Global Commons
Healthy ecosystems, such as forests and oceans play an important role in terms of stabilizing climate, cleaning air and water and conserving biodiversity. They so can be considered as base of societal well-being and together make up the “global commons”. Nowadays the seemingly endless natural resources are running short, and ecosystems are getting more and more fragile or even destroyed as a consequence of unsustainable lifestyles and harmful economic activities. This has immense consequences to people’s quality of life today and for future generations. Technical solutions are not sufficient to replace ecosystems and single countries conservation actions are not enough. Therefore, if ecosystem degradation is not stopped, we risk losing the very basis of what sustains human life on this planet. Ecosystem degradation is not affecting everyone in the same way, vulnerable populations bear most of the environmental costs that get communalized (i.e. externalized), while few benefit from the privatization of profits and gains in power and influence that comes with it. That means, the sustainable crisis is also a crisis of social inequality.
