The Crisis of Sustainability
The crisis of sustainability is the collective effect of environmental changes with which humanity cannot live in the long term. These include ozone depletion, biodiversity loss and mass extinction, ecosystem and land degradation, drought and desertification, crises of water supply and sanitation, pollution of the land, sea and air by a wide range of persistent and destructive toxins, and climate change. All have proven to be large-scale, long-term, pervasive, resistant to piecemeal, easy or cheap solutions, and in many cases mutually interactive and reinforcing. They also combine with other human-caused problems, such as over-fishing, overpopulation and war, to undermine the living conditions, livelihoods, health and well-being of almost everyone on Earth, but particularly those of weaker human stakeholders such as the poor. Put simply, their presence makes the human condition unsustainable.
From: Multilateral Environmental Agreements - A Global Response to the Crisis of Sustainability, prepared by Julian Caldecott for the Centre for Environmental Research, Training and Information (CERTI) and the UNEP Division of Environmental Law and Conventions (March 2009).
