The challenge of the 21st century: setting the real bottom line - part 2

What actually happens is this - at 60 minutes the first tube is full; at 61 minutes the second is full; and at 62 minutes all four are full. By quadrupling the amount of food and space, you buy two extra minutes!

The biosphere is fixed and finite and we are past the 59th minute. We are accelerating down what is a suicidal path.

We have created a system that is completely out of balance with the real world that keeps us alive, and climate change is a part of the problem that we have created with this kind of economic system.

We have to set a new bottom line, a bottom line dictated by the reality that we are biological creatures, completely dependent for our survival and well being on clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity. We are social animals who need strong families and supportive communities, full employment, justice, equity and security and freedom from racism, terror, war and genocide. And we remain spiritual beings who need sacred places in the natural world that gave us birth.

To the many individuals who ask me whether there are effective things they can do to reduce their personal ecological footprint, the David Suzuki Foundation, working with the Union of Concerned Scientists, came up with a list of ten effective actions that we call the Nature Challenge. We are challenging individuals to commit to doing at least three of the suggested steps in the coming year and to date have more than 365,000 Canadians signed on.

It is clear that political and corporate priorities are focused on too short a timescale, the political agenda being determined by elections and corporate priorities by the quarterly reports. We suggested looking ahead a generation and deciding the kind of future we would like: where the air is clean and children no longer come down with asthma; a country with forests that can be logged forever because it is being done properly; where we can drink water from any river and lake as I did as a child; a place where we can catch and eat a fish without worrying about what contaminants are in it.

In the nine categories of action, achieving genuine wealth, efficiency, clean energy, waste and pollution, water, healthy food, conserving nature, sustainable cities and promoting global sustainability, we believe we can achieve the desired goal in each. So what are we waiting for?