Values for Sustainable Development

So, though the World is more and more acutely aware of how unsustainable it is, the World continues to get more unsustainable. Weird that isn't it? I have wondered for a while how this bizarre effect takes place. The more extreme example I can think of is HIV/AIDs.

I know there is obviously a lack of education and awareness about the disease; but if 25% of a population, or in some villages 60% have HIV/AIDs and are actually, visibly dying from it, why doesn't the rest of the village realise and address the issue? Is it just because everyone catches it before it is too late to realise? In which case, why is it, when these people then tell a nearby unaffected village about HIV/AIDs, that that village seems to ignore them, catch HIV/AIDs themselves etc.

I might be oversimplifying things somewhat, especially for such a complex issue. But People are pretty stupid. I've commented before on the problems of the disconnect that is the main cause of today's problems -we do not see the (unsustainable) impact of our actions, but even when we do see the negative impact of our actions, we still don't care. We absolve ourselves of responsibility, find some solution (to the detriment of someone else) and move on. It is a dog eat dog world. But when you've eaten all the dogs, then what will be left for you to eat?

So if you were given the chance to try to spread a few values that you thought might be the ones, that if everyone agreed with, and acted based upon, would lead to a sustainable World? Well, I led a short discussion and though the list could be endless and so many of the values are overlapping we came up with:
-Respect
-Interdependence
-Equality
-Responsibility

I believe that if everyone lived those values and understood those values the World would be a much better place. As it happens the project we've been running to teach the top high school students in China about these values through discussion on key SD issues is just finishing it's first phase. So far about 2,000 students reached and, for a pilot, it has been fantastic. Let's see what more we can do next time.