Prospects for Sustainable Global Futures: Grounds for Cautious Optimism?

The closing years of the twentieth century were marked by a particular style of globalisation, essentially a lowering of the barriers to international capital and a systematic reduction of the capacity of national governments to regulate the activities of trans-national corporations. At the same time, there were the tentative beginnings of a truly global world that recognises the global scope of environmental and social problems.

The challenge of meeting human needs within the capacity of the planet's life-support systems is now engaging thinkers from a range of backgrounds. Change is being driven by the increasing evidence that the scale of human consumption is beyond the sustainable level of production from natural systems. As the natural world is being degraded by our present demands, improving the living standards of the world's poorest people will require substantial reductions in the material consumption of the most affluent countries. This is a personal and political challenge as well as a technological imperative.

The new field of sustainability science has emerged from attempts to understand the interactions between human activities and natural systems. It spans the full range of scales, from the local to the global. It transcends traditional disciplines and recognises the limits of “scientific objectivity”, as different observers with different values will legitimately reach different conclusions about complex problems. Analysis of alternative futures shows clearly that relying on the ‘self-correcting' capacity of competitive markets cannot even in principle solve our social and environmental problems to deliver sustainable futures. While policy reform could potentially achieve that goal, there is little sign in the affluent nations of the political will to produce the changes needed. So we cannot trust market-led wealth generation and government-guided technological innovation.

We are responsible for creating and modelling a values shift towards a new global vision, committed to equity, marked by durability and aimed at meeting the increasing needs of a growing human population within the sustainable productivity of natural systems. There are enough examples of radical changes in human systems to give us the inspiration and courage needed to achieve the transformation. Those are the grounds for cautious optimism.

 Bio: Ian Lowe AO is an emeritus professor at Brisbane 's Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He directed the Commission for the Future in 1988 and chaired the advisory council that produced the first report on the state of the Australian environment in 1996. In 2000 he received the Queensland Premier's Millennium Award for Excellence in Science and the Australian Prime Minster's Environmental Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement. His doctorate is from the University of York .

Books published in the last twelve months include a jointly-edited volume with Jouni Paavola, Environmental Values in a Globalising World [Routledge, London], Living in the Greenhouse [Scribe Books, Melbourne] and a joint publication with Coleman et al, Climate Change Solutions for Australia [WWF, Sydney], as well as seven book chapters [two in Paavola and Lowe, cited above, and one each in the following books: Manne (ed), The Howard Years, Black Ink, Melbourne; Sherratt, Griffith and Robins (eds), A Change in the Weather?, National Museum of Australia Press; Carroli (ed), The Ideas Book, University of Queensland Press; Collings and Critchley (eds), Artificial Photosynthesis, John Wiley, London; and Goldie, Douglas and Furnass (eds), In Search of Sustainability, CSIRO, Melbourne.