From our perspective , sustainability for our planet means that it can continue to do , what it was meant to do. That means that it is able to provide us with water , fresh air , food , and allow us too have a high quality of life.
Sustainability is one of the most important aspects of life as we have it today , but we really didn't start considering it seriously until the past 50 years or so. As discussed and you showed us in class , the whole Easter Island situation is what i believe to be a small scale representation of what is eventually going to happen with Earth.
The people of Easter Island were very simple and lived their life as any other island dwelling people would. They caught fish , hunted wild game , gathered fruits and vegetables and used all the resources available to them to make their quality of life as good as possible. They seemed to enjoy what they were doing and lived comfortable on the island for hundreds of years but NEVER took into account that one day it will all be gone. Once that final tree was cut , or that final bird was killed , things would start to change and very quickly. There is no more government or social status to do with the people , it literally turns into a every man for themselves as you will be fighting to survive day to day.
``Current global population of over 7 billion is already two to three times higher than the sustainable level. Several recent studies show that Earth’s resources are enough to sustain only about 2 billion people at a European standard of living.``
Now taking this into account , obviously there are many poorer areas of the world which would not come close to the European average BUT this also doesn't take into account that the United States uses double the resources Europeans do.
This is really bad new for future generations , the children being born today and 10 to 15 years from now will live in a society where everyone is starting to realize what we've done. Making ourselves reliant on a black substance that has limited quantity or polluting our oceans with all the waste we create. People are gonna look back and think how stupid we are to use several liters of fresh drinking water every time we use the bathroom.
Whats going to happen once we run out of oil? Or what happens once we run out of trees to chop down? Is the world just going to turn into one big Easter Island? I mean , there has to be a way to stop us from getting to that point , but what can we do? There has to be a wave new technology that is based on sustainability , because even as i write this , inside my heated home i personally don't believe i`m helping and probably making it a little tiny bit worse.
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I'm really happy i was born at the time i was , my best guess is that things will probably start to get serious once im an old man. Wars over oil , riots over fresh water , but at that point it doesn't really matter to me because as an old man i just get to watch and see what happens.
http://www.justmeans.com/videos/The-Natural-Step---Sustainability-and-the-4-System-Conditions-Explained-in-2-Minutes/1328.html
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable
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