Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
Understanding the history of racism in the
conservation movement will be important, not
to assign blame, but to diagnose our unhealthy
relationship with each other and with nature,
learn from our mistakes, and begin cooperating
in the ways that we must in order to reverse
our destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems.
Beyond the mechanical
were relatively local, close in time and space
and to where we lived. Today many of the
negative social and environmental side effects
manifest on the other side of the world. Cause
and effect are no longer close in time and
space and not immediately tangible. The case
for sustainability remains frustratingly elusive,
partly because many of the suggested benefits
are intangible (for example “the future”).
An indication of how hard the cultural shift
required would be, becomes clear when
one examines the mechanistic mindset that
pervades our society and our institutions. Our
institutions are governed by habit – notably
by industrial, “machine age” concepts such
as control, predictability, standardization
and “faster is better”. The industrial age
management model breaks the system into
pieces, creates specialists, lets everybody do
his or her piece, and assumes that someone
else makes sure the whole works.
We have difficulty in seeing whole systems
in a culture shaped so thoroughly by finance,
capital and narrow specialisation. How does
one build partnership among all the different
specialists and experts and a sense of
collective responsibility This way of thinking
is still unfamiliar, an effort rather than a habit
of mind. When only the superficial symptoms
of complex problems are addressed, the
underlying problem typically remains unsolved,
and even can be exacerbated if the solution
feeds into a cycle. An integrative awareness
whereby one unites technology, ecology,
society, matter, mind and spirituality has been
lacking in the twentieth century.
Historically our problems, however severe,
Seeing things in their wholeness is socially
threatening. To understand that our manner
of living, so comfortable for some, is linked to
climate change, to cancer rates, to poverty, to
the disappearance of biodiversity, to hazardous
landfills and toxic wastes, to the depletion of
the ozone layer, is the need to for a change in
our way of life.
Inhabiting different worlds – the
faith in a single natural world
comprehensible through science
It is a time of increasingly dire news and
seemingly unsolvable social and economic
problems. The scientific evidence suggests
that the years ahead will test our present and
coming generations in extraordinary ways. We
are all frustrated by our limited understanding
of the challenges. While some see it as a set
of technical problems there is a danger that
superficial approaches give a false sense of
progress.
While cities of the “north” debate their quality
of life, many cities of the south struggle for
life itself. While some people are already
dying due to climate change the experience
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