Possible Parallels:Profound changes facilitating democracy and sustainable

ecosystem

Laszlo Solyom, President of the Republic of Hungary

The Warning from the Club of Rome, 1972

OriginalReport

Today

Industrial Output

Population

Pollution

Food

Resources

Industrial Production

CO2 Concentration

Surprise: Arctic sea ice

Tipping pointsJ. Schellnhuber, in Steffen, et al., Challenges of a Changing Earth, 2002

HOW FARCAN WE GO?

Planetary boundaries: Nature, September 24th, 2009

Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, III, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy

M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, John Schellnhuber, Björn Nykvist, Cynthia A. de Wit, Terry

Hughes, Sander van der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sörlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W.

Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen,

Jonathan A. Foley

Coral reefs...

… are ancient ecosystems;

… harbour 1.5 - 2 million species, quarter of all marine fish species;

… confer a net economic value of approximately $29.8 billionper year:- tourism & recreation $9.6 billion;- coastal protection $9 billion; - fisheries $5.7 billion; - biodiversity $5.5 billion

Feed about 1 billion people per year

Changing ocean pH (1)

Source: Guinotte, et al., Coral Reefs 22, 551-558, 2003

pCO2 = 280 ppmv

pCO2 = 375 ppmv

1870

2000-2009

CO2 Concentration

Changing ocean pH (1)

Source: Guinotte, et al., Coral Reefs 22,551-558, 2003

pCO2 = 280 ppmv

pCO2 = 375 ppmv

1870

2000-2009

Changing ocean pH (2)

Source: Guinotte, et al., Coral Reefs 22, 551-558, 2003

pCO2 = 517 ppmv

2020-2029

Off the green – shall we get back?

Rockström, J. et al., 2009.Nature, in press.

Two ways of social behaviour

• Humankind will wait until its living space collapses

• Humankind will try to adapt to changes or avert preventable damage

Parallels between the transition and the ecological crisis managment

• Total, fundamental alteration of highly complex systems

• Crisis management in a peaceful manner

• Comprehensive transformation in a short time (in a single year Europe changed incredibly)

Differences

• The political regime change introduced a well-known model

• Political institutions had to be altered → “a change in hardware “

• There is no model we can copy in ecology

• There is no request of new institutions, but a new way of thinking → “a new software”

The method of change

• absence of violence

• minimization of costs

• fundamental goals

• and a road map

• Real transformation and not just to “reform” the old systems, through adaptations ad infinitum

Series of talks between parties with opposing interests

• Roundtable negotiations between the communist party and the opposition groups and non-governmental organizations, leading to an agreement on the rules of the political regime change

• Climate conferences between developed, emerging, and developing countries, try to agree on a fair way of reducing CO2 emissions

An active and conscious elite

• had to convince people to accept concepts such as protecting personal data and ending capital punishment

• will have to convince society to accept restrictions on consumption and other measures which will put an end to certain privileged situations

Look for an alternative

• The economic reserves of the communist system were exhausted→ Some communist groups supporting the reform had recognized that change was to their benefit as well

• We will not be able to continue as before because of the collapse in resources → Unsustainable industries has found opportunities through green industry

Goals about which we cannot compromise

• technical type - for example reducing greenhouse gas emissions

• or ideological - such as biodiversity

• and fairness

The change has to concentrate on a key component

• Politics →

a new constitution,

establishment of political parties

free elections

• Climate change

affecting

biodiversity,

poverty,

and migration

Political innovations in Hungary

• The right to a healthy environment

• Declaration that the state must not reduce the existing level of nature protection

• 2007 parliament adopted a law on the rights of future generations and elected the “guardian of future generations”.

The “Guardian of Future Generations”

• investigates all matters that can impact on the living conditions and choices of future generations

• can put forward recommendations to the authorities

• publishes the results of investigations

• covers strategic issues

The only hope are people themselves!