There are no questions or doubts that we have serious conflicts and misconceptions around the world between Education and Politics. These conflicts are deeply rooted in the perception of the role of science and technology as essential and imperative drivers for sustainable developments and promotion of sustainable societies.

On the one side, politicians use (misuse) the outcome of science and technology to achieve, in best cases, short-term benefits not in favor of future generations. Also, politics is imposing restrictions on the mission of science and technology for the sake of improving the life quality of the global citizens. This has been the case for generations as it is evident from the great degradation in life quality on Earth in terms of air and water qualities as well as the accelerating abuse and decline of natural resources. These issues have severe impacts on future generations but also on current populations as well. Meanwhile, politics continue to contribute in the growing failure in education systems, in particular the higher education at universities (https://youtu.be/OReAF9qwMkY; www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6447626326525513728), including the associated mistrust in education to lead to successful long-term careers and real jobs. On the other side, it is also clear from how the citizens trusted, and still do so, that science and technology can bring better future for them, as they still go to schools and struggle day and night to join higher education. Of course, not all but the wealthy and lucky ones who have inherited advantages to support their education and to scape modern slavery of the imperatives of a failing growth economy. The citizens have also no other choice other than to follow political policies and growth economies that fail to meet their needs in particular to deliver security and safety for the future generations worldwide (https://youtu.be/Xwnqy51BJNM; https://youtu.be/GiD04TRwebQ). The perception of science and technology is dependent on what they bring to humanity and the society in terms of socio-economic opportunities with reference to the boundary conditions of life on planet earth, i.e. the environment and climate conditions on local, regional and global levels.

The political controversy on whether or not we need science and technology to run our societies is taking the same route as the classical conflict between the Church and science in the sixteenth’s century that resulted in a trial against Galileo Galilei and led eventually to his house arrest under the rest of his life. At that time, this was considered a generous punishment for his scientific work by being not along the mainstream catholic belief, i.e. that the earth was the center of the universe. The Church at that time was the political power that controlled the society, directed the track of science and even decided its outcome. The popular narrative would say that the Catholic Church feared Galileo’s truth and silenced him. Though all these restrictions, Galileo Galilei continued his scientific work which laid down the foundation for the successful work of Isaac Newton and his findings of a theoretical force (gravity) and a mathematical system (calculus) that when used together allowed astronomers to accurately predict the movements of our solar system. This all together gave us the hope that all natural occurrences are explainable in mathematics. Both Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton contributed in diverting the track of science in hybrid direction orchestrated by Albert Einstein.

These summaries illustrate the powerful role of conservative politics that restricts the scientific endeavors by being the collective outcome of the individual scientific works to the search for truth. But science always wins inspite of all political obstacles and restrictions. For the church to admit Galileo was right was to also say every other scholar for the past 1,500 years was wrong. This is the same for our politicians to admit that all life forms on planet earth are under huge threat. It is to also say that the current growth economy and the associated trends forced by business as usual in production and consumption are all wrong. Politicians even do more serious attacks on science as an excuse to go on with the same failing economic policies. If politicians continue to ignore science, as is currently the case, the mistrust in global education systems will face an increasing spiral of degradation. Also, politicians will force science and technology to proceed in supporting growth economies and halt many efforts to promote and implement circular economies as a consequence of an increasing mistrust in the role of higher education to support rapid transformation to a circular economy based societies.

Please, visit my Instagram and follow @sustain.earth

A very basic phenomena in many elections around the world 🌍 is the struggle between the left, the right politics and anything in between, on political power and the associated manipulations with arguments to get the votes 🗳. The economic issues are always of central importance in all global elections. On the other-side it is interesting to know how the political, and thereby socio-economic-environment, ideologies of different parties are being perceived by “WE THE PEOPLE”, especially in the short time window where all the competing parties are actively engaged in a common public debate, i.e. just before the end of the voting period. Another very strategic question, not yet central in many elections or even absent, is the impacts of political systems and debates therein on the public what regards Planet Earth itself. Indeed, Planet Earth 🌏 and its subunits have no possibilities (tools or means to empower it legal rights) to vote and the only means is to actively illuminate all the critical and central issues, about the natural functioning and metabolism on Planet Earth, to the citizens. In principle, such possibilities/rights are delegated to someone else, but is it delegated to the politicians? or to “WE THE PEOPLE”?, this is not clear or even unknown. Another issue is the quality, transparency, the will and knowledge of the politicians on the one hand and the political maturity and the socio-economic-environment awareness of “WE THE PEOPLE” on the other.

In any case, in political elections someone else is taking decision or has the VETO, on behalf of the Earth. As we are in the geological era of the Anthropocene we have to re-consider the role of politics on Planet Earth and its performance in this regard as this on the long-run will have serious impact on all future generations. This is logic as we are getting more and more dependent on a Planet Earth and not the reverse. A degenerating Planet with declining resources in terms of quantity and quality. Let us analyse these issues.

The functioning and metabolism of Planet Earth, or the Earth’s system, as a unique organism in the solar system, can be understood (on its own merits or alternatively with consideration of the interference of humans) in several ways depending on how it is divided into subunits, subsystems or sub-spheres (all of these involve climatic zones with geographical boundaries and thereby counties). Before doing this, we must appreciate the imperative importance of the solar radiation 🌞, in particular the “sunshine”, i.e. the light 🌈 and the heat 🔥from the sun, for planet Earth.

From the biodiversity point of view, The Earth, as it is, is mainly composed of living things with essential biological processes. Without living things our planet could be anything else, of an empty physical space (as other planets), other than a home 🏡 for living things. We would even not have realized its and our existence, as we wouldn’t be here in the first place. Yet, we wouldn’t exist if there were no living things other than us. So, the diversity of living things is a pre-request for our survival. As our survival is dependent on other living things then we can at least appreciate that other living things need each other for their survival as well. Now let us examine the other needs of living things, i.e. the biosphere. First of all our biosphere is ruled by several boundary conditions that are primarily driven by what we have around us in terms of quantity and quality as well as the processes regulating, or being involved, in their functioning, metabolism and ecology. The living things, as they breath, need air but not any air, it must be of the certain suitable composition and quality that can support the life of the living things on planet Earth. That is what we know as the atmosphere and it has really what is needed for all living things (in particular oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide) providing that its composition and quality are kept within the requirements to support and sustain the life of the living things. As the atmosphere has active interactions with other sub-spheres, subunits or subsystems of the Earth, therefore, there are no guarantees that its composition will remain optimal for living things in particular with consideration to the enormous interference of humans through manipulating all the existing natural resources on planet Earth and beyond (think about colonisation of space and intensive use of airplanes). This however, has contributed in changing the atmospheric composition is such away that the temperature of the Earth is increasing and started to surpass what can be considered for safe living on the planet. Also, the air quality available for world population is not any longer as good as before and for some parts of the world, in particular cities, it is getting worse and unacceptable.

The living things on Earth need water 💦(hydrosphere) as it is the essence of the generation, regeneration and the diversity of living things. The underlying process for life on planet Earth is photosynthesis (whether on land or in the aquatic systems of surface and marine waters). Water and carbon dioxide are the basic components for the generation and regeneration of living things on planet Earth through photosynthesis and by being fueled by the sun ☀️ . Yet, other elements/compounds must be available in water in particular nutrients but with appropriate amounts, not too little and not too much. Fortunately, water is a perfect carrier for such elements “trace elements” and the balance between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere (including global exchange processes of carbon dioxide) was so far appropriate for healthy photosynthesis on land and in aquatic systems. However, water is also a solvent for other harmful elements/compounds, so water through its journey in global environmental systems can be also a source of threat as well. Water like air, in this sense, needs to have certain content of life promoters, i.e. nutrients, to support and sustain life. The hydrosphere (including surface water, groundwater and the ocean 🌊) as the atmosphere has been exposed to serious degradation in quality because of the severe interference of humans with both the atmosphere and the hydrosphere through the three main revolutions, i.e. agricultural, industrial and rechnological. This has loaded, and for some regions overloaded, both the atmosphere and the hydrosphere with several pollutants and waste remains. The water cycle, in variable degrees and scales, has also started to deviate from what can be considered safe for our living.

For several reasons we need land (lithosphere) for our living, where else can we live? The survival of living things, in particular humans, need healthy ecosystems with suitable and appropriate living environments on the first hand. Modern urbanization including the vast expansion of cities that have developed very rapid on the expense of natural ecosystems such as forests, river and lake catchments, islands, oceans and marine coasts. Though cities are important form of living yet they generally need to be up-graded to fulfill modern sustainability requirements in terms of supporting the economic, environment and social needs of the citizens. In many parts of the world cities are either over-aged or mainly built (modern cities) to serve mostly (and in best cases) working and economic needs of the citizens with little consideration to the environmental and social needs of well-balanced mix of people of different ages, interests, origin and requirements, and in particular to support the diverse needs of families. This however, evolved with heavy price of mental instabilities, stress, segregation, social isolation, limited mobility, insecurity, loneliness, lack of transparency, ……….. etc. Most seriously is the growing lack of multi-layered integration of rural (villages, desert 🐫 and agricultural communities) and urbanized areas (cities and industrial centres) though the considerable advance of technology in particular transportation and ICT. The land, also, provide several other basic services, i.e. the same way ecosystems provide services, for humans. Mining, for example, of natural resources is among these services which also developed in such a way that it can produce enormous amounts of diverse waste and pollution. This is of course, in addition to draining the Earth in unsustainable manner, from its natural resources. In several parts of the world, the living conditions of the communities that are dependent on mining for their living are indeed not acceptable. Agriculture and land-use consume over 70% of our freshwater resources, yet food is becoming insufficient for the growing world population, also climate change and global warming can hit hard and further worsen the situation.

With this said, the political debates around the world are very much similar in one sense. In terms of sustainability they show how politics failed to manage Planet Earth and the needs of its future inhabitants. The situation as we have it today on Planet Earth, on any level from individuals to countries is to forget about the future generations, live now and take a “selfie”. To avoid to take responsibility for what went wrong or can be a threat for future generations and just blame it on others: it is simply not our failure; it is someone’s else. The same story we hear everywhere and at anytime. The politics now is about putting our world, including the global population, in competition (for more consumption) to see who is the best to make himself, a group of people, a piece of land, a culture, an ideology or ……. or …….. Great Again and for some populations it is to re-invent a future that brings back the Great distant past Again. This is done, unfortunately, with little consideration to the consequences to the rest of the world. “FIFA” did it good, again and again, and made our world happy, let us have politics a la FIFA’s model. Nature played it good according to Darwin, so if FIFA’s model would not work, let us do nothing and let the “natural selection” fix it all and for ever. In the world of politics, it would not work these ways, would it? It is getting confusing and the world politicians are in despair what to do, or precisely what not to do, as the problems we created for Planet Earth are by far much complex, larger and deeper than we can ever imagine.

The arguments of the coming politicians, or on their way to enter politics and take over, are the ones that say “those before us were not good and we can do it better”. It is all about new experiments of the same old versions but with different facade, who knows. We can only judge by the outcome after they leave the political theater and by that time it is late or even too late, this is how the state of Planet Earth as we have today developed.

What politicians did so far is to Take power over the citizens for the purpose to represent them. To represent them for whom? and for what? Is Planet Earth existing in the political equation of affairs? Take over our fate, Take over the management of all the natural resources on Planet Earth that were the result of billions of years of evolution with arguments to create jobs and multiply the economic gains. But this has resulted in an accelerating deterioration and degradation of Planet Earth. Has Planet Earth ever existed in any political managent model? , i.e. including Taking control over national capital and wealth and Taking decisions to shape the future of all coming generations, to form new pathway of competition for more consumption (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot). All of these created more and more barriers, frustrations, caused degeneration of planet Earth and stripped it out of its natural resources. At the same time degraded the quality of all life forms on Planet Earth. Humans on planet earth are reproducing themselves and generating new copies of the same old ones with politics that support and promote these trends. More of the same with increasing numbers where the typical route of success is to do like others, be part of a main stream culture to consume more and carry on to produce more and more waste and pollution.

The collective global results and the overall sum of all political transformations over the past generation, regardless how, where and when they were originated, developed and performed have definitely resulted in a major trend towards complete consumption of all the natural resources on planet Earth including enslaving its population.

We need a political well to empower Planet Earth against deteriorating the living conditions and the quality of life on Earth. Yes, it is probably late but definitely not too late as much of the human achievements on Planet Earth are indeed reversible with the help of innovation. It is all about one goal and one mission that can be summarized in one word “Sustainability” no more no less.

The final question to politicians (including capital based policy-makers, is: would the management of planet Earth empower OR enslave it? Is current and future politics and associated economic policies, are still tuned for an ever increasing unconditional consumption. If so who would promote and implement the UN-SDGs, if not how would the UN-SDGs be promoted and implemented? The UN-SDGs are currently looking like a huge vessel in a stormy ocean with little fuel and unorganized staff with no pilot on charge. It is hoped that the passengers on the vessel “WE THE PEOPLE” will anyhow and by any means navigate it peacefully to its final destination. May be or may be not who knows, those who constructed the vessel “THE POLITICIANS and CAPITAL OWNERS” are not actively and promptly prepared to revise and restore whatever goes wrong which unfortunately resulted in what we have today.

Sweden has been a leader in climate change research for many decades. It has, also, many early research contributions in predicting the impacts of fossil fuel consumption on global climate by being the main driver (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/) of the ongoing global warming. Sweden has been active also in supporting global actions against global warming. All of these thanks mainly to the Swedish researchers. But this is not enough and there are risks that the changing political landscape in Sweden can follow the trends in the USA under Trump administration. Thereby what Sweden did and achieved in decades can be lost and gone overnight or at least would require much work and resources to recover.

This said, Sweden’s approach in the past and still, as many other countries around the world, did not take enough measures to cope with its internal security and safety against the threats and the consequences of global warming. It is becoming more and more clear from what Sweden is currently facing from forest fires (https://nordic.businessinsider.com/sweden-is-battling-historic-fires—asking-europe-for-help–), increasing algal blooms and impacts on water quality (https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/1121659?programid=2054), fluctuations in groundwater levels and feedback impacts on water security for household and agriculture (http://www.vattenmyndigheterna.se/SiteCollectionDocuments/gemensamt/nyheter/2017/Ronja_uppsats.pdf), changes in precipitation/rain with various feedbacks on many sectors (https://grist.org/climate-energy/the-16-scariest-maps-from-the-e-u-s-massive-new-climate-change-report/), changes in temperature with feedback impacts on railways infrastructures (https://d1rkab7tlqy5f1.cloudfront.net/TBM/Over%20faculteit/Afdelingen/Engineering%20Systems%20and%20Services/EJTIR/Back%20issues/9.2/2009_02_05%20Climate%20Adaptation%20of%20Railways.pdf), ……….. just to give some examples. Climate change and global warming are threats that can ruin the basic underlying infrastructures of the Swedish welfare system. As in many other countries around the world, the focus was, and still, on strengthening the energy systems with relatively little attention to the weather itself, the associated effects on the water sector and the coupled impacts on energy, eco-system services, household and food production. Water, Energy and Natural Resources nexus are technically neither fully understood by political elites in Sweden nor in many other countries around the world. Apart from the technicality of these nexus they have many critical interactions with the main sustainability pillars (environment, economic and social) that will shape our future societies for generations to come.

The ongoing election campaign in Sweden is still characterized by short-term interests what regards sustainability. The reason is that the political landscape become cloudy as it gradually went through long period of degeneration and confusion. What happened in Sweden this summer forced climate change threats to “occasionally” take more space in the political agenda (https://www.thelocal.se/20180809/wildfires-put-climate-on-the-agenda-in-swedish-election). If what happened this summer did not take place, for statistical reasons, then more “business as usual” was a definite outcome. Sadly enough, no political party has a unified policy for how to secure and safe Sweden against climate change. More seriously, there is no collective and unified responsibility from all the political parties on what, when and how Sweden can act or at least should do to meet what researchers have addressed for many years, if not decades. The existing arguments that emanated from what happened this summer in comparison with last summer clearly demonstrate how politicians mix long-term climate changes with short-term weather phenomena (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/akesson-sd-om-demonstrationerna-ovardigt-en-demokrati). The political debate what regards climate change and global warming is very shallow, misleading, confusing and even couterproductive (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/lovin-mp-och-akesson-sd-rok-ihop-om-varmen-och-branderna, https://www.svt.se/opinion/jimmie-akesson-om-bonder-och-lantbruk).

It turns out that like common people our politicians (except MP), what regards the strategic values of sustainability, are taking the same path as “resistant bacteria”, in particular SD thus following what is known as “psychological climate paradox”. The main question is and remains to be why our brains ignore climate change (https://www.weadapt.org/knowledge-base/using-climate-information/climate-psychology)?.

Naturally the weather is dependent on the climate and not the other way around. Much of the changes that are happening now are irreversible weather phenomena triggered by climate changes (https://youtu.be/4PBuwXeotII). Without hesitation no country on planet earth would be safe and secure from climate change threats as global warming has multi-layered weather phenomena that are tightly linked to the diverse facets of the water cycle and its spatio-temporal interactions with coupled atmospheric-hydrologic processes and interactions on planet earth (including the ocean).

Many media sources are reporting severe and serious disasters around the world because of the emerging and ongoing threats of extreme weather events in the summers of the Northern Hemisphere, e.g. heat waves, forest fires, hurricanes, sandstorms, floodings, intensive haze and humidity events. If we still do not believe in what global research and predictions that are bring made during several decades by international climate expertise there are no other means to be convinced than experiencing the harsh and deadly consequences that we can not run away from them. Welcome to a planet heading to a definitive death. Photos @CNN

The consequence of the global cancer that mother earth got because of the global warming (increase in the global average temperature) is growing rapidly in the earth’s body and the impacts of the such fever is causing the global weather to be wild as can be observed and felt everywhere and anywhere around the globe.

Follow us on Instagram @sustain.earth where we will share with you the situation and observations in the Gulf region where the temperature is expected to increase to above 60 degrees Celsius in the future. How would life looks like at such extreme temperature?

The Marina of Dubai, UAE, with its haze in the background. The temperatures now, in summer 2018, is still just above 40 degrees Celsius which is more or less within the range of affordable living.

With the ongoing efforts to promote and implement the UN-SDGs including the EU vote to ratify the Paris Agreement (http://bit.ly/2dpyVoa) there are emerging key strategic issues. Countries around the world are called upon to act quickly to fulfill all the promises for the protection and preservation of the Earth’s natural resources. All society sectors (private and public), knowledge disciplines and human activities on planet Earth, both vertically and horizontally, have direct responsibilities in the ongoing process of transformation. There should be tools and instruments to assess the role and involvements on several levels, i.e. through coordinated webs of Key Performance Indicators. Among such instruments is the Nobel Prize which indeed played, and still playing, important role in promoting essential knowledge disciplines. However, knowledge in itself has to be promptly and effectively utilized by all sectors and on all levels to promote and implement the Paris agreement through effective coupling of diverse and wide spectra of knowledge to society, population and the market needs. It is interesting to see how far the Nobel Prize contributed in the past in developing the UN-SDGs, and also how much it will contribute in promoting and implementing these goals in future.

By founding the Nobel Prize in 1901 Alfred Nobel made the name Nobel famous worldwide. But Alfred’s prize was not the first Nobel Prize. As early as 1889 the Ludvig Nobel Award was founded. Ludvig was Alfred Nobel’s older brother and worked as a scientist, inventor and businessman in Russia during the second half of the 19th century. Alfred was most likely inspired by his brother Ludvig when founding his Nobel Prize, one of the most prestigious scientific awards of all times. Ludvig and his other bother, Robert Nobel, had an oil company in Baku, a manufacturing site for diesel engines in St. Petersburg and many other industrial sites throughout Russia during the late 19th century. Ludvig, however, strived to improve the conditions for the workers at the industrial sites by the introduction of shorter working hours, schools, healthcare, recreational facilities and also cooperative banking system for the employees. This was the 1st global initiative towards the implementation of Applied Sustainability but still lacked the environmental issues. In this context Sustainability and Social commitment was the trademark of the Nobel industries as visioned by Ludvig and Robert Nobel. The Russian revolution in 1917 changed the scene dramatically. Ludvig Nobel’s prize in science and research never became much more than a dream due to the revolution. 

Thanks to the global trends of human thinking and the recognition of R&D as an integrated part in socio-economic developments, i.e. in the framework of the UN-SDGs, today the efforts of Ludvig Nobel and his brother have not been forgotten specially in Russia and Azerbaijan.

Recently, the Nobel family has taken the initiative to honor the memory of Ludvig. The Nobel Sustainability Trust was founded with the purpose of encouraging research and/or practice of sustainable and renewable energy, through an award. Not to be confused with the Nobel prize of Alfred Nobel and will be given to worthy individuals or organizations that during the year have carried out significant accomplishments in the field of renewable/sustainable energy (http://nobelsustainability.org/history/). 

However, there are other wider initiatives to realize the importance of UN-SDG as they involve coupling many other sectors and disciplines in particular those related to Water – Energy – Natural Resources Nexuses. Still water, sanitation and hygiene in developing countries are taken much smaller proportion in relation to the R&D done within energy-related sectors and disciplines. In this context, additional steps are being taken by the United Planet Faith and Science Initiative by launching a website that attempts to win a Nobel Peace Prize for Sustainable Development (NP4SD.org) with a shared nomination of an organization and two individuals. As explained by “NP4SD.org” it is not a new Nobel Prize, it is a Peace Prize to be shared by nominees whose work is foundational and seminal in the field of sustainable development (http://www.upfsi.org/). Among cases in the past where sustainability issues were taken in consideration is 2004-Peace Prize (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/press.html).

Among other strategic efforts to support UN-SDGs, is to give Ecological Economics greater worldwide exposure and to create more widespread understanding of other strategic fields of importance for our well-being, survival and life-quality on planet earth and its growing population (http://www.isecoeco.org/nobel-peace-prize-for-sustainable-development/). Yet, much more is still needed to be done to promote and implement better policies for education, R&D and Transfer-of-Knowledge in the developing countries. If the Nobel Prize is used as indicator for these strategic activities it is very easy to conclude that the major parts of planet earth suffer from huge knowledge poverty. Then we can simply ask how the UN-SDGs be effectively implemented to achieve global sustainable socio-economic developments? Would the UN-SDGs be only a day-night dream for generations to come?

This said, the traditional Nobel Prize has on large-scale and long-term perspective an long-standing importance, directly or indirectly, on improving our overall understanding of planet Earth and to some extent the fundamentals of improving life quality on the Earth’s surface. Building on science pyramid on large-scale and long-term perspective is strategic in pushing forward the wheels of technology and development. However, developments in science and technology in the past century along with the weak coupling with global sociey sectors through ineffective policy-making and lack of global coordination have caused the ongoing degradation in life quality on Earth. These negative trends could have be avoided or even limited if the UN-SDGs were realized and founded much earlier.

More information on the traditional Nobel Prize awards for 2016, please see (https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2016/press-sv.html).

“Sustain-Earth.Com” is inviting you to visit the given link for free PDF downloading of an award-winning e-book (The Sustainable Business) about sustainability and the circular economy.

Free copies of the book are distributed for the purpose of explaining the fundamentals of waste elimination and resource-life extension (two core components of sustainability) and to facilitate sustainable business development and job creation.
Currently, the book is used as an introductory course text (in business schools), as a basic training manual in businesses, and as a beginner’s guide for educating the general public. You are welcome to use it to do the same.  
‘The Sustainable Business’ is updated approximately every two years and is available in five languages. All translations of the e-book (English, Arabic, Mandarin, Polish and Simplified Chinese) can be downloaded from EFMD here: https://www.efmd.org/research/the-sustainable-business   

EFMD is Europe’s premier academic-quality assessment organization; it accredits the world’s leading business schools. Just click on the book cover photo of the language you want.  
Again, you are welcome to share all the EFMD/CIPS sustainability portfolio materials (including the short videos) with your colleagues and networks – that’s what they are for!   

Any group preparing for a difficult mission such as climbing towards high tops against strong winds and steep heights, e.g. the Himalaya tops, knows that such mission is not free from an enormous number of excepted and unexpected risks. Accounting for such risks and taking all necessary measures and precautions is imperative not only for surviving, a long journey of such dimension, but also for fulfilling the goals of the mission. No one, whatsoever, can take such risks without careful planning and practise as well as having the necessary qualities and resources to withstand the all possible “known” and impossible “unknown” situations that can lead to failure. It is a matter of life or death and a journey where the very survival from the start to the end is a life mission, even after the mission itself is completed. The mission can, also be, understood and experienced as an instrument to learn and gain more merits  “added-value” to cope with other future difficulties beyond the mission itself. It is from the “knowns” we can uncover, solve and cope with many other “unknowns”.

If we have to continue our survival on planet Earth, improve whatever can be improved and sustain the quality of life in the near future of coming generations we need to think the same way. Thinking about 2050-2100 we will be struggling to solve serious problems “peaks” facing us on planet Earth. 

The future in this context requires convergence of our efforts and not divergence, i.e. to see the threats as common obstacles facing the life on earth and its quality.  “sustain-earth.com” is an instrument for transformation of all the threats to challenges and to find solutions and implementations of what, why and how. It is about sustainability (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability).

Research and Development “R&D” has direct and indirect feedbacks and impacts on the global implementation, and also the successful achievements, of UN-SDG. One can expect that the UN-SDG can be achieved, and thereby implemented, as an Added-Value components to “R&D” Programs and Projects in cases where  they are clearly specified and defined by funding organisations and institutes. This in turn will generate stronger, active and vital engagement of universities, academies, researchers and education programs in the promotion and implementation of UN-SDG.  In particular shaping higher education, R&D for appropriate and timely promotion and implementation of the UN-SDG on local and regional scales with special focus on society and population needs. Also, with consideration to three pillars of sustainability (economic, social and environment issues) and building on the available natural resources in different regions. These are of course in addition to dedicated programs and projects where “R&D” directly deals with sustainability and sustainable developments in general. 

Currently, there are no exact, detailed and coordinated global assessment policies/strategies on when, how and where the UN-SDG are to be achieved, though there are fragmented data on such issues in limited counties and regions. However, some information can be indirectly extracted from the global view of R&D, so as to examine strengths and weaknesses in following-up and assessing the perfomance by sectors, products, technologies, markets, regions and countries.

Research and development (R&D) is defined as the process of creating new products, processes and technologies that can be used and marketed for mankind’s benefit in the future. What regards sustainability, the interests and needs of future generations have to be taken in considerations. As the R&D processes and their costs vary from industry to industry, from country to country and from year to year, we can expect wide-range of variations in effectiveness, performance and time-scales of relevance for UN-SDG.

R&D investment in Asian countries (e.g. Japan, India and South Korea) including China is currently accounting for more than 40% of all global R&D investments, the North American investments now less than 30% and European R&D only slightly more than 20%. The rest of the world (Russia, Africa, South America and the Middle East countries) account for a combined 8.8% of the global R&D investments with combined average growth of only about 1.5% per year. Much of the R&D growth in any country around the world is driven by that country’s economic growth.

There are substantial changes that are being seen in industrial R&D makeup. Life science R&D, for example, has been the largest sector in the industrial technology arena. However, the automotive arena is expected to grow their R&D programs due to strong technology shifts from internal combustion to electric propulsion systems, manual to automated driving systems and increasingly integrated electronic systems. Other changes include the rapid and mostly unexpected implementation of self-driving cars; the emergence of electric cars, which could supplant a significant portion of fossil fuel-powered vehicles in a relatively short period; and the availability of large amounts of fossil fuels at low prices not experienced in more than 20 years. Fast forward to today, unlike what was known before, there’s an oil glut on the world market, gas prices are where they were 25 years ago and the U.S. has considered exporting crude oil from its shale oil reserves. Saudi Arabia and other traditional oil exporting countries will be faced with serious economic difficulties because of low gas prices.

Solar-powered technologies continue to be a relatively small sector of the overall energy industry that is populated by comparatively smaller technology companies. Most of these small energy companies, with strong future market forecasts, expect to increase their R&D spending in 2016. Solar cells, power converters and associated hardware continue to improve in overall effiencies, while dropping lightly in overall prices. In the Automotive industry, lithium-ion batteries are improving which in combination with computers can bring about new trends in automotive markets. Solar-panel system, also for small industries and other consumer uses, can shape additional new trends. 

Except in the automotive arena, the U.S. industries gained more technological advantage than they lost in many other areas. This includes advanced materials, commercial aerospace, communications, computing/IT, energy, environmental, instrumentation, life science, military/defense, and pharmaceutical/ biotech. 

What regards R&D, academia has become the go-to organization for performing advanced basic research and even applied research when government or industrial organizations are looking for cost-effective ways to perform a development program. For many years now, academia has performed the majority of basic research as industrial organizations have reduced their involvement in basic research. The U.S. university and college systems continue to lead other countries in research, technology and innovation. For example, of the top 10 universities in the world, eight are in the U.S. (Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UC-Berkeley, Princeton, CalTech, Columbia and the Univ. of Chicago) and two are in the U.K. (Cambridge and Oxford). Of the top 20 universities in the world, 16 are in the U.S., with Switzerland’s ETH and Univ. College London being the non-U.S.-based standouts—the other top U.S. universities include Yale, UCLA, Cornell, UC- San Diego, Univ. of Washington, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins and UC-San Francisco. This ranking system is run by the Center for World Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China. However, five of the top 10 in the Economic Intelligence Unit’s 2015 Global Talent Index are in Europe—Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The same countries as were in the top 10 for the 2011 version of the Index. The U.S. was number one in both versions of the Index. The Nordic region of Europe is noteworthy as it has four of the top countries in the talent index. The Nordic region as a whole has high government spending, as a percentage of GDP which is maintained throughout all stages of education, right through to universities, which explains why it has outperformed so many prominent rivals in the developed world in the overall index. The linguistic and technical skills of the Nordic countries’ working population are also particularly strong.

What concerns R&D staff, the researchers surveyed indicated that money is likely the most important component for maintaining and attracting researchers. Tied closely to creating a strong research staff is the creation of an innovation culture within the R&D organization.

R&D has been, still and will remain imperative for understanding and making the “best” of “our” lives on planet “earth”. Here comes three questions: first, how to assess the outcome and “how best is best”; second, which lives and which are those included in “our”; third, what are the impacts on “earth” and would the earth provide all the necessary ingredients at all times.  The attached file demonstrates that R&D around the world is still driven with less investments towards solving the threats facing the majority of world population. The focus as far as the majority of the world population is concerned is still geared towards one of the three main sustainability pillars which is “Economy”. The “environment” and “social” issues of the majority of the world population have to remain of much less priority.

Click to access 2016GlobalR%26DFundingForecast_2.pdf

Today 70 years and half a trillion dollars later after the creation of the UN, we are faced with several legitimate questions. What the UN, and its complex systems of International Bureaucracy, has achieved in practical terms, e.g. for the poor, environment, water, agriculture, food, illiteracy, energy, climate, biodiversity, quality of life and in particular water and air …… sustainable developments and many many more? Also, how the future would like in terms of these aspects? 

Well, the United Nations has saved millions of lives and boosted health and education across the world. But what happened with the billions of people that were added to the world population since WW-II, i.e. about 4.5 billions? Did the majority of these new comers got better life and future, escape poverty and illiteracy, get better health, education and employment? As majority of the growing population, i.e. billions of them, is taking place in developing countries, then we can ask: what about affordability and accessibility to the basic needs as defined by the 21-century standards? Did the developing countries advance in the same way as the developed world did after WW-II? Whatever the answer is, it remains imperative to ask what would be the impacts of such trends on the global sustainability and what the developed world, modern technology and R&D did to save the planet Earth from total collapse?

In this context, what would be the future role of UN and its complex, ineffective bureaucratic systems? How would the UN and its bureaucratic systems change from “know-about” systems to “know-how” organizations with effectively managed instruments of implementation? What would be the next practical plans for effective actions and measures to achieve the so-called UN-SDG?

In a changing world with new powers of Internet, Google, Apple, Amazon, Ali Express, …. and the whole web of Social Media Instruments what would be the new role of the UN and its bloated international bureaucracy with undemocratic and ineffective cost-benefits solutions for the majority of the world population in particular the affordability and accessibility to basic life needs according to the 21-century standards?

It is totally true what Dag Hammarskjöld said, the tragic second UN secretary general, who had it best “The United Nations was created not to lead mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell”? Did the UN save humanity from hell? More interesting what did Dag Hammarskjöld mean by hell? The kind of hell Dag Hammarskjöld had in mind was not hard to imagine in the wake of world war, massive destruction and with the atom bomb’s shadow spreading across the globe. But these threats are now more or less over and new emerging hells are either existing or soon facing us. 

Since it was set up in 1945, the UN helped save millions from other kinds of hell, e.g. the deepest of poverty, save children die of treatable diseases, starvation and exposure to classical wars. The UN’s children’s organisation, Unicef, provided an education and a path to a better life for millions. The UN’s development programmes were instrumental in helping countries newly freed from colonial rule to govern themselves. But in the very shadow of these achievements and on wide-scale prespective, the UN agencies ‘broke and failing’ in face of an ever-growing refugee crisis, global poverty, climate change and global warming, environmental threats and ecological degradation, the very late introduction and the ineffective implementation of UN-SDG with ultra-slow transformation speed to more sustainable future for planet Earth.

In its 70 years, the United Nations may have been hailed as the great hope for the future of mankind – but it has also been dismissed as a shameful organization with numbing bureaucracy, institutional cover-ups of corruption and undemocratic politics of its security council. Policies to go to war in the name of peace with no measures to clean up after collapse of states after wars and ineffective support for millions of victims.

These imperfections have now come to the surface and pressing the UN and its organisation to define its role in the 21st century. Tensions between western governments and developing countries have rippled across the organisation as ballooning costs drive the push for reform. The UN is overly bureaucratic and slow in the way it dealt with development issues. The UN has many organisations with overlapping mandates. It’s built systems on top of systems on top of systems with structures that protect the incompetence and ineffectiveness. Cooperation between organisations has been hindered by competition for funding, mission creep and by outdated business practises. This is clear in water, energy and environment sectors with many UN agencies are active and compete for limited resources without a clear collaborative framework. What we have now is another multiplication of targets and goals which are an extraordinarily comprehensive assessment of what’s needed to be done but there’s no operational clarity around them. Who’s going to do it? Who’s going to monitor it? Who’s accountable for it? The goals themselves are pretty impressive but it doesn’t say anything to the UN about what they should be doing.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/what-has-the-un-achieved-united-nations

But on the other hand the UN says it is the member states that fails to cooperate and to deliver effective local and regional solutions. The pile-up of mis- managements on local and regional scales is the major reasons for how the world looks like as it does today (http://m.sputniknews.com/world/20151023/1028980091/United-Nations-70-Years.html). 

So, in any case reforms are necessary and imperative to bring about remarkable changes for the majority of the world population. BUT WHAT,  HOW AND WHEN?

The history of technology (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_technology) involves invention, development and implementation of techniques, skills, methods and solutions with consideration to the best available knowledge and know-how. In the evolution of technology it was shaped and reshape by using different forms of energy: man and animal power (muscle’s energy); energy from plants in (agriculture revolution); energy from simple natural resources (fossil-fuel era); and the advanced use of natural resources (nuclear power). The history of technological evolution thus describe transformations in life-styles and civilizations. Throughout these historical transformations, humans realized not only the importance of energy for life and survival but more importantly the limitations, threats and negative impacts embedded in the different forms of energy and associated interactions in the life-cycles of production and consumption. More recently, we came about the needs to be able to master all problems, threats, negative impacts and possibly even control the future using technology (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology). This is the birth of sustainability and creation of green technologies with renewable and sustainable energy resources (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy) for the sake of protection and preservation of natural resources in particular aquatic, ecosystem and biodiversity, i.e. life and its quality on earth.

 In ecology, sustainability is the capacity to use our natural and essential resources for benefit of future generations as well (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability). However, from the geological perspective and biological evolution viewpoint, the future of the Earth can be extrapolated based upon the estimated effects of several long-term influences. This is indeed, very complex and can only be predicted without great details (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth).

COOPERATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY is imperative to put the world on the right track for achieving the UN-SDG. It is about global transformation of all sector activities and on all levels for shaping and reshaping our lifestyle to protect and preserve all life forms on earth.
Textile industries (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_industry) are among main sectors that contribute in major production of pollution and waste that threaten global freshwater resources.

Freshwater on our planet is precious and without sustainable management of such vital resource all life forms on planet earth will sooner or later vanish. Sweden Textile Water Initative brings together Swedish leather and textile companies in collaboration to reduce water, energy and chemical use in their supply chains.

The Sweden Textile Water Initiative announces the global results for the financial year ending 31 December 2015. The environmental, social and financial (the basic pillars of sustainability) results have surpassed expectations. Results have been collected from the Initiative’s scaled up global programme to increase efficient water, energy and chemical use at factory level in India, China, Bangladesh, Turkey and Ethiopia.

Among the goals and objectives of the Sweden Textile Water Initiative “STWI” are creating guidelines for increased sustainability worldwide. Based on the assumption that common guidelines pave the way for real change, STWI-guidelines provide suppliers with clear instructions on how to work towards improved water efficiency, water pollution prevention and wastewater management in production processes. The guidelines are available in English and Chinese. Visit the Guidelines page to learn more: http://stwi.se, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/kinds-pollution-textile-factories-give-off-77282.html