Our Shocking Success

What humans have done since early mankind, to where modern Society is today can only be described as awesome, incredible, and absolutely astonishing.

To most people this would it would be beyond doubt that ‘This IS Human Success’. Success at the top of the grade, but do we really know what defines Human Success?  Who tells us what Success really is? Should this ‘success’ be measured over one life, a few generations, or the whole life of Mankind?

Should we even care? Maybe Human Success is purely an evolutionary journey that takes mankind to its destiny?

Maybe the only thing that is important is how we as individuals define success for ourselves in the context of the society we live in today?  Modern society is about individualism and freedom. So why not just define success for ourselves and get out there and live it!

With our amazing progress, nations and communities becoming increasingly united, the path of humanity is being forged by an underlying and unified definition of human success. Strong evidence of this is found all over the developed world, and this definition includes these fundamental elements:

From nations to individuals we should strive to ‘live within our means’, ‘give more than we take’, and ‘preserve our home’ to enable future next generations to have at least the equivalent ‘opportunity’ and ‘quality of life’ as we enjoyed.

In the context of these three elements being success, the graph below (courtesy of Global Footprint Network) paints a shocking view of human success.

GFN_EOS_infographic_v5


The Facts are:

  1. We currently need more than 1.6 Earths to maintain the ecological balance and well being of our home, planet Earth!
  2. We only have ‘One Point Zero’ Earths, and so we are living beyond our means, and have been doing so for almost half a century!
  3. We passed the ‘One Point Zero’ point back in 1970, and the rate of increase in Earth’s needed up to our current 1.6 Earths level, has been roughly constant since then. Basically with all the talk, efforts and technology we have made no impact on slowing down the shocking trend, never mind turning it back!

With the help of Global Footprint Network’s graph I have tried to present this sobering picture in the One Point Zero focused way:

 “A Complex Challenge but a Simple Goal”

Some of the concepts behind this simple picture painted above are complex, and I’d suggest for those wanting to understand and learn more, you visit the Global Footprint Network for more information.
It also provides graphs and information for most nations, and before one jumps to concluding that this is not ‘your problem’, you may be even more shocked to see your ‘home’ nation’s facts!

I also understand that personal beliefs and biases may conflict with ‘The Facts’, beliefs and values presented, and I respect that. From my extensive 12 year ‘on the ground’ research, and a vast amount of reading on the matter I have satisfied myself that the picture captured by Global Footprint Network is ‘The Truth’. It is as close to fact as one can get within the accuracy of human understanding and scientific models. Whether we are at 1.6 Earths or 1.3 or 1.8 is not the issue. The fact is that we are way off where we should be, and the trend is showing we are getting worse every day!