The United Nations Environment Program came out with an important report this week. Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth" [150-page pdf presents three scenarios for 2050. If humanity continues to use resources as inefficiently as it does now, it will be consuming three times more natural resources than it does today because of growth in population and prosperity. That is, 140 billion tons annually of minerals, ores, biomass and fossil fuels. Which is unsustainable. At the other extreme, resource consumption could be returned to 2000 levels with restrictive regulations, 50 billion tons annually. But the authors of the report say the chances of that are highly unlikely because politicians simply will not go along with such unappealing rules. And, they say, even cutting back that much wouldn't be sustainable, according to some scientists.
Co-lead author Mark Swilling from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, explained what would drive the surge in demand for resources.
"The reality is that there is another billion middle-class consumers on the way as a result of rapid industrialisation in developing countries," he told BBC News.
So, what to do? Some optimism on that score appeared in another UNEP report, this one published in February, Visions for Change ? Recommendations for Effective Policies on Sustainable Lifestyles. The recommendations are based on a survey of 8000 young adults from countries as diverse as Australia and Vietnam. The survey, Global Survey for Sustainable Lifestyles, found that young people see poverty and environmental degradation as the world's two greatest challenges. Among the findings:
? Although most young people consider environmental degradation as one of the top two global challenges, this varies from region to region; 82.3 per cent of young people in Australia, 73.8 per cent in Vietnam and 71.1 per cent in Sweden consider environmental degradation as one of the top two global challenges, while only 42.4 per cent in Egypt, 38 per cent in Brazil and 34.2 in Argentina do so. ?? Young adults are very satisfied with their lives, with only a few of them dreaming of luxury lifestyles, but they still seek financial, social, environmental and personal security. They want to live in a clean environment, as opposed to chaotic and polluted urban areas, and be closer to nature, particularly in developing/emerging countries like Brazil, Vietnam and Lebanon.
? Young people want local options that they can include in their daily lives: Asked to react to sustainability scenarios -mobility (car sharing, bicycle centre, car pooling), food (urban gardens, vegetable bag subscription, family take-away) and housekeeping (collective laundry, urban composting, energy management) - most young people choose the bicycle centre, urban gardens and urban composting. This shows the need to have initiatives that are involving but not intrusive, where they can interact and participate at the local level. .
At the time the report was issued, Tim Jackson, a professor at the University of Surrey, which is a partner in the Global Survey for Sustainable Lifestyles, said:
"Our responsibility to future generations rests on building strong and credible visions of a sustainable future and the GSSL has taken a first important step in this direction. Visions for Change shows genuine seeds of real hope and that hope may be the most powerful resource at our disposal."
That may sound like a revved-up version of the truism, "children are the future." But for a world on the brink, the survey injected some optimism that the up-and-coming generation maybe gets it a lot better than the ones now in charge.
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Green Diary Rescue is a regular Saturday afternoon feature of Daily Kos. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it. The GDR begins below and continues by category in the jump.
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