Beyond the Horizon

Monday, Aug. 26, 2002 By KOFI ANNAN

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Imagine a future of relentless storms and floods; islands and heavily inhabited coastal regions inundated by rising sea levels; fertile soils rendered barren by drought and the desert's advance; mass migrations of environmental refugees; and armed conflicts over water and other precious natural resources.

Then, think again--for one might just as easily conjure a more hopeful picture: of green technologies; livable cities; energy-efficient homes, transport and industry; and rising standards of living for all the world's people, not just a fortunate minority.

The choice between these competing visions is ours to make. Current trends may not be very encouraging, and certainly we know enough about ecological problems to fear the worst. But there is time to draw back from the brink. Most important, another path exists--one that is better for people, less harmful to the environment and possible with the policies, knowledge and technologies at our disposal today. The human family has taken tentative steps in this enlightened direction. The purpose of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is to ensure that we gain firmer footing on that road and stick to it once and for all.

The challenge of living in harmony with the earth is as old as human society itself. That relationship changed fundamentally, a little more than two centuries ago, with the Industrial Revolution. Using the new technology of the steam engine in the early 19th century, and the internal combustion engine in the century just ended, society found itself able to exploit on a massive scale the energy locked in such fossil fuels as coal, oil and gas. At the same time, dramatic gains in agricultural productivity made possible by mechanized farming, fertilizers and more efficient water use pushed people from farms into factories and cities. The net result was a revolution in living standards that the world had never seen or even imagined possible.

Today we need another revolution--a revolution in our sense of global stewardship. For too long, too many people have believed that natural limits to human well-being have been conquered. And too many have put their faith solely in technological breakthroughs as the inevitable answer to any resource constraints or other vulnerabilities that might emerge.

Slowly, however, as humankind found itself in uncharted territory with respect to energy use and population growth--and in particular the natural desire of all people to share the prosperity so far enjoyed by only a few--we have begun to recognize the perils inherent in the prevailing model of development. As forests have been felled and aquifers drawn down; as the atmosphere has filled with toxins and the oceans have been fished to exhaustion; and as the climate itself has begun to talk back, holding up a mirror to our profligate ways, the world has seen the dangers of business as usual.