Environmental degradation has rapidly increased over the last century and it has been shown that as a result earths natural ecosystems have declined by 33% over the last 30 years. It is clear that human impact is already too large for the planet to sustain - but it's growing larger and the earth is losing its ability to regenerate. Why do most countries in the world have an economic, political and cultural system that not only permitted this assault in this first place, but which allows it to continue? Even when the negative consequences are so obvious?

If it had been the purpose of human activity to bring the planet to the edge of ruin – no more efficient mechanism could have been invented than Industrial Capitalism, and its intrinsic imperatives of continuous growth; of the Market, of the Economy, of Industry, of population in general and a consuming population in particular. It has consequently resulted in the using up of the earths irresistable treasures of every kind, from diamonds to oil, and from forrests to soil – all for the benefit of profit & human material comfort.

Retailing analyst Victor Lebow explains: "Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption, because we NEED things, consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate."

The enormity of the earth’s current ecological crisis can be encompassed within an anecdote of imaginable scale. In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to St. Mathew Island in the Bering Sea, specialists had calculated that the island's resources could support a total population of between 1,600 and 2,300 animals. By 1957, the population was 1,300; but by 1963, with no natural controls or predators, the population had exploded to 6,000. This resulted in the entire habitat becoming so damaged that by 1966 there were only 42 reindeer alive on St. Mathew Island. The difference between this story of the reindeer and ourselves is that the habitat the reindeer destroyed was a small island, and the relatively limited resources they consumed were grasses and shrubs covering a relatively small area, whereas the habitat we are destroying is our whole planet, whose resources may never return. Perhaps, one more significant difference was that the reindeer were not actually aware of what they were doing - wheres an increasing number of scientists and environmentalists are telling us clearly and without doubt that our present course of action is extinguishing life on earth.

Our economic system relies upon the notion that growth is always possible, that there are no inherent limits to further expansion, and those who wish to impose them have a political agenda. Such a position would be analogous to the reindeer on St. Mathew Island having a leader who proclaimed, when the population hit 4,600, “We’ve proved the environmentalists and doomsayers wrong: We’ve doubled the estimates given by the limits to growth crowd and are continuing to grow”. But we know what happened to the reindeer, because in the end there were hardly any left.

By looking at our current global predicament, and concentrating specifically on one of the greatest threats to to the planet - Global Warming, it is very clear that every scientific institution in the world now endorses the conclusions of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change : that global warming is a major threat to the planet’s future.

It is also clear that our disastrous economic system is resbonsible for dragging our planet to the edge of ruin. So why is it that we seem willing to live with this threat of apocalypse rather than trying to seriously alter a world where economic growth and consumption, of anything, is seen as unrelieved virtue, production, of anything, is regarded as a social and economic necessity, and more, of anything is unquestioningly accepted? The answer is that most of us appear to be largely ignorant and unaware of the seriousness of the implications brought about by the way we are currently living. And those who are aware of the problem simply do not want to do away with an economic system that provides them with excessive material comforts and a suspect standard of living. Asked in opinion polls, 85 per cent of the British public do say they are concerned about climate change, yet many fail to act on their concerns, for example domestic energy consumption still rises by 2% per year, cars get bigger and road traffic continues to increase.

The complex causality of environmental devastation also plays particularly strongly to the natural human tendency to avoid responsibility. Becuase you may reply, “But why can’t we leave this to the politicians? After all they have grandchildren too and they can take effective action because they have the power”. But the overriding interest of every politician in the world is to secure election. A politician won’t do that by proposing doubling the price of, say, petrol, or by restricting the amount of road taffic or airport expansions - mainly because this will be an inconvience to many people and also any such proposals would face enormous opposition from huge powerful corporations which have every vested financial interest in maintaining “business as usual”.

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So we, the non-politicians have got to do the job ourselves. Put pressure on our politicians by all means and voting ‘Green’ can only do good. But in the end each one of us has got to take responsibility for what we do, and what we don’t do. There is only one person in the universe over whose actions I have complete control and that is myself. So, if there is any hope for us, each one of us must take personal and collective responsibility for what we do, and what the society we are apart of also does. If a big enough shift in this direction occurs then perhaps an ecological apocalypse may well be avoided and we may go on to create a completely sustainable society which will not destroy the natural environment for our children and generations beyond.

If a big enough shift in this direction occurs then perhaps an ecological apocalypse may well be avoided and we may go on to create a completely sustainable society which will not destroy the natural environment for our children and generations beyond.