Unsurprisingly this one generated a lot of responses.
My working hypothesis for this question involves colonization, technologically driven scales of time and space, and selection. The essence is totally obvious: either you develop sustainable practices or you go extinct.
Consider a group of people colonizing an area previously uninhabited by humans. When they arrive, they will disrupt the local ecosystem to some extent.
In some cases, the new combined system of ecosystem structure and human culture will settle into an attractor that can support humans for a long time (relative to frequency of colonization). In other cases, it will not, and the human population will die out. (Externally driven parameter changes can also turn a sustainable system into an unsustainable one.)
With a low enough colonization rate, most active communities will be operating sustainably.
Over time, technology increases the rate of spread of humanity. Cultures with more advanced technology increasingly spread into existing settlements as well as taking over existing land.
But the basic process continues: some systems last; some do not. The ones that last longer are the ones with sustainable practices.
This process is now operating at a global scale. Either we get sustainable, or things get bad.
Some people have concluded that the easier path is to colonize other planets.
My working hypothesis for this question involves colonization, technologically driven scales of time and space, and selection. The essence is totally obvious: either you develop sustainable practices or you go extinct.
Consider a group of people colonizing an area previously uninhabited by humans. When they arrive, they will disrupt the local ecosystem to some extent.
In some cases, the new combined system of ecosystem structure and human culture will settle into an attractor that can support humans for a long time (relative to frequency of colonization). In other cases, it will not, and the human population will die out. (Externally driven parameter changes can also turn a sustainable system into an unsustainable one.)
With a low enough colonization rate, most active communities will be operating sustainably.
Over time, technology increases the rate of spread of humanity. Cultures with more advanced technology increasingly spread into existing settlements as well as taking over existing land.
But the basic process continues: some systems last; some do not. The ones that last longer are the ones with sustainable practices.
This process is now operating at a global scale. Either we get sustainable, or things get bad.
Some people have concluded that the easier path is to colonize other planets.