Newman Peter
John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Sustain Earth. 2020;3(1):13. doi: 10.1186/s42055-020-00034-1. Epub 2020 Aug 24.
This paper is written as the world faces economic recovery after the Covid pandemic collapse. It also responds to the article in by Peter Hancock 'In Praise of Civicide' by creating a more hopeful vision of the future. Peter suggests the only hope is in psychological mind-sets that can change behaviour as nothing else will stop the path to destruction from present growth in population, the economy and technology. Rather than seeing inevitable civicidal elements, as devised in the IPAT model used by Peter and many others to explain global environmental destruction, the paper reassesses the fundamentals of this model developed by Paul and Anne Ehrlich in the 1960's. As the global economy has collapsed and environmental impacts improved everywhere, the Hancock argument based on IPAT would seem to have support. The paper shows how it is possible to grow again in the three IPAT factors if the world moves beyond sustainable development which just minimises impact to regenerative development which reclaims environmental impacts. If all three elements combine to create uncontrolled growth as was happening in the 60's to 80's then civicide is inevitable, but not if they change to regenerative development. The three stages of exploitive, sustainable and regenerative development turn IPAT from being negative to positive about civilization. These choices are very stark in the 2020's. The technological possibilities of a regenerative future are outlined and the fundamentals needed for a sustainable earth are sketched, providing some evidence of hope for using the present pandemic and economic collapse as the basis for regenerating civilization not praising civicide.
本文撰写于新冠疫情导致全球经济崩溃后世界正面临经济复苏之时。它也是对彼得·汉考克的《赞美杀戮文明》一文的回应，旨在构建一个更具希望的未来愿景。彼得认为，唯一的希望在于能够改变行为的心理思维模式，因为没有其他东西能阻止当前人口、经济和技术增长所带来的毁灭之路。本文并非像彼得和其他许多人用于解释全球环境破坏的IPAT模型那样，将某些因素视为不可避免的杀戮文明要素，而是重新评估了保罗和安妮·埃利希在20世纪60年代提出的该模型的基本原理。随着全球经济崩溃以及各地环境影响得到改善，基于IPAT的汉考克观点似乎得到了支持。本文展示了，如果世界超越仅仅将影响最小化的可持续发展，转向能够恢复环境影响的再生发展，那么IPAT的三个因素如何有可能再次实现增长。如果这三个要素像20世纪60年代到80年代那样结合导致无节制增长，那么杀戮文明将不可避免，但如果转向再生发展则不会。剥削性、可持续性和再生性发展的三个阶段使IPAT对文明的态度从消极转变为积极。在21世纪20年代，这些选择非常严峻。文中概述了再生未来的技术可能性，并勾勒了可持续地球所需的基本要素，为将当前的疫情和经济崩溃作为文明再生的基础而非赞美杀戮文明提供了一些希望的证据。
