ENVIRONMENTAL issues are now inseparable from social and economic problems. Yet, actions across these disciplines appear disconnected. By presenting a qualitative analysis of global trends, the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs, Volume 21 “makes it clear that positive global change can only be achieved if the social, economic and environmental dimensions are fully addressed.”
“A failure to connect—to think and act across the boundaries of different disciplines and specializations—could well be diagnosed as human civilization’s fundamental flaw in the face of growing and real threats,” said Michael Renner, Worldwatch senior researcher and director of the Vital Signs Project.
Renner highlighted this disconnect (discrepancy or lack of connection) between sectors by providing authoritative data and a concise analysis of significant global trends in food and agriculture, population and society, and energy and climate.
For example, Volume 21 shows that agricultural subsidies, valued at $486 billion in the top 21 food-producing countries in 2012, supported factory farms that have colossal environmental footprints. They also often favored wealthy farmers and undermined farming in developing countries.
By predominantly funding a few staple crops for the largest farms, subsidies support industrial-scale operations with low crop diversity that often sap soil nutrients and require heavy loads of fertilizers and insecticides.
Renner pointed out that social concerns suffer from similar disconnects. “At a time when climate change increasingly intersects with social and economic upheavals, [and] disasters and conflicts, governments continue to invest large sums in traditional forms of security policy,” he wrote.
These troubling priorities mean that the United Nations’s peacekeeping budgets of about $8 billion a year are not enough to cover even two days’ worth of global military spending. Military spending by high-income countries also dwarfed aid flows tenfold, with $1,234 billion spent on military programs in 2012.
“Governments have created a large and well-funded apparatus of security agencies,” Renner wrote, “but, in numerous ways, have failed to address many of the underlying reasons for the world’s conflicts and instabilities.”
On the energy front, technologies, like wind and solar photovoltaics, are rapidly becoming more cost-competitive. But governmental support is still essential, and policy uncertainties have put a break on investments in renewable technologies.
Meanwhile, global fossil-fuel use is still growing, with coal, natural gas and oil accounting for 87 percent of global primary energy demand in 2012, and greenhouse-gas emissions are hitting record levels (9.7 gigatons in 2012 from fossil-fuel consumption and cement production alone).
“Energy policy across much of the globe can only be labeled as schizophrenic,” Renner wrote. “It seems driven more by the ideology of endless growth than by concern for a livable future, more by corporate strategies than by the public interest, and more by considerations of supply security and geopolitics than by shared human needs.”
Volume 21 is an invaluable guide for governments, businesses, teachers and concerned citizens everywhere to make the changes needed to build a sustainable world.
The Worldwatch data demonstrate that there is both increasing pressure on natural resources and scaled-up efforts to live more sustainably. Through its insightful analysis, Worldwatch offers a starting point for those seeking solutions to the future’s intensifying challenges.
Other pertinent data presented in Volume 21:
- Natural disasters. Natural disasters beginning in 2012 climbed to 905, roughly 100 more than the 10-year annual average, with 90 percent of it being weather-related.
- Organic farming. Land farmed organically has tripled since 1999, although it still makes up less than 1 percent of total farmland.
- Solar and wind power. Solar-power consumption increased by 58 percent and wind-power consumption increased by 18 percent.
- Fossil fuels. Coal, natural gas and oil accounted for 87 percent of global primary energy consumption.
- Greenhouse-gas emissions. Carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production reached 9.7 gigatons of carbon, making it the highest annual total to date.
- Food prices. Continuing a decade-long increase, global food prices rose 2.7 percent, reaching levels not seen since the 1960s and 1970s.
- Green business. More companies are seeking new legal requirements or third-party certifications that will hold them accountable to higher standards, embracing a triple bottom line prioritizing profits, people and the planet.
E-mail: cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.