innovations, from agriculture, to deodorant to space hoppers, some innovations being more useful than others. We have built up great empires only for them to fall and ways of life have disappeared and new ones emerge from the ashes of the old.

For most of our history, to the best of our knowledge, things have changed significantly but generally over long periods of time. Each new innovation we come up with seems to reduce the amount of time it takes us to come up with the next. For example, our ancestors, Homo Erectus used the same stone tools for a million years, it was a very long time before they had the need or the desire to come up with anything else. However, once they had the innovations kept coming and they still do.

Though by no means would I advocate that our cultural and technological evolution had some sort of plan behind it or was a straight forward process; from a chimpanzee digging for termites with a twig to a human planting crops, the rate at which we come up with new innovations seems to increase.

This in itself is not necessarily a significant thing, it after all makes sense that when you have more expertise behind you and tools at your disposal it is much easier to innovate. However, it is the way in which we use our technology which is more problematic. Though a certain amount of it is purely practical, such as the mechanisation of agriculture to feed a growing population we are also creative. We use much of our innovation for non-practical things that have other cultural purposes such as status within a society etc.

Though we are complex social beings that spend much of our time in Machiavellian power play this in terms of sustainability hasn’t mattered for most of our history. This is because we have been in direct contact with the natural world and in turn our reality is connected to it. In turn, we generally use things in a sustainable way, whatever it’s purpose because it’s right there in front of us.

The problem of unsustainability starts when we become detached. In ancient Rome for example, the desire for animals for amphitheatres led to the decimation of stocks of north African wildlife. Those in the cities wanting the animals were not linked to the animals, they were outside of their reality.
In our current society the same rules apply though with some significant differences, for example, there are many more of us and we exploit a much greater range of resources far more intensively with more advanced technology.

I seek to make no grandiose philosophical points about the nature of man, the human condition or anything like that. I take the practical line of wanting our descendants to be able to see and enjoy the diversity of animal life and human cultural diversity that we currently have. What I think is key to that is interconnectedness.

If we can make others aware of the natural world and that they are however indirectly associated with it and that they’re actions affect others then I think we can get somewhere.
I’m obviously not the first person to make such a point though I hope to be able to continue it’s message of a holistic outlook.