The progress that we’ve made since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 shows just how painfully slow change can be. And it’s frustrating. Why should it take twenty years to go from acknowledging a need to actually starting to think critically about how to fulfill it? People’s priorities are elsewhere. Nearly every country in the world is obsessed with the idea of “progress”, and seems to feel that moving towards sustainability would only slow its growth. So, despite giving a nod in its direction, governments—influenced by big business and taxpayer interests alike—pass only the weakest laws and invest only the smallest amounts of money in it.
And part of the reason is that we’re stuck in a Nash equilibrium—none of the entities in the situation see anything to gain by changing. Industry bosses only see a loss of profit; most consumers see only the sting that their wallets would feel. Elected officials are afraid to pass anything comprehensive to the effect of making development sustainable because of the votes and contributions they would lose. This is a problem—people must realize that, ultimately, everybody will have to pay.
Air, water, and land, as I’ve said before, are common resources. The surface may be divided into tracts of private property, but there are no boundaries above and below it. If poisons are placed on one person’s plot, soaked up by the earth, pulled into the groundwater supply and from there taken to who knows where, they become everybody’s problem. As the saying goes, one man’s freedom to swing his fist ends where another’s nose begins. It’s easy to insist on the freedom to do whatever we wish on our own property. But is it really within anybody’s rights to take part in activities that inevitably affect the quality of life in other places? Our little plots of land are not closed systems.
It is possible to achieve total sustainability—social, environmental, and economic. Will it be cheap? Will it be quick? Easy? No. For one thing, sustainable technology is still developing. And it isn’t cheap—or, at least, it looks costly in the short run. For another thing, governments tend to be slow, especially when trying to coordinate international action, as we’ve seen with the UN. And they would be slow even if the majority of people were actively pressing the issue during elections, and even if the media were focusing on it, which they’re not.
This is why the first thing that needs to change is they way that people think. It’s not easy to try and undo the maxims society—family, media, education—has brainwashed people with since childhood. It takes time and it requires constant effort. The Civil Rights movement happened, yes—and yes, the US has elected its first Black president, but racism persists in people’s minds. That’s where the problem begins, and that’s where it needs to be tackled. When people value long-term contentment over short-term pleasure, then they will begin to ask for change. Only when they are dissatisfied with what today’s world gives them will they demand a form of progress that exploits nobody. And to be made dissatisfied, they must first be informed—they must realize the full extent of what they are paying, and what they are getting in return.
