People, Planet, Profits: The Elephant in the Room

By B. W. Pledge and Nog Nicholas

The elephant has arrived, and he has commenced his rampage of chaos and destruction.

Where is the elephant?

Dont you see him? He is everywhere!

With the elephant arriving and making himself at home, the world has entered a new state of flux. With his arrival, he has also brought to light many other seemingly irresolvable dilemmas for us to contemplate and struggle with, and he is using these to distract us from what is most importanthis stay with us.

At present, the elephant is still small, but given time, as he becomes fully grown, he will really be a force to contend with.

The elephant represents something we all must sooner than later acknowledge. He may be presently invisible to most of us, but he does want us to see him, acknowledge him, and heed his message. He is here to warn us of an ever-increasing problem that is about to impact us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Sep 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524517243

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by BW Pledge.

Library of Congress Number:      2016914595

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-1726-7

                Softcover      978-1-5245-1725-0

                eBook           978-1-5245-1724-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/17/2016

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Where is the Elephant?

The People

Population Growth

Us and Them?

Bread and Circuses

War and Peace

The Planet

The Environment

Growth Capacity

Profits

Consumptive Growth

The World Economy

Information and Technology

The Elephant in the Room

What is Right?

Population and Growth

Societal Change

The Required Change

Towards Coherence

Environmental Protection

Individual Choice

The Drive for Change

The Present Imbalance

The Coming Change

Influencing Change

Better World Pledge

The Vision

The Required Consensus

The Pledge

Towards Sustainable Growth

A Possible Future

About the Author and Illustrator

The Author

The Illustrator

FIGURES

Figure 1; The elephant has arrived and he is not happy.

Figure 2; The linked triple bottom line aspects.

Figure 3; The elephant playing with extinction.

Figure 4; Population projection in Billions.

Figure 5; Population distribution projections in Billions, reaching uniform age distribution by 2100.

Figure 6; The elephant already walks among us.

Figure 7; The extra-ordinary uptake of technology.

Figure 8; The elephant is about to determine the future of the planet.

Figure 9; Countries in Bio Capacity Deficit.

Figure 10; The elephant and climate change.

Figure 11; The elephant causing a financial crisis with the unequal distribution of wealth.

Figure 12; Urban growth and the transformation of the natural environment.

Figure 13; The elephant’s relentless resources consumption.

Figure 14; The elephant impacts our fresh water supply.

Figure 15; Ongoing global security crises has disenfranchised the elephant.

Figure 16; The unsustainable lifestyle of the elephant.

Figure 17; The triumphant elephant.

Figure 18; The scatter of the elephants.

Man should be an end to himself and should never be used as a means to some other end (a quote derived from 18th century writings by philosopher Immanuel Kant).

FOREWORD

The first step in solving a problem is to recognise there is a problem.

Through human history, at each step, as we evolved and progressed, with new insights, we were able to solve increasingly more complex issues and problems. Each age brought its own challenges in form of obstacles and difficulties which we, as a society had to first understand, and then develop a robust enough knowledge base that we could apply. And as we directed our attention to resolving the particular challenges we faced, we solved these in our particular way that allowed us to arrive where we are now.

Today, our time is no different from the past. We still face challenges, albeit new, different, and of our time. Again, we must resolve these in order to keep progressing and evolving. However, today, we are in a more precarious and complicated time, as we live in a world that has become fully integrated, linked and networked. Any particular issue has the potential to create a global impact. And with the potential of global impact, the issues that emerge, unless resolved, will have the potential to directly impact our very livelihood, future wellbeing and possibly also our ultimately survival.

Many have already predicted a coming global catastrophe with the demise of the human race and planet. This may have been born from old notions of that the human race is doomed to fail however, when further investigated it becomes apparent there are certain signs, trends, global events and occurrences that do raise some concerns. And when extrapolated, these concerns relate largely to an ever increasing imbalance between people, planet and prosperity.

The term ‘People, Planet and Profits’ (or PPP) was first coined by John Elkington (1994), who used it to simplify and abbreviate the more complex term ‘the triple bottom line’; which defined the social, environmental/ ecological and financial aspects.

Why People, Planet, Profit?

The triple bottom line concept was initially devised in order to add a ‘moral dimension’ to the way business was conducted, which was largely based on ‘profit-based-decisions’. The inclusion of ‘people’ and ‘planet’ considerations into business decisions was in part, an attempt to balance a slowly spiralling out-of-control global financial system that was producing extreme weather, leading to loss of diversity, financial strain for many and for some extreme poverty and slavery.

As the result of many past inappropriate decisions and actions, we are now living with largely unbalanced global systems. Deep down, we all know the root cause for the now ever-present imbalance, however, this is also that ‘something’, we all choose to disregard and dismiss.

This is where the elephant appears in the room. He has simply walked into the room. We all see him and yet, we don’t seem to acknowledge him. This is in part because we all know him, what he is doing, but we choose to be blind to him and to what he represents.

figure%201.jpg

Figure 1; The elephant has arrived and he is not happy.

The elephant in the room has recently arrived and seems to be here to stay until we acknowledge him and heed his message. He is here to warn us of an ever-increasing problem, which is about to impact us all. He may be small but given time, as he becomes fully-grown, he will really be a force we will need to contend with.

WHERE IS THE ELEPHANT?

Is there an elephant?

It seems our thought processes have been preconditioned to disregard and even dismiss the obvious. Without clarity, we are often unable and even sometimes incapable of seeing the obvious. Often we simply fail to see the connections between things and understand their significance as to what is really occuring and what is at stake.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, focus on what’s important.

It is human trait to worry about things. This is a trait that possibly emerged from our distant past, when our ancestors worried about being attacked in the wild, and by doing so and in time, this was genetically encoded in our very DNA. Today, our worries are different. We worry about our jobs, families, health, money, and a multitude of other things, and as we do so, we tend to dismiss or overlook the most important.

Undoubtedly, the world has become increasingly more complex. There are many intricacies and nuances that require specialised insight to interpret and understand. And as time passes, these are also evolving into new fields of knowledge, requiring many more so called experts, who can understand these specialised fields and thereby advise us on what we should know. However, with our increased specialisation there has not been a proportionally increase our understanding. The reason for this is in part because of the complexities involved and our general inability to effectively communicate and transfer such specialist knowledge to each other.

With today’s improved technology, we are however able to gain free access to a vast amount of data from many highly specialised, albeit narrowly-defined fields. This is data that is provided by society’s many experts, scientists, economists, ecologists, sociologists, politicians, consultants, philosophers, intellectuals and others. However, as we begin to process the vasts amounts of data, we soon reach information overload, where we start to lose sight of what should be important, and of the big picture of things. By dwelling in the detail of things, as we process data, the obvious such as an elephant in the room becomes invisible to us.

Data becomes information only when it is processed and analysed. And information becomes knowledge when it is fully understood and assimilated. Knowledge however, is in short supply.

Information is not knowledge. The world is drowning in information but is slow in the acquisition of knowledge. There is no substitute for knowledge. W. Edwards Deming.

Information available from today’s highly complex and specialised fields of study is mostly incomprehensible to many and often cannot be simplified without loosing its true meaning. Furthermore, rarely is complex information effectively communicated, as this requires specialists, who with often poor communication skills, is unable to communicate their overly complex subject matter to the general public. As a consequence, today’s specialist information is understood by few, seemingly only those who are knowledgeable in that specific field. This makes such knowledge practically inaccessible to anyone who is not conversant or initiated in the respective technical field.

There is no doubt that applied specialist knowledge is necessary to produce very specific solutions to very specific problems. However, when dealing with global concerns, issues and problems, generalist knowledge is required.