“… a voluntary alliance of leading scientists and institutions dealing with planetary processes and sustainability issues…”
The recruiting paper for the Earth League begins:
Humankind has become a quasi-geological force on Planet Earth. Our species is the most successful ever, still growing in numbers and absorbing more and more natural resources for its industrial metabolism, which is largely based on fossil fuels and other dwindling stocks. As a consequence, societies around the world are currently witnessing severe crises that call for a “Great Transformation” toward sustainability. Climate change might be understood as just one manifestation of the emerging complex problem or as a driver. Many other challenges such as the distortion of ecosystem services, the loss of biodiversity, the degradation of land, sprawling urbanization, worsening water scarcity, the disturbances in terrestrial and marine food chains or the ubiquitous pollution of all environmental systems have to be taken into consideration.
At the same time, the gains of the human enterprise are distributed quite unevenly: abject poverty, lack of education, insufficient access to health services and other social disparities persist worldwide in spite of dramatic economic growth in many countries. Securing a life in dignity for all people alive while maintaining the essential ecosystems for future generations presently looks like squaring the circle. The UN has recognised this unprecedented challenge and therefore is about to set well-chosen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that complement and transcend the conventional Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Science will have to play an unprecedented role in this enterprise if that circle is to be squared.
Imperial College doesn’t seem to have its foundations based on reality. It may wind up becoming a religious commune…….
Their idea of sustainability already has us retired to a subsistence living and abject poverty—no engines, no livestock, no guns—farming as in the early 1800s. What more do they want?
As the UN cannot defined sustainability, particularly in the face of the fact that the world is constantly changing despite our activities, their push for sustainability means that they can go for anything they please.
The Earth League, huh? Will they each get their own brightly colored capes and secret decoder rings?
“Sustainability” is a reification fallacy. It is a concept. An ill-defined one. Not worth dying for.
Sustainable Development Goals:
Living in the same circumstances as your great grandfather did.
What’s one more insufferably self aggrandizing NGO more or less?