Reducing the Global Scale of the Economy & Sustainability

In an interview with Mark Fischetti of Scientific American, Bill Mckimmon outlines his beliefs that the quickly globalizing economy must become more localized. At current consumption rates the Earth’s limited resources will be exhausted in the near future. Mr. Mckimmon blames this on global distribution of resources. Why would we produce wheat in Kansas and then ship it throughout the world? While in some areas it may be advantageous to produce a single resource and import the rest it may be more sustainable to become localized. By limiting the transportation costs of food (as well as other resources) we would become less dependent on fossil fuels. By forcing local farms to produce more food the world’s agriculture would become more efficient. Developing countries may benefit from this by becoming less dependent of developed nations. I believe that Mr. Mckimmon is right in the fact that current resource distribution methods are not sustainable. Something must be done to reduce the scale of the global economy so that when the inevitable elimination of the Earth’s natural gas resources does occur, we are ready for it.

According to Wikipedia sustainability means “the capacity to endure.” When I took Environmental Sustainability 200 we learned that sustainability was “the ability to sustain our way of life indefinitely.” It is hard to believe that something so difficult can be expressed in so few words. Sustainability is one of the greatest challenges of the modern world. The Environmental Protection Agency is working in conjunction with many other world agencies to move towards a more sustainable world. If you go to their website you will see what the EPA is doing to make our way of life more sustainable but the million dollar (or should I say priceless) question is, are we doing enough?