For too long, the world has been focused on short-term growth and development at the expense of our long-term survival as we have depleted our natural resources at historically reckless rates.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.
Human beings are going to be relying on natural resources for a long time.
The world has not yet reached the point which, in my view, is an essential condition for the survival of our human species: access by all the peoples to the material resources of this planet.
Our planet's lands and oceans are already stretched to meet the demands of 7 billion people. The human population continues to grow. The search for sustainable solutions is an economic and a moral imperative if we are to create the future we want.
The living world has become impoverished. Species are being lost every day. Energy and other resources are nearing exhaustion. The environment is deteriorating. Pollution is everywhere. Climate is changing. Natural balances are threatened.
We are in grave danger of losing forever not just millions of years of evolution on earth, but the eons of change that have produced man and his natural environment.
While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term.
More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries.
As a global community, we have to start thinking more seriously about whether there are limits to what our earth can bear and if we're willing to cope with the struggle for limited resources, which only seem to increase as our population does.
We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.