14.2 Can We Trust It?
301
citizen scores—has been created.
72 Note, however, that the negative climate impact
of the oil industry was already known about 40 years ago,
73 and the problem of
limited resources as well.
74 Nevertheless, it was decided to export the non-sustainable
economic model of industrialized countries to basically all areas of the world, and the
energy consumption has (been) dramatically increased since then.
75 I would consider
this reckless behavior and say that politics has clearly failed to ensure responsible
and accountable business practices around the world, so that human rights now seem
to be at stake.
14.3 Design for Values
14.3.1 Human Rights
Let us now recall what was the reason to establish human rights in the first place. They
actually resulted from terrible experiences such as totalitarian regimes, horrific wars,
and the holocaust. The establishment of human rights as the foundation of modern
civilization, reflected also by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
76 was
an attempt to prevent the repetition of such horrors and evil. However, the promotion
of materialistic consumption-driven societies by multi-national corporations led to
the current (non-)sustainability crisis, which has become an existential threat, which
might cause the early death of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.
Had industrialized countries reduced their resource consumption just by 3% annually since the early 70ies, our world would be sustainable by now, and discussions
about overpopulation, climate crises and ethical dilemmas would be baseless. Would
we have engaged in the creation of a circular economy and would we have used
alternative energy production schemes early on rather than following the wishes of
big business, our planet could easily manage our world’s population.
72 Log of the Rightwing Power Grab of Society, The Connectivist Blog (August 6, 2019) https://the
connectivist.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/log-of-the-rightwing-power-grab-of-society/.
73 Oil industry knew of ‘serious’ climate concerns more than 45 years ago, The Guardian (April
13, 2016) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/13/climate-change-oil-industry-enviro
nment-warning-1968.
74 Global 2000 Report to the [US] President, http://www.geraldbarney.com/G2000Page.html; the
report was published in 1980.
75 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption, https://www.e-education.psu.
edu/earth104/node/1347 (accessed August 20, 2020).
76 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/universal-declar
ation-human-rights/.
301
citizen scores—has been created.
72 Note, however, that the negative climate impact
of the oil industry was already known about 40 years ago,
73 and the problem of
limited resources as well.
74 Nevertheless, it was decided to export the non-sustainable
economic model of industrialized countries to basically all areas of the world, and the
energy consumption has (been) dramatically increased since then.
75 I would consider
this reckless behavior and say that politics has clearly failed to ensure responsible
and accountable business practices around the world, so that human rights now seem
to be at stake.
14.3 Design for Values
14.3.1 Human Rights
Let us now recall what was the reason to establish human rights in the first place. They
actually resulted from terrible experiences such as totalitarian regimes, horrific wars,
and the holocaust. The establishment of human rights as the foundation of modern
civilization, reflected also by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
76 was
an attempt to prevent the repetition of such horrors and evil. However, the promotion
of materialistic consumption-driven societies by multi-national corporations led to
the current (non-)sustainability crisis, which has become an existential threat, which
might cause the early death of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.
Had industrialized countries reduced their resource consumption just by 3% annually since the early 70ies, our world would be sustainable by now, and discussions
about overpopulation, climate crises and ethical dilemmas would be baseless. Would
we have engaged in the creation of a circular economy and would we have used
alternative energy production schemes early on rather than following the wishes of
big business, our planet could easily manage our world’s population.
72 Log of the Rightwing Power Grab of Society, The Connectivist Blog (August 6, 2019) https://the
connectivist.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/log-of-the-rightwing-power-grab-of-society/.
73 Oil industry knew of ‘serious’ climate concerns more than 45 years ago, The Guardian (April
13, 2016) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/13/climate-change-oil-industry-enviro
nment-warning-1968.
74 Global 2000 Report to the [US] President, http://www.geraldbarney.com/G2000Page.html; the
report was published in 1980.
75 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption, https://www.e-education.psu.
edu/earth104/node/1347 (accessed August 20, 2020).
76 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/universal-declar
ation-human-rights/.