The Bridge To Humanity's Future: A System Dynamics Perspective on the Environmental Crisis and its Resolution

摘要

Human life on Earth is threatened by the growth of world human consumption which quadruples every 35 years. Major environmental imbalances may soon severely deplete our planetary life-support system. However, the world economy is designed to create and depend on consumption growth. If this growth were to stop, major economic, social, and military crises could result. We call this tragic dilemma the Ecocosm Paradox. Powerful human instincts drive the positive feedback-loop processes that generate consumption growth. This growth involves many human, technological, and natural environmental variables whose separate study has given rise to specialized intellectual disciplines. However, in order to address our current dilemma, these variables must be analyzed together as a single, complex process. A new method of analysis, synthesis, and implementation based on a new transdisciplinary field, "Ecocosm Dynamics," is herein proposed for this analysis.