To The Point

In many of my notes, the main criticism I receive is in my unrealistic and utopian view. I tend to simply regard my views as optimistic, but I cannot deny that I do get carried away at times, which in turn discredits my arguments.

What frustrates me and causes me to sound utopian is that we are in possession of many technologies that would permit us to achieve sustainability - but that they are not put into use for lack of a clear profit incentive. However if we continue consuming and producing at this rate and under these circumstances, we are leading ourselves to certain depletion. Even though it is in Humanity's interest to reason on the long-term, corporations, companies and industry prove to be incapable to look that far ahead. Immediate profit appears to be hardly achievable, and this goes directly against the baseline of all corporations. Only once the inevitable truth is so close to their nose, will they start radically changing face.

The one institution that can - and is job is to - look ahead, is the government. But sadly the government itself is subject to many of the laws and constraints brought by our free market system, which lessens its potential impact on societies.
We appear to be in a catch-22.

So if we cannot reasonably think in any other terms other than our current free market system, I will now attempt (factors that come into play will be missing- you can help me on those) to reason in terms of free market economics.

Climate change and future sustainability are critical issues, and the main ones I will address here. The problem we face is how to address these two issues, in our present free market system. As many have pointed out, countries will only start tackling these issues with determination once this action becomes profitable. Seeing as it is terminal we make immediate progress on this front, the way forwards is seeking profitable ways of becoming sustainable.

What appears to be a certainty, is that governments and industry must collaborate. The motivation can come from both of them, but will have to certainly start with the governments own initiatives, a process which has mildly begun. Governments will have to play a huge role in assuring industry that sustainability is not only profitable, but that it is the most advantageous option for them.
This seems to be a extremely difficult task to fulfill properly. And right now, I don't think that there is enough capital to accomplish such a thing. The only alternative I see, other than waiting for enough capital to accumulate (which is not an end in itself) is through policy making.

Although I do not believe there to be enough capital for sustained and growing profit in sustainability, there is certainly progress in this field, courtesy of science and engineers. It is in all of our interests that we persevere and intensify this progress; something which both governments and industry can contribute towards (as well as students, independent scientists/engineers etc..). It is in this direction that industry will eventually follow suit by discovering profit making opportunities in the sustainable sector.

However, as much as the "laws" of free market economies insist upon the fact that all eventually balances out and achieves perfection, this alone is insufficient for action needs to be taken now. When I speak of action I mean not small attempts to improve, but large shifts in priorities. For no one can stress enough the scale and immediacy of climate change. These changes can only come from two sources at present: governments and people. This is where it essentially all boils down to us. We are born and raised in a democratic state. For our governments to radically shift their priorities and change policies in order to attain sustainability, the conviction must take root from its founders, the people.

We must take into account two things here: first of all the present quality of information brought to the people; and secondly the role governments have in this.

There is no denying that part of the population pushing for sustainability is making itself heard by governments. The problem being that this entity represents but a fraction of the whole. Governments must (and do) take their views and demands into account, but as the people appealing are a minority, their impact is reciprocal. The issue of information comes into play when asked, how many people are aware and well informed about the environmental crisis?

This is where governments have yet another huge role to play, in the education of the masses. It seems paradoxical that governments find themselves in this pivotal position: in order to secure the welfare of their population and planet, they need their populations support and approval. But as this isn't manifesting itself very broadly, in order to achieve wide-scale support, they need to proportionately inform the population.

There exist many ways of doing this, tools such as schools and the media are undeniably extremely powerful. This is where governments could make drastic changes in order to educate their populations for them to make informed choices. A few will insist that even once well informed, too many will not "care" enough or have the insight to want to make our world sustainable. I here remind the role of governments in protecting their population; similarly to the smoking in public spaces ban, even when the majority is informed about the dangers yet fail to control themselves, if this becomes an issue of national health and security, then governments have no choice but to impose restrictions (the extent and effectiveness of these restrictions is subject to another crucial debate).

Now the controversial question arises: do governments want their populations to be aware of how critical the environmental situation is? Possibly they think it would be handled much more efficiently if the masses are kept in the dark. This could very well be the case - except that they are not handling it efficiently themselves. There must be some explanation for them to deliberately keep us in the dark. I think that this is where the fundamental problem lies. The actual willingness of governments to ensure a sustainable future. What kinds of constraints are they subject to? Some could speculate corporate pressure is what's pulling the strings.. Some will argue that governments are already doing as much as they can to achieve a sustainable world - I will argue that they are not doing enough, and I've just demonstrated, with enough clarity, that they could be doing a lot more.