Practical Sustainability Strategies, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 1Urgency to Adopt Sustainability

It has been close to 60 years since we started reading books or articles about the environment with “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson being one of the first important books published in 1962. Many other outstanding books have been written about the environment since then such as “The Ecology of Commerce” by Paul Hawken in 1993 and “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins in 2008. The number and frequency of new books have increased as more and more people are concerned about the state of the environment.

Very few people question the decline in the state of our environment, only the degree to which it has deteriorated or the rate at which it is continuing to deteriorate. Regardless of the current status of our environment, it is important to put in perspective what has happened to our earth since its creation. Historians estimate that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, but it is really difficult to understand exactly what this means. What does 1 billion really mean? Let's consider a situation where a 21-year-old girl is given US$1 billion as a gift, and she places the money in a noninterest bearing account. She will be able to spend US$60,000 every day of her life until she retires at the age of, say, 65 and still have US$36 million left over for retirement. This gives someone a better understanding of 1 billion really means.

So how can we put 4.5 billion years in perspective so we can understand what ...