The Question of Sustainability

How and why were UN’s Sustainable Development Goals introduced

Why does it seem that the question of sustainability will mark the 21st century? What are the obvious and entirely new challenges that humanity will face in the coming decades, and which will require appropriate responses? What is actually happening, and how much should we worry?

I will try to use an analogy with a very large, but hermetically sealed building with around 200 apartments. In this analogy, which is not ideal, but may be helpful to an extent, the building represents the planet Earth. The apartments represent individual countries. In the beginning, all the apartments were in the rough construction phase. Some of them are very small, with only a few residents. Others stretch over several floors and accommodate thousands of people. It is not possible for anyone to leave this building because it has no doors. There are plants and animals on the stairs that can be brought into the apartments and grown for human consumption. In addition, there are pipes in the walls that carry water. The water is drinkable, and it flows into drains and returns to pipes, circulating, but no one knows exactly how much water is in those pipes. In each apartment, people try to live in their own way.

Over time, residents discovered that there were gas pipes and live electric wires in the walls, too. By combining gas and electricity, they started to produce ceramic tiles, wooden floors, wall paints, furniture, and various appliances. This happened faster and…