Conclusion

Human beings are extremely gifted. We have the capacity to live long secure lives on this planet for as long as the sun shines. Unfortunately, if we do not alter the direction in which we are presently growing, we will experience the classic ecological situation known as overshoot and collapse. Whenever a species has nothing to limit its expansion, its numbers grow until it has consumed the resources on which it depends, and the population plummets.

For centuries humans have avoided this danger through technical innovations which have extended the services that we are able to extract from the environment. While some argue that we can go on forever innovating ourselves out of trouble, others believe we are approaching absolute limits. The outcome of this debate is moot. No one except those totally blinded by vested interests would argue for expanding our numbers and impact until we meet absolute limits.

We stretch the Earth's capacity to support us by increasing dependency on finite reserves of fuel, fertilizers and other resources. It is folly to believe that additional expansion will avoid the problems of such dependencies. Many individuals and institutions see the problems coming and are sounding the alarm, but as a civilization we look only with the eyes of Gross Domestic Product and do not acknowledge the dangers. We have to expand the vision with which we assess our progress. If we do not, civilization could unravel within the lifetime of a child born today.

The popular screen show Titanic provides striking analogies to express the drama of our times. In one scene the captain has just received a report about icebergs in the area. The ship's owner comes along with a vision of grand newspaper headlines if the boat were to arrive in New York a day ahead of schedule. He encourages the captain to fire up the last two boilers and get the boat moving faster. The captain orders full speed ahead.

Sometime later, after being unable to slow the ship enough to avoid an iceberg, the owner, the captain, the ship's builder and others are assessing the damage. Reports confirm that five holds are flooding. The engineer explains that with four holds flooded, the ship could stay afloat, but not with five. When the five filled with water the weight would pull the bow down allowing water to flow over the top of the retaining wall into the sixth hold, then into the seventh and the eighth and . . . "The ship is built of steel," he says, "it will sink."

The great ship of civilization is steaming ahead on the sea of time. We are running into obstacles in the form of depleting fish stocks and fuel reserves, the de-stabilization of the atmosphere, contamination of soil, water and air, reduced soil fertility, species loss, growing unemployment and cultural disintegration. We are already taking on water. Yet the owners of enterprise are encouraging us to grow faster; we only need to hold our course and increase the speed and we will prosper as no civilization has ever prospered before. The command has been taken up by almost every government in the world and we are cruising ever faster forward with our eyes fixed only on the speedometer of Gross Domestic Product. We have not yet reached the point where our fate is sealed, but neither are we exempt from the laws of nature.

This document has outlines some areas of concern and briefly looked at a few ways we might deal with them. It is not an exhaustive study; the initial funding has only enabled the collection of some material and a partial summary. Nevertheless, we hope it makes the intent clear enough to warrant additional contributions toward its continued development.

Any resources we receive will be used to expand the literature search, consolidate the information and work it into a legislative package. The challenge will then be to gather the popular support needed to give our decision makers the courage to commit to using more comprehensive measures of well-being. We have confidence that if we proceed into the future paying attention to the full range of factors affecting well-being that we can meet the challenges facing us and sail the waters of time for another seven generations and beyond.