The earth is full. It’s full of us, full of our stuff, full of our waste, full of our demands; yes, we are a brilliant and creative species, but we’ve created a little too much stuff—so much that our economy is now bigger than it’s host, our planet…” – Paul Gilding, independent writer and adviser on sustainability. The above and following quotes are from Gilding’s TED talk on sustainability. A Familiar Message With Little Regard Given To It It is nothing new that advocates and scientists are warning that consumption is out of control on our planet. However, little is done to educate us, the various populaces of the planet, that our current levels of consumption are detrimental to the future survival of our species, other species, and the planet as a whole. As Gilding says, We’re burning through our capital, or, stealing from the future… what this means is our economy is unsustainable … when things aren’t sustainable they stop.” In Love With A Crazy Idea When we think about economic growth stopping we go, ‘that’s not possible,’ because economic growth is so essential to our society that it is really questioned… it is based on a crazy idea, the crazy idea being that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet… I’m here to tell you the Emperor has no clothes, that the crazy idea is just that: It is crazy.” Gilding states a counter argument: But we need growth. We need it to solve poverty. We need it to develop technology. We need it to keep social stability.” His reply: I find this argument fascinating, as...
To Be Alone, Or Not To Be Alone? “The individual in his sociological aspect is not the complete organism. He who attempts to live without association with his fellows dies. Nor is the nation the complete organism. If Britain attempted to live without cooperation with other nations, half the population would starve. The completer the cooperation, the greater the vitality; the more imperfect the cooperation, the less the vitality. Now, a body, the various parts of which are so interdependent that without coordination vitality is reduced or death ensues, must be regarded, in so far as the functions in question are concerned, not as a collection of rival organisms, but as one. This is in accord with what we know of the character of living organisms in their conflict with environment.” If We Learn The Depths Of Our Interdependence And Embed In It The Power Of Cooperation, Could We Steer Towards A Brighter Future? “The higher the organism, the greater the elaboration and interdependence of its part, the greater the need for coordination. If we take this as the reading of the biological law, the whole thing becomes plain; man’s irresistible drift away from conflict and towards cooperation is but the completer adaptation of the organism (man) to its environment (the planet, wild nature), resulting in a more intense vitality. Man’s general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include...
This is a lot more then about selling products and services. This is about the direction we are going as a culture, as a society, and as human beings.” Many practitioners of the social sciences have performed extensive research today, which concludes the powerful influences from our surrounding environments and its affects on our choices, feelings, thoughts and behavioral patterns. One of our major sources of influence comes from digital media technology which surrounds us 24/7. Our youth generation eat, drink, play, go to sleep and wake up with it. As a matter of fact today, children and teens are the number one demographic target for spending on the latest manipulative marketing techniques. We need in a proactive forward looking way, as a society, need to say… ‘How is this changing us? How is this changing our environment? How is this changing our society? And do we want this?'” Consuming Kids: The Commercialization Of Childhood [Trailer] We need to look at this as a systematic problem, as a a social cultural problem and say we need to protect children from corporate marketing… What does this mean for our well-being? For their well-being?” We have become a country that places a lower priority on our children’s emotional, cognitive, social, even spiritual development, then it does on training them to be consumers.This is a lot more than about selling products and services. This is about the direction we are going as a culture, as a society, and as human...