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Applied Sustainability. Class 2: Unsustainability PB Fisher Spring 2013. During Your Lifetime, you have observed: CONCLUSIONS. Interconnected Crises. 1. Economic 2. Environmental 3. Governmental 4 . Community & Loss of Place/Identity 5 . Family 6 . Justice/Equality
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Applied Sustainability Class 2: Unsustainability PB Fisher Spring 2013
Interconnected Crises • 1. Economic • 2. Environmental • 3. Governmental • 4. Community & Loss of Place/Identity • 5. Family • 6. Justice/Equality • 7. Learning/Education (how we learn) • 8. Disconnection/Transience
Thomas Berry • “Through human presence the forests of earth are destroyed. Fertile soils become toxic and then wash away in the rain or blow away in the wind. Mountains of human-derived waste grow ever higher. Wetlands are filled in. Each year approx ten thousand species disappear forever. Even the ozone layer above the earth is depleted. Such disturbance in the natural world coexists with all those ethnic, political and religious tensions that pervade the human realm. Endemic poverty is pervasive in the Third World, while in the industrial world people drown in their own consumption patterns. Population increase threatens all efforts at improvement.” (p36)
McNeil, Epilogue, Something New Under the Sun • “human history since the dawn of agriculture is replete with unsustainable societies, some of which vanished but many of which changed their ways and survived. They changed not to sustainability but to some new and different kind of unsustainability. Perhaps, we can as it were, pile on unsustainable regime upon another indefinitely, making adjustments large and small but avoid collapse…most societies, and all the big ones, sought to maximize their current formidability and wealth at the risk of sacrificing ecological buffers and tomorrow’s resilience.”
McNeil, Epilogue • “with our new powers we banished some historical constraints on health and population, food production, energy use and consumption generally…but in banishing them we invited other constraints in the form of the planet’s capacity to absorb wastes, by-products, and impacts of our actions…Our negotiations with these constraints will shape the future as our struggles against them shaped our past.” (p 362).
Paper 1 • It can be argued that sustainability seeks to do what environmentalism has failed to do (Speth). It seeks to solve the more fundamental problems that the traditional environmental movement has overlooked. While environmentalism seeks to stop harm from happening, sustainability seeks to correct the values, culture, and systems that cause this harm in the first place. • In the broadest sense, sustainability is both a framework through which to view problems and a process for creating practical solutions. It is a way of addressing environmental problems by attempting to change humanity’s worldview about the behaviors and systems that create them. In this way, sustainability is pragmatism. It addresses systemic concerns, rather than individual ones. It is both local and global, thinking and acting in consideration of both scales. Through all this, sustainability seeks to create an enduring relationship between human and ecological systems and in turn, an truly durable world.
Paper 2 • Interpreting sustainability as a dialogue of values…places an emphasis on social actors, their dynamic processes of interaction, and the characteristics of governance that structure those processes. • Currently no literature on sustainability can meet me and other students like me where we are. We are asked to climb through scientific analysis and listen to environmentally draped economics, but we have no guide on how to implement changes, no voice that recognizes those that are just along for the ride. • Sustainability is a dialogue of values in which a pluralistic conception accentuates the need to identify and strengthen social institutions to manage value conflict at different scales.
Paper 3 • these [environmental] issues have come about because of a present day value system that ignores the consequences of our actions and rewards short-term actions and interests… • One of the main cause of environmental issues, then, is that our society believes that economic growth fueled by consumption is good and fosters stronger societies (Meadows, et al., 1976). Additionally as important, we fail to acknowledge the damage this system is bringing to the planet. Coupled together, we find a system that promotes practices that we cannot sustain into the future. • while decentralization is important, it is important to link local communities and organizations together to ensure people working for similar goals are collaborating, • We will define sustainability as a shared culture of caring about prosperous long- term future of life on earth. This definition moves away from tendencies that work to associate the term with only protecting the environment, yet keeps in mind why environmental protection is a major part of the movement. Without care and support for the environment, we will not be able to have tenable long-term life on earth.
Paper 4 • 3 main drivers [of] environmental problems: • 1) Current economic structures have led to a loss of resources and precious biodiversity, • 2) Growth and power of corporations have created a price system that doesn’t account for environmental costs, and • 3) the linear path in which these systems work has presented us with life threatening toxins and waste. • McDonough and Braungart point out, however, that the reduce-‐reuse-‐recycle method can be even more harmful than throwing a product in the trash (56)…this recycled product will still be put in a landfill eventually, so the most it can really do is use energy and resources to slow the rate at which landfills become filled (56, 57). • If sustainability means biodiversity is maintained and thrives, then this requires all basic needs to be met by every living organism. • Sustainability operates on an individual level, questioning whether a person is happy or fulfilled, to a local level of creating community, and all the way up to a global level, questioning our practices in the global market. Sustainability is about the integration of ideas and people.
Sachs, Common Wealth, pp. 17-31 Process of sustained Economic Growth for all (income per person) avg poor person is getting richer World’s population will continue to grow augmenting the global economy More output per person but more people Medium estimates put 9.2b people in 2050 Largest increase will be in Asia, where half the world’s population The economic center in 2050 will be in Asia Way people live is changing Urbanizing globally For first time in human history, more people live in Cities. Crossed the threshold in 2008. Rapidly growing. 29% lived in cities in 1950 to 50% in 2007; high income world: 75% live in cities Impact of human activity on biophysical environment is producing multiple environmental crises, never seen before in human history Gap between the richest and poorest is widening to proportions never seen in human history. “Poverty Trap” for bottom billion where they cannot achieve sustained econ growth 6 Earth Changing Trends Unprecedented in History
Sachs, Common Wealth, pp. 17-31 Economic Convergence: per capita income in poor countries will continue to converge with rich World Economy will be MUCH bigger by 2050 Avg income for developing countries will be ~$40k, which is the avg income for US in 2005, while in US it will be ~$90k. More People, but higher incomes for more people ** Must stabilize population at 8b; then econ growth can be positive if we can manage environmental side effects. Asian Century: Historic shift in the economic gravity of World Urban Century: Continuing urbanizing trends Means that cities have tremendous potential, but also will be sites for major destruction: pollution, disasters, and disease with higher density Poverty Trap: Poorest billion are not achieving econ growth, which is dangerous: Death from starvation Lack basic needs (food, water, nourishment, shelter) Lack political and economic stability Most population growth Most enviro destructive Most potential for conflict Cycle is self reinforcing, not self-correcting requires global policies and funding 6 Trends that will Shape the 21st Century
Sachs, Common Wealth, pp. 17-31 6. Environmental Challenges: Rapid econ growth (in a linear system) means unprecedented enviro destruction; climate change will intensify many of the challenges I = P*A*T (IPAT equation) By 2050: P = increase 40% (1.4 fold increase) A = increase 4 fold P * A = 6 fold increase I (env harm) = 6 times more destruction, if T is constant Technology works both ways: can protect or destroy If world is already unsustainable, what will a 6 fold increase in the destruction do? Based on this equation, two things must happen if we agree A is necessary, reduce P (population) and make technology sustainable Environmental Challenges in the 21st Century
Unsustainable Stats • Water - by 2025, 1.6 billion people will live in countries with absolute water scarcity; 440 million school days are already missed every year because of diarrheal diseases. • Land use - modern agriculture exploits land more intensively than it has in the past. In 1987, a hectare of cropland yielded on average 1.8 tons of crops, today the same hectare produces 2.5 tons. This increased productivity comes at a cost - overexploited land is degraded and becomes less productive. • Fish - 2.6 billion people rely on fish for more than 20% of their animal protein intake, yet as the intensity of fishing increases, the biodiversity of the ocean and the ocean's capacity to produce more fish decreases. • Air - more than 2 million people die each year because of indoor and outdoor pollution.
Living Planet Index • Put out by the WWF and Zoological Society of London (used by the UN) • Examines the biodiversity of the planet • Database contains over 10,000 population trends for more than 2,500 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Ecological Footprint • Measure of human demand on ecosystems • An ecological footprint is a standard measurement of a unit’s influence on its habitat based on consumption and pollution • Today, humanity's total ecological footprint at 1.5 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.5 times as fast as Earth can renew them
Ecological Footprint Ef = Hectares Affected per capita population
United States China
Argentina Botswana
State of the World 2010 • “In considering how societies can be put on paths toward a sustainable future, it is important to recognize that human behaviors that are so central to modern cultural identities and economic systems are not choices that are fully in consumers’ control. They are systematically reinforced by an increasingly dominant cultural paradigm: consumerism.” (p7)
Affluent: individual average footprint of 21.9 hectares per person estimated by UNEP, includes the areas required to produce the resources we use, as well as the areas needed to process our waste. Pop Growth: Almost 6.9b today, estimated to reach 10b by 2050. We add 1/3 of the US population to earth every yr. Unsustainable Consumption
What is Unsustainable • Environment – Air and Water Pollution • Poverty • Inequality • Disease (AIDS, Malaria, Dengue, etc) • Food/Agriculture • Water • Economic Development • Fisheries • Forests • Energy • Climate • Health • Biodiversity • Ecosystems
Freshwater • Nearly ½ World’s population will experience water shortages by 2025 • Acutely intensified by CC
Inequity • US accounts for 23% of world’s emissions, 30% of its energy use, 32% of expenditures, with only 4% of population • Top 500 million RICHEST people account for more than 50% of world’s emissions • In India, even those making $5k-6k, which many would feel is subsistence, are already at levels unsustainable
