The Environment Belongs to All Who Live in it by Lance Greyling
2006-01-05. Honourable Speaker, at the risk of being controversial I wish to object to the title of this debate. The environment does not belong to us, but we belong to the environment. For too long the human species has taken the attitude that nature is simply a resource for us to exploit for our own benefit. Recently, however, we have begun to realise the limits and mistakes in this approach. We are dependent on the environment for our survival and without these natural processes we would not be able to live. For too long our attitude has been to simply exploit nature in our quest for unbridled economic growth. In a sense we have taken the attitude that it is survival of the fittest and nature must wield to our demands. The latest research into evolution, however, has shown that the underlying force of progress has not been competition but rather cooperation. Organisms in ecosystems do not compete against each other but rather cooperate to create the conditions for life to thrive. This applies to the smallest ecosystems, as well as to our own human bodies, and in fact to the planet as a whole.
It is now time to find ways of
cooperating with nature so that both our own lives and the lives of
other organisms can thrive for the benefit of all. Unfortunately we are
currently on a different path, where humans are responsible for the
loss of biodiversity at a rate of up to 10 000 times the natural
average. On our current course we will destroy over a quarter of all
the world’s biodiversity in the next fifty years and be responsible for
the sixth great extinction in our planet’s history. Climate Change is a
leading cause of this extinction and we have to undergo a rapid shift
in our energy production if we are to avoid this. The Kyoto Protocol is
merely a small first shift, but one that will hopefully lead to greater
international co-operation in the near future. South Africa as hosts of
the World Summit, can lead the world in renewable energy technology but
we have to put the resources and expertise into doing that now.
We also need to change our current modes of production and consumption,
which we can do through full cost accounting and putting a real
economic value on the services provided by the environment. In response
to a letter by a citizen in the Cape Times who claimed that the
portfolio committee is not economic minded, the challenge is for
economics to become environmentally minded. Our economic systems depend
on the environment and not the other way round. It is time for us to
shift our thinking in that regard.
