At the start of the 21st century, humankind finds itself on a non-sustainable course—the course that, unless it is changed, could lead to grand scale catastrophes. At the same time, we are unlocking formidable new capabilities that lead to more exciting lives and glorious civilizations. This could be either humanity’s last century or the century that sets the world on a course toward a spectacular future.
We live on a small, beautiful and a totally isolated planet, but its population is becoming too large; enormous new consumer societies are growing, of which China is the largest; and technology is becoming powerful enough to wreck the planet. We are traveling at breakneck speed into an age of the extremes—extremes in wealth and poverty, extremes in technology and the experiments that scientists want to perform, extreme forces of globalism, weapons of mass destruction and terrorists acting in the name of religion. If we are to survive, we have to learn how to manage this situation.
The set of problems has a set of solutions. If we humans implement these solutions, we can gradually achieve sustainable development and a sustainable but affluent life. Working toward sustainability requires many different types of actions in different subject areas. In light of rapidly advancing technology, however, sustainability alone is not enough. We need to be concerned with survivability. There must be a move away from the untenable course we are on today toward a world where we learn to control the diverse forces we are unleashing.
