Human activities are placing tremendous strain on the Earth's natural systems, as 6.8 billion people consume ever more resources in pursuit of a wasteful and environmentally destructive economic model. Species and ecosystems are dying at an alarming rate, while at the same time we are depleting vital natural resources that we have build our whole society around. It has been calculated that if everyone on Earth were to consume as much as the average European, we would need three planet Earths. If human civilization is to survive the 21st century, we must transform our economy and society along a greener, more sustainable way.
All the evidence shows that not only is our current economic model destructive to the environment, and unsustainable in the long term, but also it does not make us happy. Once people have enough to live a comfortable life, getting much richer than that does not lead to any more happiness. Instead, rising inequality creates huge social problems from crime to mental illness, as rivalry and greed replace community and meaningful work. We must rebuild community life in this country, and restructure modern societies in a more environmentally and socially balanced way. There is no need to give up the positive aspects of modern civilisation - such as electricity, medicine, the internet, equal rights, and the market economy. But we must end over-consumption, obscene wealth and inequality, disregard for the environment, and the erosion of community life. This requires that we change our behaviour at the local level. But we cannot ignore that national level - we must demand that our government leads the way in building environmentally sustainability and social justice, instead of spending billions of taxpayers money trying to prop up the old system.
Because this old system does not work, and whether we like it or not it cannot continue for long because we are about to collide head-on with the Earth's ecological limits.
