The Problem of Sustainability Essay -- essays research papers

In this chapter the author David Orr explains the causes of our unfortunate condition from the social confining situation to those that are inevitable part of human condition. As the author looks into the future three crises will be imminent: the food crisis as result of worldwide soil losses and rapidly expands of population, The cheap energy, the race between the fossil fuels and the solar energy, and the climate change. This has to do with the limits of the natural resource. Besides these crises the writer mentions the crisis of the spiritual resources. Human need a new vision of the link them to the planet in a more life-centered. The crisis as a social trap is part of lucid behavior in situation typified by multiple but conflicting rewards. The rewards are short terms but the costs are long term and paid by all. One of the solutions that will deter the human to get into those traps will be if the costs are paid up front as part of the purchase price. Effort to build a sustainable society on assumption human rationality must be regarded as partial solution. Recognition of these social traps and making policies to avoid them will help in building sustainable society. The crisis as consequence of the economic growth has to do with the propensity of all industrial society to grow beyond the limits of the natural systems. Human use 40 percent of the net productivity of the ecosystem on the planet, changing the was the climate, exterminating species, and toxifying ecosys...