"We need what I have often called an ecological approach to the management of these resources and we do not have that now. We have the inertia of past habits, unsustainable habits"
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“Ecological approach” is doing double duty here: it’s a policy prescription and a rebuke. Maurice Strong, the businessman-turned-global-environmental power broker (best known for helping shape the modern UN sustainability agenda), frames environmental management as a systems problem, not a moral scold. That’s strategic. “Management of these resources” speaks the language of boardrooms and ministries; it reassures listeners that this isn’t anti-growth romanticism, it’s operational competence. Then he tightens the screw: we don’t have it now.
The key move is the villain he names: “inertia.” Not greed, not ignorance, but habit. That’s a sharper accusation because it implicates everyone who benefits from the status quo without needing to announce themselves as villains. Inertia is also the perfect alibi for institutions: no one “chooses” it, it just happens. Strong is calling that bluff. By labeling past habits “unsustainable,” he collapses nostalgia into liability. What worked yesterday is reframed as a deferred cost structure that’s now coming due.
Context matters: Strong’s career sits at the hinge between postwar industrial optimism and the era when climate, biodiversity loss, and pollution became governance issues, not just scientific ones. His phrasing signals a transition from conservation as a niche concern to ecology as the operating system for economies. The subtext is political: if you wait for voluntary change, the machine will keep running. An “ecological approach” isn’t just greener management; it’s an attempt to rewrite the default settings that inertia protects.
The key move is the villain he names: “inertia.” Not greed, not ignorance, but habit. That’s a sharper accusation because it implicates everyone who benefits from the status quo without needing to announce themselves as villains. Inertia is also the perfect alibi for institutions: no one “chooses” it, it just happens. Strong is calling that bluff. By labeling past habits “unsustainable,” he collapses nostalgia into liability. What worked yesterday is reframed as a deferred cost structure that’s now coming due.
Context matters: Strong’s career sits at the hinge between postwar industrial optimism and the era when climate, biodiversity loss, and pollution became governance issues, not just scientific ones. His phrasing signals a transition from conservation as a niche concern to ecology as the operating system for economies. The subtext is political: if you wait for voluntary change, the machine will keep running. An “ecological approach” isn’t just greener management; it’s an attempt to rewrite the default settings that inertia protects.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nature |
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