Officials with the Pittsburg-based Colcom Foundation say that too many environmental policies and analysis models are deeply flawed. That’s because they fail to take into account that human beings tend to be excluded from ecology measures because “humans are not animals.”
Placing the eight billion people in a separate category from the millions of other species we share the planet with has resulted in the wholesale die-off of tens of thousands of beautiful creatures that also belonged to the Earth.
The Colcom Foundation maintains that biocapacity data and the alarming extinction rate of species prove how governments and corporations are formulating environmental policy on the wrong track
Furthermore, the failure to account for the ethical status of any practice is often driven by the context and scale of that practice. For example, the notion remains that “burning coal isn’t all that bad.” Burning some coal may not be catastrophic, but large-scale use of coal has already been proven, beyond scientific doubt, to have an enormously damaging effect on the environment.
The Colcom Foundation is working to raise awareness about the fundamentally skewed assumptions policymakers have held to in formulating plans for economic growth and mitigating the effects of the latter on the environment.
Through their grants, they have supported many organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, which works towards protecting endangered species, and the Sierra Club Foundation, which advocates for clean energy and climate solutions. These grants have helped to advance important causes and support organizations that strive to make a difference.
Taking a broad view, solving our planet’s urgent ecological problems comes down to recognizing that population size multiplied by per capita consumption is what drives the resulting environmental impact on a global scale. This, in turn, means that one or both sides of these equations must be reduced to reverse course. Population numbers must be lowered –- or at least stopped from increasing geometrically. How much each person consumes must also find a balance.
The Colcom Foundation understands that major changes must come both from the top –- from powerful people, governments and corporations who make policy -– and also from average citizens who must vociferously demand change from those who lead them. Refer to this article to learn more.
More about Colcom on https://pitchbook.com/profiles/limited-partner/53158-06