Focus on carbon ‘missing the point’

The focus on reducing carbon emissions has blinded us to the real problem – unsustainable lifestyles, says Eamon O’Hara. In this week’s Green Room, he argues that bigger problems await us unless we shift our efforts.

… These problems all clearly have a common origin, yet the search for solutions has invariably focused on targeted treatments rather than addressing the root cause.

Before long, we will discover that even renewables have their limits. We are already being warned about the dangers of excessive demand for biofuels, which is reportedly leading to the clearing of rainforests and increasing competition for land between food and energy production.

The world simply does not have the resources, renewable or otherwise, to sustain Western lifestyles across the globe

Ultimately, our problem is consumption, and the environment is not the only casualty.

The modern Western lifestyle also has an inbuilt dependency on the cheap resources and the low carbon footprint of developing countries, which has compounded global injustice.

Worse still, maintaining our relatively wealthy, comfortable and unsustainable lifestyles is now dependant on maintaining this imbalance.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s population – more than 4.5bn people – live on just 15% of the world’s resources, while we in the West gorge on the remaining 85%.

The world simply does not have the resources, renewable or otherwise, to sustain Western lifestyles across the globe.

BBC