The 2050 transitions are creating some difficult choices. Decisions made between now and 2050 will define the future of humanity: the human population will grow to 9 billion or more; the proportion of people living in cities will approach 75%; the middle class will rise exponentially, bringing with it dramatic shifts in consumer demand; and climate, biodiversity, and water are poised to create substantial environmental challenges. It is an exciting time that stands to close the poverty gap, improve quality of life, and provide opportunities not imaginable a century ago. It’s also a decisive time for the challenges of sustainable development.
The environmental movement struggles to redefine itself. A great schism exists between the preservationists and the pragmatists. The eco-pragmatists have hitched a ride on the sustainable development bus, which might be paving over, or at least driving over, wild, bio-diverse, natural conditions the preservationists fight to protect. The implications of a rising world-wide standard of living are profound, so profound that they motivate my pragmatist bones to question long held priorities.
The new and emerging priorities elevate ecosystem services over biodiversity—function over content. The new priorities will justify hard, painful, and even tragic choices. We are heading to a future of harnessed and engineered ecosystem services providing the water, air, nutrient, climate, and recycling services that our lifestyles and economies demand—an entirely instrumental nature and something that my hero Aldo Leopold warned against. Bumpy roads ahead.