E3G

Facing up to Reality: Choices for a Sustainable World

By Tom Burke

It is also a world of accelerating change.

Globalisation has greatly expanded the realm of opportunity lifting many millions out of poverty. The creation of a single global information space has allowed us to create truly global markets for capital, goods and services.

But globalisation of opportunity has not often been accompanied by globalisation of responsibility. Too many millions can see, but cannot reach, the opportunities. Not all the change is good.

When I was born there were just over 2 billion people on the planet. Today there are 6.5 billion. With luck, and the benefit of modern medicine, I might well live to see the 8 billionth person born.

When I was born there were about six million elephants on earth. Today there are about six hundred thousand. I may well also live to see the last elephant in the wild die.

The extraordinary economic growth we have witnessed in the past fifty years has not been bought without cost. Much of that cost has fallen on the environment. Not until the end of the sixties did the world begin to tackle this problem with any conviction.

Since then we have been dealing with the easy politics of the environment. It has a familiar agenda. Air and water quality. Noise and nuisances. Toxic chemicals, radioactivity, wastes and recycling. Governments and companies everywhere are now increasingly engaged in solving these problems.

They are the easy politics of the environment because the need to tackle these issues was clear. Rivers were catching fire or feet deep in foam. Children could be found playing on uncontrolled hazardous waste dumps.

When politicians did take action there were many more winners than losers. The policy tools and institutions required were easily available. The issues were readily comprehensible to the media since there were clear villains and victims. You were on the side of the victims – who were often found among the least advantaged – and against the villains – who quite often turned out to be businesses.