ENV1101: Global Environmental Challenges - A Short History of Progress

This essay analyzes Ronald Wright's "A Short History of Progress," focusing on societal collapse and the potential for a sustainable future. The essay begins with an overview of Wright's book, which examines the downfall of past civilizations due to unsustainable practices and resource depletion. It then addresses Wright's perspective on why civilization has persisted despite its self-destructive tendencies, emphasizing migration and natural regeneration. The essay further argues that a sustainable future is achievable, drawing on examples from the peer-reviewed literature, such as renewable energy, recycling, and responsible consumption. The role of corporations and free market economies are also discussed. The author concludes with a personal perspective, expressing cautious optimism and a willingness to embrace lifestyle changes. The essay highlights the importance of understanding the difference between "want" and "need" to achieve a sustainable future. The assignment is based on the ENV1101 course on Global Environmental Challenges.

Running head: A SHORT HISTORY OF PROGRESS
Assignment 1: A Short History of Progress
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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Q.1) A Short History of Progress is a non-fiction by Ronald Wright is comprised of 5 lectures as
a part of his 2004 Massey Lectures series. The central theme of the book elaborates Wright’s
take on societal collapse with purview of the current technological advancement and global
disintegration. He uses evidences from four ancient civilizations, namely Sumer, Easter Islands,
Maya and Rome, as well as excerpts from his research on the Stone Age civilization, followed by
a detailed analysis of the causes that led to the downfall of these civilizations.
As the central argument of the work, Wright examines what does ‘progress’ mean and
eventually, how the negative consequences of the perceived development have, in reality,
destroyed the foundations of civilizations after civilizations. More so, he points out how the
twentieth century is actually on a high wave of runaway growth in terms of human population,
resource consumption and technological development. He further argues, as a consequence of
these growths, the human civilization is ultimately burdened with an unsustainable future by
depleting the natural systems.
Wright’s extensive research on the matter of societal collapse are founded on three
fundamental questions: “What are we?” “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we going?”
Answering the third and the most pertinent question, he defines progress in the context of 19th
century Europe that had undergone a paradigmatic transformation following the industrial
revolution. The notion defines progress as the theoretic transformation of the human race through
successive levels of existential improvements (Wright, 2004). However, Wright argues that
many of the signs of progress were essentially “development traps”, which ultimately led to the
destruction of the society. For example, the discovery of fire or the innovation of the tools of
warfare may have been glorified as signs of progress, although we know their downside by now.

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Aligning with this notion, the final segment of the book also point out that the
contemporary human society, propelled with the perpetual greed, corporate consolidation of
power and promotion of free market all across the glove is destined with the same fate like its
predecessors. He specifically condemns the short-sighted plans of the current market-led
economy, which does not learn from the past and is spearheading to a rather great collapse.
However, Wright does not end his discourse in an entirely pessimistic tone. He proposes that the
modern society can only succeed by its knowledge of its own history and learning from its past
mistakes. Thus, A Short History of Progress does not limit the capacities of human kind, nor
does it refute the definition of progress as a constructive outlook. Instead, Wright argues that the
world, in reality, is open to reinterpretation and improvement, focusing on the amenability of the
modern human civilization.
Q.2) As Wright has discussed the downfalls of the four ancient civilizations, namely Maya,
Rome, Sumer and the Easter Islands; he points out that the latter two civilizations were met their
untimely fate due to the inability to regenerate resources and the subsequent scarcity. On the
other hand, Rome and Maya civilization also underwent severe resource scarcity due to their
high requirement, although they survived to the modern times in spite of the high demand.
Wright argues that their low population rates, owing to massive volcanic ash falls and
widespread epidemics, have helped them survive the resource crunch.
However, it may be argued against Wright’s insight into the massive societal collapse of
complex human societies-- how the overall human civilizations has succeeded in spite of their
inherent tendencies to destruct themselves? To this question, Wright emphasizes the phenomena
of human migration and most importantly, natural regeneration. He maintains that ancient

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civilizations were mostly regional, based in a specific geographical location and supported by the
local ecology. If one fell through due to the rising demand of the residents, another was seen
flourishing somewhere else. The majority of geographical tracts were very thinly populated. As
one of the locations ran out of resources, the inhabitants moved out and across adjacent regions.
Thus, the human civilization sustained over the years, spreading across the globe year after year.
On the other hand, several civilizations could not keep up with the pace, neither could they move
out and eventually met their destinies like the examples of Sumer and the Easter Island as
mentioned earlier.
As contrasted with these ever-consuming civilizations, a number of societies have
sustained themselves over several centuries, balancing the fine line of consumption and natural
regeneration. For example, China and Egypt were even older civilizations than Easter Islands,
although they have brought their remnants to the modern times. Wright presents evidences from
both Egypt and China to show that the natural regeneration process in these countries were much
fast-paced than Sumer or Maya. Blessed with the fertile lands adjacent to the Nile and the
Hwang-Ho respectively, both these countries flourished with abundance of agricultural
resources. Also, as Wright suggests, both Egyptians and the Chinese people knew the importance
of farmland and irrigation and hence refrained from misusing the fertile soil into construction.
Another important issue that Wright points out in case of Egypt is the relatively low pressure of
population and the subsequent lesser demand of natural demands. He maintains that although
these two civilizations have faced their fair share of political unrest, famine, draught and other
natural disasters, they have maintained their progress owing to their respective abundant
ecologies.

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Wright suggests that the only solution to achieve sustainability is to preserve the health of
land, water and the woods. The lessons from the past teaches us not to exploit our natural
resources in the way to meet the material demands of the civilizations. However, he remarks that
the capitalist free-market economy and the centralization of power in the hands of laissez-faire
corporates are what may hamper our chance to a sustainable future. And this trend of
irresponsible consumption, depleting the natural resources and in turn destroying the ecological
system is the one thing that can evidently go wrong in the overall experiment of human
civilization going forward.
Q.3) In the final chapter of his book, “The Rebellion of Tools”, Ronald Wright comments on his
vision for the future of the modern human society with the insights extracted from the history of
past civilizations. He comments that the sky-rocketing greed and arrogance of the human kind,
similar to the ancient people will eventually lead them to face a severe scarcity of natural
resources. This would be even boosted by the multiplying population and the systematic inability
of natural regeneration due to ecological exploitation. To this end, he asserts that our last hopes
depend upon our ability to control the rates of consumption and preventing environmental
degradation. However, large scale corporations and capitalist free market systems are
nonetheless hindering these endeavors due to their vested interests (Wright, 2004).
Although the future may seem challenging, all hopes are not lost as of yet. The tone of
the discussion necessarily needs not to be so pessimistic, as the spirit of life is such that it has
always found a way or another to survive. The contemporary economic culture arguably is
responsible to a great extent for the rapid decline of our natural systems, so is our consumerist
lifestyle practices. However, people all around the world have understood the importance and

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necessity of a sustainable world, so that human civilization can reach its future heights. To this
end, human civilization has already taken up the challenge to protect the earth, while maintaining
a positive impact on the planet, its people and their economy.
The United Nations, through its multiple conventions and declarations, has laid out an
action plan to achieve the sustainable development goals for its partnering countries, including
all the corporate and government agencies. The central task in this action plan is to harness the
economic growth and progress and aligning them with the preservation of natural systems. More
and more emphasis is given to combatting the climate change, as well as environmental
degradation, while maintaining a steady balance of resource consumption (Colglazier, 2015).
There are innovations pertaining to renewable energy, recycling and responsible consumption
(Spring, Brauch & Scheffran, 2016). Many countries such as Sweden and Norway have already
passed environmental laws, while more corporate organizations are joining the sustainability
management movements through their CSR/sustainability initiatives. Businesses are going green
and eco-friendly, and customers are also aware of ethical consumption (Charles, Schmidheiny &
Watts, 2017). Most importantly, the outlook to natural systems has taken a paradigm shift as
human beings are treated as a components of ecosystem, not the drivers of the systems. This
change essentially has the potential of redefining the socio-ecological interaction, creating a
balance between Nature and human progress (Sorensen, Marcotullio & Grant, 2017).
Although the world is yet to see a concrete success in terms of adhering to the sustainable
development policies, the growing awareness and innovations still evoke hope that the great
disaster of the civilization experiment could be avoided by a collective effort. The active
participation of all the stakeholders, along with a systematic framework to ensure responsible

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consumption would eventually arrest the irreversible ecological depletion. And this awareness
across the globe is the evidence that we have already begun to move to a sustainable future.
Q.4) According to the Brundtland Commission’s definition, the central theme of sustainable
development is its focus on intergenerational equity (Silva, 2017). This is what demarcates
sustainable development policy from regular development policy. The main difference between
development and sustainable development is that the former aims to enhance the quality of life
for the present generation, whereas the latter focuses on the betterment of both the present and
the future.
In this sense, achieving the targets of sustainable development essentially incorporates
responsible consumption and judicious life choices, so that there would be enough resources left
for the future generations. However, as Wright suggests, capitalist economy constantly fuels
consumerism, igniting the greed among people to obtain more, subsequently stimulating demand,
and in consequence, reaping the economic benefit out of this uncontrolled demand. It is rather a
circular phenomenon, which has to be broken to ensure sustainability. Hence, to meet the
requirements of the future, we must check the irresponsible greed, thereby curbing the demand at
its root. Only if this tendency is checked, then there is hope for the future.
There is no option other than embracing the judicious life choices now. Therefore, each
of us must be ready to embrace the necessary changes. As a part of this free-market economy, we
all have to do our parts so that the world remains habitable in the future. We must understand the
difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’. Although there is little signs of such awareness, we must
understand that we are running out of time and take necessary action immediately.

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References
Oswald Spring, U., Brauch, H. G., & Scheffran, J. (2016). Sustainability Transition with
Sustainable Peace: Key Messages and Scientific Outlook. In Handbook on Sustainability
Transition and Sustainable Peace (pp. 887-927). Springer.
Sorensen, A., Marcotullio, P. J., & Grant, J. (2017). Towards sustainable cities. In
Towards Sustainable Cities (pp. 2-23). Routledge.
Charles Jr, O. H., Schmidheiny, S., & Watts, P. (2017). Walking the talk: The business
case for sustainable development. Routledge.
Colglazier, W. (2015). Sustainable development agenda: 2030. Science, 349(6252),
1048-1050.
Silva, M. (2017). An essay on Our Common Future. In Environment: Why Read the
Classics (pp. 134-156). Routledge.

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