wfs talk presentation final pdf
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Sustainability in its shortest definition is the capacity to endure. To endure one does not only need material goods, but also a mental and spiritual resilience and set of skills on how to cope. When the quality and quantity of our material goods and biophysical environment starts to change, when our fellow South Africans are sick and dying prematurely and when our economy does not deliver the needed health and wealth to all of us, our hope for a better future is severely tested. It is the integrity of our hope that could and should be playing a fundamental role in a possible transition towards sustainability. In this talk ladies and gentleman, the question of South Africa’s sustainability is under scrutiny. I will first show you that from an ecological, from a human well-being, and even from an economic perspective there are several warning lights on the biophysical and material sustainability of this country. I will also show the remarkable optimism we have as South Africans and highlight the importance of hope. Third, and finally I will argue that we as humans have an ethical responsibility in the individual and collective choices we make. It is our attitudes and behaviours that sustain or destroy.TRANSCRIPT
Factoring sustainability into South Africa’s future
Martin de Wit
Address delivered to World Future Society, 6 May 2010, BMW Pavillion, Cape Town.
Sustainability
• Sustainability in its shortest definition is the capacity to endure
• To endure one does not only need material goods, but also a mental and spiritual resilience and set of skills on how to cope.
Biophysical stress
Indicator Result for SA Key aspects Outcome
Ecological Footprint 2.8 ha/pp/yr vs. target of 1.8 ha/pp/yr
91st out of 134 countries (2009)
CarbonCrop land
Grazing land
Ecologically unsustainable
Environmental Performance Index
0.508/1.0
115th of 163 countries (2010)
Environmental burden of disease
Climate changeAir pollution on
ecosystems
Environmentally unsustainable
Serious stress on human wellbeing
Indicator Result for SA Key aspects Outcome
Corruption Perceptions
Index
55th out of 180 countries (2008)
Increase in perceived corruption in last 2 years
Moderately sustainable
Subjective Well Being
41st out of 79 countries
Happiness, life satisfaction Moderately sustainable
Human Development
index
129th out of 182 countries (2007)
Life expectancyLiteracy
Education
Humanely Unsustainable
Quality of Life Index
92nd out of 111 countries (2005)
Material well-being, life expectancy, political stability, divorce rate,
community life, climates, unemployment, political freedom,
gender equality
Humanely and politically unsustainable
Happy Planet Index
118th out of 143 countries (2009)
Human well-being and environmental impact
Humanely Unsustainable
Recent progress in material wellbeing
$7500
$8100
$8700
$9300
$9900
$10500
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
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1990
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1998
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2004
Figure 2: GDP per capita (PPP, constant, 2000$)Figure 1: Gross National Income per capita (constant 2005 prices, Rand per annum)
Source: Nationmaster.com based on World Development IndicatorsSource: SA Reserve Bank
Insufficient savings
-0.20
-0.05
0.10
0.25
0.40
1976
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South AfricaChinaBrazilRussiaIndiaAVG World
Figure 3: Adjusted net savings, %
Source: Based on World Bank data
Declining exchange rate
-20%
-15%
-10%
-5%
0%
5%
10%
15%
1990
/02
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Figure 4: Nominal effective exchange rate of the rand: Average for 15 trading partners (quarterly % change)
Comparative optimism
Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey Source: BBC World Service Poll, 2004.
Figure 6: Figure 5:
Recent optimism
Nov 09 May 09 May 08
Country is going in right direction
Male 60% 45% 47%
Female 53% 41% 44%
Source: IPSOR Markinor, Pulse of the People Public Opinion Series
Table IV: South Africans believe the country is going in the right direction
Hope and the future
Once you choose hope, anything is possible - Christopher Reeve
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars - Oscar Wilde
To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death - Pearl S. Buck
Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently - Apostle Paul in letter to Romans (Rom 8:24-25, NIV)
From hope towards an ethics of sustainability
• Factoring sustainability into South Africa’s future is in the first place to start acting on the individual and collective hope we have as a nation.
• This hope can translate into deep changes in attitude and behaviour.
Wedges for change
• material wedges to start bending the trends of material and resource use as well as the generation of pollution and waste.
• lifestyle wedges, such as pressures on conspicuous consumption
• behavioural wedge to change attitudes and behaviour
Time will tell whether that optimism (quoting Václav Havel) is...
not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.