Rorschach wrote:Monbiot is a LW Prog idiot he gets things wrong so often he's given up apologising these days.
Our short term focus driven by short term profits and short term polotics is ruling our behavour as a species. This is not going to serve us well for the long term.
Obviously not all of us are short term thinkers... the problem is the people we vote in and we don't have a lot of choice in that. Hmmm and i thought you were joking about bringing politics into the Science topic.
Politics and sciences are interconnected (as is religion... but we will not go there).
Our systems are designed to promote short term behaviour.
In my short time on this planet I see the longer term thinkers that have systems that reward/accept longer term strategic thinking are doing the best. I will provide one example.
Germany as a country, culture and in business think more long term than the UK.
Their major businesses plan long term. That is why they still have manufacturing and still innovate in the industrial sector. They could have gone down the path of Australia and the UK and turn off most of their manufacturing. Instead they innovated to keep this capability.
They understand the problems around energy and have taken steps well in advance of other nations to have a long term strategy to ensure they have energy in the future. Sustainable energy.
They undertood the game of the euro better than everyone and benefited the most.
Their investment planning is well over the 10 year horizon. Most of the west can barely plan more than a year or 2 a head.
Humanity as a whole needs to recognise that the model the west prospered under really is not sustainable for the whole human population and that is growing. Something needs to give. I fear we will little about this until a disaster that forces us to act and that will be too late.
Maybe the special status we afford ourselves is just wrong and we are like every other organism and are destined to die in our own shit once we have consumed all the resources that are easily available.
That would be a pity since science can predict this outcome and provide a path to change and manage. The political will to listen to those who are our most learned of people is just not there or the system does not reward the hard decisions that will be needed to implement real longer term solutions. We need long term strategic thinkers in politics. I fear they will never be elected.
