Download 7.6 mb full presentation with graphics

The State of the World
AIESEC IPM
Ohrid, Macedonia, 25 February 2008
Arthur Lyon Dahl Ph.D.
European Bahá'í Business Forum (EBBF)
http://www.ebbf.org
and
International Environment Forum (IEF)
http://www.bcca.org/ief
HEALTH WARNING:
THIS PRESENTATION
MAY CAUSE
NIGHTMARES AND
DEPRESSION
Bank manager's warning to wealthy spendthrift
The State of the World
is a dynamic condition
• Not a static situation but a balance to be
maintained in space and in time
• Involving complex interactions in the whole
system that maintains life on Earth (the
environmental accounts)
• Including the human system (the social,
economic and cultural/ethical accounts)
• That must maintain productive capital and
respect planetary limits to be sustainable
Globalization
• is the logical next step in human evolution, but
• Economic globalization is driven by powerful
governments and multinational businesses for
their own benefit
• Social globalization is being strongly resisted
• Globalization of environmental problems
threatens future sustainability
Some of the major driving
forces for planetary
unsustainability
Environment: biodiversity loss, pollution,
climate change
Human society: energy, population growth,
food, resource depletion
Economy: unmanaged globalization,
financial imbalances
Ethics: sovereignty, corruption, materialism
NATURAL
CAPITAL:
BIODIVERSIT
Y
LOSS
- Human impacts on the natural environment are
causing a major extinction event from uncontrollable
population and development pressures accelerated
by climate change
- There will soon be no undisturbed natural
ecosystems left, requiring increasing human
intervention to maintain some biological diversity
Waste
Treatment
Capacity:
Pollution
(image IKONOS – Lang, ESRI 1998)
Man-made chemical pollutants
have contaminated the entire
planet, interfering with biological
processes, upsetting hormonal
balances and immune systems,
causing cancers and other
diseases, damaging the ozone
layer, and having other as yet
unknown effects
Environmental Stability:
Climate change stronger and
sooner
• Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil
fuel have accelerated since 2000
• Rise in 1990s: 0.7%/yr; 2.9% since 2000
• Three causes: growth in world economy,
rise of coal use in China, weakening of
natural carbon sinks (forests, seas, soils)
• Growth in atmospheric CO2 is about 35%
higher than expected
Polar areas are changing fastest




14% of the permanent ice in the Arctic Ocean melted
in 2005; 23% more in 2007(worst melting ever)
opening the North-West Passage; permanent ice in
the Arctic Ocean may be gone by 2030
Greenland glaciers have doubled their rate of flow in
the last few years, raising sea level 0.6 mm per year
Similar melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet could
add another 4 mm per year
Sea level rise could drown Belgium, the Netherlands,
half of Florida and Bangladesh, among others, by
2100
There is little time left to act




Glaciers and snow cover have decreased; cold
days, nights and frost have become rarer; hot
days, nights and heatwaves more frequent
Recent surge in CO2 levels
Global temperatures have already risen 0.6°C
and will probably rise a further 3°, or even up to
4.5-5° by 2100
A rise of more than 2° could be irreversable,
requiring action within 10 years at most
We may be approaching a tipping point where
runaway climate change would be catastrophic
The most vulnerable areas risking
catastrophic collapse this century:
•
•
•
•
Arctic Ocean and Greenland ice sheet
Amazon rain forest
Northern boreal forests
El Nino affecting weather in North America,
South-East Asia and Africa (3°C rise)
• Collapse of West African monsoon
• Erratic Indian summer monsoon
• Result: 0.5-1 billion environmental refugees
Climate change
effect on the economy



The Stern Report estimated the annual
cost of uncontrolled climate change at
more than $660 billion (5 to 20% of global
GDP, as compared to 1% for control
measures for greenhouse gases).
Climate change represents the greatest
market failure in human history
IPCC 4 says stabilizing greenhouse gases
by 2030 will slow global growth by
0.12%/yr or 3% of total global GDP
Human Population
• The world population has tripled in one lifetime,
and is expected by the UN to rise to 9.2 billion
by 2050 before stabilizing
• By some estimates, world resources can only
sustainably support 500 million people
• We seem to be following a classic ecological
pattern of overshoot and collapse
• The planetary carrying capacity depends on
numbers versus standard of living; increasing
one reduces the other
• Science may find ways to increase carrying
capacity, but only at longer time scales
Food Production
• The Green Revolution of the 1970s postponed
food supply as a limit to growth
• Crop production has improved in the last 20
years from 1.8 to 2.5 t/ha. but such intensive
agriculture requires high energy, fertilizer and
petrochemical inputs
• World cereal production per person peaked in
the 1980s and has decreased slowly since
• Feeding the growing world population and
reducing hunger by half will require doubling
world food production by 2050
• Land, water, phosphate, energy will be limiting
Global Food Crisis
• In 2007, the price of wheat rose 100%, maize
50%, rice 20%, increasing staple food prices for
the poor over 10%
• Global food reserves are lowest for 20 years,
with only 57 day grain reserve
• Climate change, drought, floods, soil erosion,
overfishing are reducing food production
• With grain being diverted for biofuel, 800 m
motorists are competing with 2 bn poor
• There are 854 m hungry people, rising 4 m/y
• Food is being priced out of reach for the poor
Planetary Capacity?
• Water use for crops will have to double by
2050 to halve the number of hungry
• But, by 2025, 1.8b people will live in regions
with absolute water scarcity, and 2/3 of the
world population could be subject to water
stress as climate change reduces rainfall
• One third of all non-ice-covered land is
already used for agriculture or grazing
• More than 40% of all ocean areas are heavily
impacted by human activities
Resource Depletion
Many key materials are being exhausted rapidly
(estimated years left: predicted/today's rate)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Phosphorus (fertilizer) 142-345
Copper (wire, coins, pipes) 40-60
Zinc (galvanizing) 20-46
Hafnium, Indium (chips, LCDs) 5-15
Tantalum (cellphones, cameras) 20-115
Platinum (catalysts, fuel cells) 15-360
Silver (jewelry, catalysts) 15-30
Uranium (weapons, power stations) 30-60
Energy: driver of development
• Industrial economy, agriculture, transportation,
communications, trade, urbanization,
consumer lifestyle all depend on cheap and
abundant energy
• Energy demand will grow 50% by 2030, but oil
production is peaking and will decline 75% in
30 years; coal may also peak by then
• Adaptation will be extremely expensive and
the struggle for diminishing resources globally
destabilizing
• The fossil-fuel-based energy subsidy of
civilization is unsustainable
Economic globalization
by itself is not working
• Rise of the Asian economies driving delocalizations and
competition for resources
• Difficult transition in Central and Eastern Europe; failure in
Africa
• Ageing societies of Europe and Japan
• America is living beyond its means
• Growing extremes of wealth and poverty; exploitation of
the poor, child labour; worker stress
• Failure to create adequate employment
• Global economy threatened by internal imbalances and
external perturbations
• Recent sustained growth similar to late '20s, early '70s;
increasing warnings of a crash; it may already have started
Financial Imbalances
Example: USA Current Account Deficit
The Cooper-Rogoff Debate, Davos 2006
WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007
• Larry Summers: Global imbalances are one of the most
important threats to global prosperity
• Richard Cooper: US current account deficit ($660b in 2004) is
natural and sustainable because US is attractive to
investment
• Ken Rogoff: US deficit mirrors government borrowing =
beginning of the end. US eating up 70% of global net savings.
US housing slump could cause drop in overvalued US$ of up
to 40% and loss of its role as global reserve currency,
precipitating a financial market crisis with serious impact on
inflexible economies of Europe and Japan
CORRUPTION
• The illegal economy from organized crime is
now $2 trillion/year, or twice all the world's
defence budgets
• Bribery $1tr; counterfeiting and piracy $520bn;
drug trade $320bn; human trafficking $44bn
• Political corruption is everywhere; the vast
majority of bribes go to people in rich countries
• 10% of all public health budgets are lost to
corruption
• Resisting corruption requires great courage
Adding up the figures
• A recent analysis of 40 years of data on
human activity and environmental
damage puts the cost of climate
change, ozone depletion, deforestation
and overfishing by rich nations at $47
trillion, more that the combined foreign
debt of all poor nations
• The annual investment necessary to
restore the planet's productive
resources is estimated at $93 billion
At the root
of all this
is what could
be called an
ethical
deficit
Has national
sovereignty
become
unethical?
Even at the UN, national sovereignty is
jealously protected, yet global problems
require a global response. Governments do
not realize that true national self-interest
today is best reflected in global solidarity
and a willingness to make short-term
sacrifices in the common interest
Economics based on
self-centred materialism
• The materialistic interpretation of
reality has become the dominant world
faith in the direction of society
• Dogmatic materialism has captured all
significant centres of power and
information at the global level, ensuring
that no competing voices can challenge
projects of world wide economic
exploitation
The unsustainable consumer culture
- Materialism's vision of human progress produced
today's consumer culture with its ephemeral goals
- For the small minority of people who can afford
them, the benefits it offers are immediate
- The breakdown of traditional morality has led to
the triumph of animal impulses and hedonism
- Selfishness has become a prized commercial
resource; falsehood reinvents itself as public
information; greed, lust, indolence, pride, violence
are broadly accepted and have social and economic
value
Integrating all the driving forces:
environmental, social, economic,
ethical
What are the implications
for planetary
sustainability?
Ecological footprint
• Surface needed to supply the needs and absorb the
wastes of an individual, community, or country
• Global average 2.3 ha/person
• Italy 3.26 ha/person (lowest in western Europe),
France 5.74 ha/person, Switzerland 5.26 ha/p.
• Resources available 1.9 ha/person
• We overshot the earth's capacity in 1975
http://www.globalfootprint.org/
http://www.ecologicalfootprint.org/
http://www.myfootprint.org
Scenarios
plausible futures
• Business as usual in a
materialistic society
ignoring the future
• Retreating to a fortress
world of old values
• Making a transition to
sustainability
Scenarios from World 3
(Meadows et al. (1992) Beyond the Limits)
Business as usual
Transition 1995
Transition 2015
End of the growth paradigm
• What is more realistic?
• Exponential growth?
• The normal distribution, bell-shaped
curve?
• Economic growth has depended on
population growth, energy growth, and
resource growth, all of which end in this
century
Welcome to the new paradigm of
balance, optimal size, efficiency and
closed systems
Restoring the world to
sustainability
is fundamentally an
ethical challenge
Only fundamental change will save
the world from continuing decline
• Resolving such complex problems requires a
united approach
• We need to redefine "development" (= growth
for economists) within a more universal
framework including society, culture, science
and spirituality
• Sustainable environmental management must
come to be seen not as a discretionary
commitment to weigh against other competing
interests, but rather as a fundamental
responsibility and pre-requisite for spiritual
development as well as our physical survival
The present economic system
cannot deal with sustainability
- Economic thinking is challenged by the
environmental crisis to change:
- Insisting that there is no limit to nature's
capacity to fulfil any demand made on it
- Attaching absolute value to growth, to
acquisition, and to the satisfaction of people's
wants
- Making economic decisions at the national
level when most of the major challenges are
global
The importance of values
• Ethics and values are what determine
how humans relate to each other
• They are the social equivalent of DNA,
encoding the information through which
society is structured
• The most effective way to transform
society is to change its values
• An emotional/spiritual as well as
intellectual commitment is necessary to
motivate real change and sacrifice
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Values for a sustainable society
Justice
Solidarity
Altruism
Cooperation
Trust
Moderation
Service
Rethinking the values in economics
Economics has ignored humanity's broader
social and spiritual needs, resulting in:
- Corrosive materialism among the wealthy
- Persistent poverty for masses of the
world's peoples
Economic systems should give the peoples
and institutions of the world the means to
achieve the real purpose of development:
the cultivation of the limitless potentialities
in human consciousness.
(adapted from Bahá'í International Community, Valuing Spirituality in Development,
1998)
We need new economic models that
- further a dynamic, just and thriving
social order
- are strongly altruistic and cooperative
in nature
- provide meaningful employment
- help to eradicate poverty in the world
- give the right signals for challenges
like climate change and sustainability
We can live within environmental
limits
To maintain a sustainable balance, we must:
- reduce our material consumption with simpler lifestyles
emphasizing social, cultural and spiritual wealth;
- redesign material civilization based on decentralized
communities, renewable resources, energy economy
and materials recycling in closed systems;
- reduce human impacts to a level appropriate to the
vulnerability and resilience of natural systems;
- restore damaged systems to the level necessary to
maintain natural and human ecosystem services;
- allow development and population growth only to the
extent that system improvements extend the carrying
capacity of planetary systems.
The goal:
an organically
united world
Good for society
Good for business
Global sustainability requires a
new entrepreneurship
We are in the middle of a major transformation in society
The past is not a good predictor of the future
Change is inevitable, and the rate of change is accelerating,
requiring adaptive management
Globalization cannot be stopped, but it can be transformed
Institution building for international governance will continue
We can consciously work for change, or wait for catastrophe
to force us to change
There will be new forms of wealth creation and business
Creativity and innovation will be increasingly necessary for
success
Values and ethics will be fundamental to social and
economic transformation
AIESECers have the perfect profile
Value-driven
Unity in diversity
Entrepreneurial
Creative
Leadership
and you can motivate them
Become the new
responsible entrepreneurs
The years ahead will be difficult,
but you are the reason for hope
Thank you
The planet will thank you too