Why has society failed (to date)
to adequately protect the environment?
And what should we do about it?
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Contents

• The challenge
• One response
• What do you think?

The challenge Contents

One responseContents

Philip Sutton, Director of Policy and Strategy for Green Innovations sent the following response......

I've been working on environmental issues actively since 1972 so what follows grows out of that experience.

I'm aware that the causation of our failure, to date, to adequately protect the environment is extremely complex - so to narrow things down to the three key causes that I will suggest is a massive over-simplification.

But we need to start somewhere in order to maximise strategic leverage.

I think many of the causes are in themselves caused by the following three factors.  I think that too many people have the view that:

• humans are all we need to care about morally (other species/the non-human elements of Nature do not count or only count very weakly)
• we do not need to care consciously for the 'whole' - caring for just 'our' bit will suffice
• to be practical is to do what appears to be achievable at the outset rather than *trying* to do what appears to be necessary [at a scale and at a speed that is relevant to the problem(s)]

I think if we were able to change the culture (eventually globally) so that we had a different approach then the consequential unfolding of that alternate approach would tend to result in solutions being found *over time* to a huge complex of current problems.

To put my three points into the positive, I think we need a culture where people:

• care strongly for all people AND nature
• care actively for the 'whole' / 'global' as well as the parts
• are prepared to *try* to do what appears to be necessary [at a scale and at a speed that is relevant] to solve our problem(s).

The question then is: how do we bring this cultural approach into being (widely enough and fast enough) and what practical tools and skills do we need if we are to give practical effect to this cultural approach?

http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/

What do you think?Contents

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