Unless conspiracy theories about secret moonbases are true, there is no human-supporting environment on Earth’s lone satellite and consequently no economy that we would recognise up there. So, let’s get one thing straight: no ecology, no economy — the environment is the foundation on which an economy is built. In fact, our environment has been around for eons before it decided to sport the fancy accessory of a human economy just to be fabulous. However, at this time, our economies are starting to threaten the environment they’re built on. If we want our economies to last beyond the next summer collection, it’s in our self-interest to start prioritising preserving the environment – even if it means economic development takes a hit. The look for next season needs to be bold and visionary. Small tweaks here and there won’t be enough – we need a total redesign.
Collectively, human economies have not been kind to the environment. First, a country extracts whatever natural resources it controls as economic assets. Whether they are minerals from the ground, or useful flora and fauna, there is the urge to convert them to cash. With cash, countries buy infrastructure upgrades, like roads and railways connecting ever growing cities that house increasing population numbers and facilitate even more economic activity. As cities expand, they replace the natural environment with glass, steel and concrete – materials that can not support as much biodiversity as before. The by-products of economic development – trash and sewage from human waste and toxins and pollutants from human industry – further weaken the environment’s ability to support any form of life, human included.
Haiti is often cited as a textbook lesson on how a country once so abundant in lush forests, rapidly built its economy profiting off its natural resources, but then equally rapidly collapsed when resources ran out. With the environment being unable to recover, even before the big earthquake struck, Haiti’s population is still one of the poorest in the world. Likewise, it is believed that the Rapa Nui of Easter Island, once a formidable and prosperous island nation in the Pacific, went through a similar cycle of self-inflicted environmental and consequent economic collapse resulting in the decimation of a population the environment could no longer support.
Today, while we do not want history to repeat itself for our own countries, we are in a Catch-22 position. We know we need to preserve whatever environment we have left, but we also cannot halt our economic development and risk losing our place on the Monopoly board that is the global economy. To survive as a country, each must play the game, but the game is such that the few who started first have a massive advantage over those who started playing later. Today, economic advantage still favours mostly European and North American countries, while the rest of the world is playing catch-up. It’s not fair that the earlier players could exploit the environment to enrich themselves before discovering how their actions have devastated the global environment, and are now advocating that the newer players don’t do what they did to get rich.
Now they say countries have to be “responsible” and manage their resources better and more sustainably for the sake of preserving the environment. Now responsible countries sign agreements like the Paris Accords to cut their global greenhouse gas emissions to save the environment even though such commitments make it harder to develop their economies the way the earlier players did. A recent exception is the current US administration which believes that its economy takes precedence over the environment. Since the USA usually takes the leadership in such global summits, its current position complicates matters for the rest of the world in this regard. If the USA will not sacrifice its economic development to preserve the environment, there is no reason for any other country to not do the same.
Still, if the USA will not take the lesson of the Rapa Nui, the rest of the world can and has already started moving away from the thinking that economic development is solely dependent on stripping the environment of its resources until there’s nothing left. Business thrives on problems that create opportunities. There is no bigger problem today – and no bigger opportunity – than keeping our economies going without further harming the global environment. Costa Rica and New Zealand have reinvented their economies to focus on sustainable use of their environments such as ecotourism for the former, and sustainable trade for the latter. Other countries are working on developing alternative technologies that produce power more sustainably from abundant and renewable resources, like the sun, wind and tidal currents, and rechargeable batteries as a replacement for carbon-based energy that still mostly powers our economies. China is committed to developing electric vehicles for the world, and through other initiatives has cleaned up much of the pollution that its cities were previously criticised for. Singapore’s water-purification technologies and smart building designs provide a strong niche market for its economic development while doing its part to preserve the environment.
The economy is entirely dependent on the environment that sustains it. The environment provides the resources that economies depend on to develop through trade, through infrastructure development, and through the global connections the different countries have made throughout the world. But to continue enjoying the benefits of nature’s resources, each country needs to take care of the environment responsibly and sustainably. On one hand, this new approach does require not one but all countries to sacrifice a part of their economic development in favour of the long term. Yet, it also provides new opportunities for countries to prosper as they adapt and innovate around the new environmental constraints we have since imposed on ourselves. The first few countries that have set the example need to show results that would inspire the rest to embrace this economic overhaul. If that happens, the Earth’s next fashion season promises to be even more fabulous.
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Inspired by Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level H1 General Paper (Paper 1) 2025 Question #1