ethical markets research confirms the 15 global challenges identified by the Millennium Project and our Editor Hazel Henderson serves on the Project’s Planning Committee and provided some early grants .
State of the Future report: Humans are doing OK, but nature suffers as a result – and we’ll pay for it
Report warns that across the world, water, essential for survival, is running low – with water tables falling in every continent
Sunday 16 March 2014
|
|
The future’s bright – but only if we rise to the challenges which threaten environmental catastrophe, a major new report warns this week.
Future generations are destined to be healthier, wealthier, better educated, and are set to live longer lives, but it will be at an untold cost to the environment unless action is taken to prevent it.
“The global situation for humanity continues to improve in general, but at the expense of the environment,” says the authoritative State of the Future report. “We are winning more than we are losing – but where we are losing is very serious…. It is clear that humanity has the ideas and resources to address its global challenges, but it has not yet shown the leadership, policies, and management on the scale necessary to guarantee a better future.”
The report – backed by organisations such as Unesco, the Smithsonian Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation, and drawing on contributions from hundreds of experts around the globe – concludes that the world is “improving better than most pessimists know”, while “future dangers are worse than most optimists indicate”.