The concept of progress with respect to the betterment of humankind needs to be considered carefully. Attention to environmental limits and the needs of future generations should perhaps be integral elements for anything to be labeled as progressive for humanity. In that light, the Living Building Challenge™ green building rating system can be held up as a sterling example of something, a system in this case, that can truly be considered progressive. It is based on sound ecological principles, long-term thinking, and awareness of humanity’s connection to the natural world, moving beyond the status quo and embracing transformational sustainability principles. Considering the global impact of the buildWright wonders whether civilization itself may be a ing industry on energy and resource consumption, progress trap. Today we have many potential prog- as well as carbon emissions, leadership in this realm ress traps confronting us; biotechnology, genetically is critically important. modified foods, nanotechnology, geoengineering and infinite economic growth, to name a few. Fossil fuel A Short History of Progress concludes with Wright dependence and the associated carbon emissions may pointing out that today we have the advantage of bebe the highest profile progress trap in the news today. ing able to look back to understand the mistakes of It is not a coincidence that the rise of agricultural de- past civilizations; that we still have time to find soluvelopment and the astounding human development tions to the progress traps that we face if we act quickly it fueled coincides with the past 10,000 year period of while still in a favorable position. But, he warns, “Now climate stability. Acting in a manner that threatens to is our last chance to get the future right.” de-stabilize the climate is folly, as Wright suggests: “Change is not in our interest. Our only rational pol- A quick read, A Short History of Progress provides icy is not to risk provoking it. Yet we face abundant plenty of fascinating, thought-provoking material. evidence that civilization itself, through fossil-fuel Wright’s ability to distill and synthesize a vast amount emissions and other disturbances, is upsetting the of information into a succinct and compelling book is long calm in which it grew.” impressive. unwilling to forego the short-term benefit to guard against future disaster (for example, burning hydrocarbons at the risk of climate instability). Wright contends that progress traps led to overpopulation and agrarian failure for several ancient civilizations. Exceeding the carrying capacity of their environments was the key commonality between those societies, as Wright notes, “The short-lived Empire of Ur [Sumer] exhibits the same behaviour as we saw on Easter Island: sticking to entrenched beliefs and practices, robbing the future to pay the present, spending the last reserves of natural capital on a reckless binge of excessive wealth and glory.”
Wright’s book raises important questions about progress and where our civilization is headed. The critical lessons in the past are simple enough. Nature has limits. Those civilizations that did not live within the carrying capacity of their natural environment eventually f loundered and crashed. With well over six billion people on the planet today, picking up and starting over again somewhere else, should the foundations of our civilization fail, is not an option as it was for those that survived collapsed societies in the past.
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Spring 2011
PAUL KILPATRICK lives in Vancouver, B.C. where he works for Sustainability Television™.