Sustainability

The sustainability of human life ceased when the first cave man dug a lump of coal out of the ground and put on his fire to stop him from freezing to death at night. Of all creatures on earth we are the least qualified for survival: we need to wear clothes to stop us from catching pneumonia, we need a roof over our heads to prevent us from dying of exposure, we need to drink purified water and eat cooked and cleaned food to guard us against diseases. There are very few places in this world where man could survive in a 'sustainable' manner i.e. without making recourse to changing his environment or using materials of finite resource. The reasonable comfort and survival of man has always depended on the use of limited resources. So how do we relate to a world full of material limitations?

Mankind has an apparent choice. On the one hand he can go for a comfortable, high consumption life-style, which provides him with the finances, scientific and technological developments and human infrastructure to achieve a good level of health and well-being, and combat all manner of environmental threats. This lifestyle may limit the longevity of the human race since it may exhaust finite resources sooner rather than later. The alternative may be to go for a truly sustainable lifestyle - essentially back to the days of the horse and cart and living in caves.

The choice is between quality of life for fewer generations and the longevity of the human race. Perhaps the ethical dilemma can be solved by drawing a parallel from the medical profession: a terminally ill patient in pain may be administered pain killing drugs even if those drugs may reduce life. This is because quality of life is considered of greater value than length. In the same way that a sick person depends on drugs, so the human race depends on finite material resources.

It may be argued that we have obligations to future generations. We know with a high degree of certainty that there will be one and that most people want there to be one. But to what extent do we have obligations to ten or twenty generations in the future that may never be born?

Is maintaining the length of existence of the human race a sufficient end in its own right? The universe is dying. It will end its life as a cold, dark ruin when all of the energy is burned out. Human beings are mortal. Material resources are finite. When all of these limiting factors are taken into account, the intellectual basis for 'sustainability' looks rather weak. Perhaps our ethical arguments ought to start with recognition of the finiteness of all things and not 'sustainability'.

For those who believe in an intelligent creator-God, we recognise that life-span limited human beings are living in a life-span limited planet. We believe in a god who is sufficiently intelligent to calculate how much coal, oil, gas and uranium to put into the ground, to achieve his purposes. We also believe in a god who is generous. For the Christian, it is not necessary to place a high emphasis on recycling with a view to prolonging human existence.

However, those who believe that souls are recycled and expect re-entry back to this life will have different priorities. They have a vested interest in prolonging the human race as far as possible. They would wish to defer the day when all resources run out and the human race dies away. Then what would they do?