Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Tue 14 Nov 2006 03:05 PM PST
Ecology and Auroville’s Development Planning … by Rod
Two extremely significant reports published in the past two years must
be considered essential to Auroville’s planning: Limits to Growth – The
30 Year Update (2004) and “Living Planet Report 2006†[LPR]. The latter,
published by WWF and the Global Footprint Network came out just last
month and is available online at the Global Footprint Network website.
The former, written by Dennis Meadows (husband of Suzanne MacDonald,
founder of Merriam Hill Center and Geocommons programs in Auroville)
and others, is the excellent follow up to the 1972 Limits to Growth,
and the 1992 Beyond the Limits to Growth.
These studies are based on the best data, collected and refined
over many years and submitted to the highest current level of
technological analysis and thoughtful interpretation. A couple of
striking conclusions:
“Moderate United Nations Projections suggest that
humanity’s ecological footprint will grow to double the earth’s
capacity within five decades. The lifespan of infrastructure put in
place today to a large extent determines resource consumption for
decades to come and can lock humanity into this risky scenario (LPR
2006).â€
And from Limits to Gowth – The 30 Year Update:
“The set of
possible futures includes a great variety of paths. There may be abrupt
collapse; it is also possible there may be a smooth transition to
sustainability. But the possible futures do not include indefinite
growth in physical throughput. The only real choices are to bring the
throughputs that support human activities down to sustainable levels
through human choice, human technology and human organization, or to
let nature force the decision through lack of food, energy, or
materials, or through an increasingly unhealthy environment (p.13).â€
I have gathered from the LPR data that India’s current level of
consumption (ecological footprint) is .8 gha (global hectares per
capita) - already double India’s biocapacity of .4 gha, although it is
significantly below humanity’s consumption level of 2.2 gha, which is
25% above the planet’s biocapacity of 1.18 gha. At India’s current
level of exponential economic growth (7.5%) and population growth
(1.7%), its economy will quadruple and its population will double by
2050. If Auroville doesn’t take this situation seriously and manifest a
viable alternative infrastructure and economy that works, its real
reason for existing, along with humanity’s as a whole, may never be
realized.
“The assets we create can be future friendly or not. Transport and
infrastructure become traps if they can only operate on a large
footprint. In contrast, future friendly infrastructure – cities
designed as resource efficient with carbon neutral building and
pedestrian and public oriented transport systems – can support a high
quality of life with a small footprint (LPR).â€
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