No human technology can fully replace “nature’s technology”, perfected over hundreds of millions of years in delivering key services to sustain life on Earth. A productive, diverse natural world and a stable climate have been the basic assets at the foundation of the success of our civilisation, and will continue to be so in future. A fundamental issue in the previous technological revolutions has been the lightness with which we have taken for granted the natural environment rather than valuing it as a condition necessary to development.

If we continue to produce, consume and power our lives the way we do right now, forests, oceans and weather systems will be overwhelmed and collapse. Unsustainable agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure projects, mining and energy are leading to unprecedented biodiversity loss and habitat degradation, overexploitation, pollution and climate change. While their impacts are increasingly evident in the natural world, the consequences on people and businesses are real too.

From food and water scarcity to the declining quality of the air we breathe, the evidence has never been clearer. We are, however, in many instances failing to make the link. We act as Homo technologicus, with the mindset of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

 

Image Credit:  World Economic Forum

 

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