Hi, Alex here. What
are the root causes of unsustainability? Can we boil it down to only
four
basic things that we do as a human society that are
unsustainable? Well let's get drawing!
In the first video we discussed how a group of 50 scientists
managed to get a consensus on natural cycles
and we concluded that sustainability is actually the capacity of
our human society to continue indefinitely within the natural cycles
so if you haven't watched the first video
make sure that you do that before watching this one and from there
though group of scientists looked at the things that we do
in our human society that interfere with natural cycles
in order to you identify the root causes of
unsustainability so they came up with four
there's no priority order they are all
equally important they're all necessary and sufficient
the first one is that we extract
large flows of materials from the earth's crust, the lithosphere,
and these materials are things like oil, like
natural gas, heavy metals, things that are
rare in the biosphere and that we extract
in such large quantities that they accumulate
and nature cannot cope. The second one
is that we create in our society
substances that accumulate in nature so we create chemical compounds that
nature takes a very long time to break down but we also create substances that
already exist in nature
like carbon dioxide for example but
in such large quantities that they accumulate
and nature cannot cope. The third one
is that we physically inhibit nature's ability
to run the natural cycles so how do we do that?
for example by a chopping trees
at a faster rate that they can grow by
systematically destroying ecosystems and replacing them
way parking lots, roads, buildings, etc.
so that nature cannot run its natural cycles anymore
So these are three
ecological root causes and once again there's no priority order
the fourth one is social and can actually be
the most important of all so we create
in our society barriers to
people meeting their basic human needs worldwide that's the fourth one
so we will unpack in another video this notion of basic human needs
it's a very interesting one and these are things like
creativity, identity, participation and so on
so how do we do that well
for example if you purchase a product that is manufactured
in a sweatshop in a developing country indirectly
you support the business and indirectly
you contribute to poor working conditions in this factory
and to the fact that these people are unable to meet their basic human needs
so this is the scientific consensus
on the 4 root causes of unsustainability. As usual
here are the key points to keep in mind: the first one is that scientists
agree that there are only four root causes of unsustainability based on natural
cycles
three are ecological and one is social
they are all necessary sufficient and non-overlapping
and if we stop doing these four things we will be sustainable
so I hope this is helpful please tell me in the comments below what is your
definition of sustainability that
you like to work with. I will see you in the next video
and thank you for watching