Versus a few years ago, the news on sustainability has definitely decreased, perhaps not surprisingly as the economic outlook in general is so dim and the looming elections so negative.
Looking at treehugger.com’s declining traffic numbers since early 2011 seem to indicate that interest is in decline. However I believe that it is more likely another case of Gartners Hype Curve in action. According to this theory, there is an initial spike of media interest in a topic that sends awareness amongst the general population up a very steep curve, but then the amount of attention the huge media industry can bring to an issue is eclipsed by the amount of actual activity happening and the interest of the media wanes somewhat sending the curve into what is called the trough of disillusionment in the model where there is little hype or news about the topic.
What is actually happening though is that a lot of smart people got the message and have started to think about real world solutions to the problems. This process takes a lot longer to develop and implement than writing an article and slowly but surely, if the initial hype is to become a long term industry trend, the number of solutions starts to increase generating news and articles that eventually bring the attention back to the topic, but this time about real outcomes, not just awareness and observations.
It is a fascinating thought process and I believe it is the case today for sustainability, but too early to call. Our collective awareness as consumers is so much greater now than the mid-nineties. Our collective (small) actions such as recycling trash etc. have gone up by a huge amount. The question though is if we really understand the magnitude of rethinking and change that is required. However what we are doing is changing attitudes and continuing to develop awareness which are great positive moves in the right direction but we are not yet at a point of realization as a society that we need radical rethinking yet.
That point will not come until we collectively understand that we have an obligation that at some point we will have to accept – as it is
in such stark contrast to the way that the past 250 years have been lived – to enrich the planets ability to support life in partnership with nature, not just take the resources of the planet and give it back a whole new set of problems to solve. I saw a recent poll result today that said that only 2% of Canadians believe that climate change is not real. That is amazing progress from 1962 when most people would have said that our modern way of living has absolutely no effect on the ecosystem of the planet.
Of course, that is not the same case for the USA. However here, our backward government will fall on the wrong side of history. That is not too say that the rest of the country is not actively working on sustainability. In fact, I find this perhaps the most encouraging part of disasterous government decisions. I.e. it has pushed the desire to take action down to the state, city and corporate level who are, let’s face it, far superior to the government when it comes to innovation, efficiency and action. So perhaps Trump’s stupidity will be the nations win after all.
Look at these numbers from Engineering Weekly to get a sense of where we are in 2019.
Check out the Online Master of Science in Engineering at UC Riverside.
A recent survey from AllianzGI ESG Clarity Survey concludes that “90% of our survey participants claim (private investors with over $100,000 to invest) they care somewhat or a great deal about at least one of these underlying issues: protecting the environment, social responsibility, and fair and transparent corporate governance.”
Yes, the government has lost interest, at the moment when the nation has taken it up. That is great news long term for the planet.
What evidence do you see that real progress is now being made to make our modern lifestyle more sustainable? And is this sufficient
progress yet?