Resource management
Not something humans have proven all that effective at – let us take an example – Iceland
Iceland was settled by the Norse about a thousand years ago, and they brought with them farming practices and animals which were unsuited to the fragile volcanic soils of the country. The earlier settlers in addition to bringing unsuitable methods were also culturally incapable of adapting their methods to the reality they found there.
The result – almost complete deforestation and the erosion of a considerable portion of the soils into the sea – creating the moonscape we recognise today and a text book example of unsustainability (if you will allow the coin). It is covered in Jared Diamond’ s excellent book Collapse – a must for all budding catastrophists.
The answer is of course effective resource management – tell that to the big guy with the axe in Brazil (more budding beef baron than arboriculturist) and see how far you get. Of course it is interesting to note that the country with the textbook example of over exploitation of resources (the diametric opposite of sustainability) is also the one whose recent foray into global fantasy finance produced a disaster for its people. Now we need to watch and see does taking a country right to the edge of the abyss produce the requisite political will for sustainable thinking.
