Stephen Glanville
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Hello, Thank you for your interesting post and comments.
My response to this question is that in my experience, we (hear meaning humans) can consider just about anything as just about anything. Our capacity to justify, rename, re-brand and conceptually frame and re-frame seems limited only by our socially legitimised & funded imagination.
I think that whether a ‘population-resource-environment crisis [can] be resolved in any way that could be considered democratic’, is like asking whether lending a neighbour a cup of sugar could be considered ‘economic’.
I think that implicit in Prof. Erlich’s question is whether can we solve the issues we face in such a manner as to maintain our current agreed realities and practices?…as variable as they may be?My answer to that question is no.
I think that each person that has replied to this question has raised good points. Each of which combined would provide a reasonable response to the question. However, we seem to be facing issues that are global and paradigmatic in nature and in ‘nature’. Observations of corrections of imbalances in ‘natural systems’ usually involve death and quite a bit of it.
While ever we exclude death from our considerations and design, I don’t think we can reasonably be considered to be approaching anything wholistically (intended spelling).
I think there was some truth in what the Joker said in the Batman movie ‘Dark Knight’ – “People are only as good as society allows them to be”.
Insisting on rational design of a world that includes the irrational is tantamount to denial. That it prevails on a global scale is a bit of a problem. In light of this, I think that folk like Paul Gilding, Jorgan Randers & Donella Meadows are at least willing to include social and professional taboos and irrationalities.
The human body is 60-70% water. We usually don’t change unless our lives are theatened and even then we tend to follow the path of least resistance…depending on the cycle of the moon that is.
‘The Denial of Death’ by Enerst Becker (1973, Simon & Schuster, NY) is an interesting read.
Democracy will fly out the window in a crisis/emergency/war/coo. We have only one thing to rely on – Human Virtue. A big ask on a planet where even democracy is a flexible adaptation of vested interest.
Oh! And I forgot luck. We’ll need plenty of that. 🙂
For an admittedly tongue-in-cheek post on Sustainable Development, including a very simplistic illustrative business case scenario comparison, I’ve popped an old blog-post (from Jan 2013) up on my Google+ site – here.
Cheers
Stephen G
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