Author: Jean Hugo

If there is something that is widely agree upon it is that we have a looming environmental crisis. Actually, that is not true! What we have is a dire human crisis. Notwithstanding the global attempt to remedy the situation by way of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) set in 2015 the UN 2021 report issued a Code Red warning that we are entering a non-return crisis. A recent scientific study (Dearing et.al., June 2023) based on software from more than 70,000 different simulations, points to the large ecosystem collapse that could happen as soon as in the next decade, i.e. 2030!

The threatening environmental crisis is undeniable. The failure to take remedial actions can be blamed on governments who are more interested in retaining voters goodwill than saving Nature. The same is true for industry which are only interested in financial gain. The fundamental culprit however is the human aptitude for comfortable, if not luxury, living. This is driving industry to extract more and more resources with its concomitant degradation of the ecology. It also discourages governments to follow a path of economic degrowth. The issue at stake is can the rich, and especially the ultra-rich, be convinced to accept a more simplistic way of life?