Sustainability

1. Class 19: Hawken on Consumption CofC Fall 2010 Sustainability

2. Hawken, Ecology of Commerce (1993) • Thesis: Biosphere is being destroyed by our industrial society and economic system, but same elements that destroy the biosphere—markets and gov’ts, are the solution (if can replace “greed”) • “I have come to believe that we in America and in the rest of the industrialized West do not know what business really is, or, therefore, what it can become.” (p1) • "The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy. Making money is, on its own terms, totally meaningless, an insufficient pursuit for the complex and decaying world we live in. We have reached an unsettling and portentous turning pt in industrial civilization.” (p1) • The current economic system is not "the inherent nature of business, nor the inevitable outcome of a free-market system. It is merely the result of the present commercial system's design and use."

3. Ecology vs Commerce • “there is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.” (p3) • An oxymoron that speaks to the gap between how earth lives and how we now conduct our commercial lives. • “We don’t think of ecology and commerce as compatible subjects. While much of our current environmental policy seek a ‘balance’ between the needs of business and the needs of environment, common sense says there is only one critical balance and one set of needs: the dynamic, ever-changing interplay of the forces of life” (p3) • Ecology of commerce is the unity of them into “one sustainable act of production and distribution that mimics and enhances natural processes” (p3)

4. What we Need to Do • “Constructive changes in our relationship to the environment have thus far been thwarted because business is not properly designed to adapt to the situation we face.” (p5) • “having expropriated resources from the natural world in order to fuel a rather transient period of materialistic freedom, we must now restore no small measure of those resources and accept the limits and discipline inherent in that relationship. Until business does that, it will continue to be maladaptive and predatory.” (p6) • Today, the liner process of industrialization creates massive amts of waste and its grossly inefficient, resulting a decayed earth. • “the economics of restoration is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial economics separated production processes from the land, the land from people, and, ultimately, economic values from personal values…in a restorative economy, viability is determined by the ability to integrate with or replicate cyclical systems, in its means of production and distribution (p11).

5. Birth of Death • Biodiversity loss is massive and widespread  “Every natural system in the world today is in decline.” (p22) • Human systems exceeding carrying capacity (p24-6) • Econ System = “immature” system • “immature system” = aggressive & invasive weeds take over space…wasting energy, undermining diversity, with plants of lower quality and usefulness (p19) • Mature system = evolution from “growth” to high efficiency and resource-conserving  “climax systems comprise an assoc of organisms that reach a state of equilibrium which leaves the habitat largely unchanged…they are more diverse, stable and complex communities, and are thus more resilient.” • David Wann: “the present American culture is still the bare field full of colonizing weeds, struggling toward something more sophisticated, interwoven and permanent. Until now, we’ve consistently chose the resource-hungry path of least resistance. (p20-1). • “Because richer northern countries do not see or experience the impact they have on their poorer southern nations, we do not realize what a powerful and destructive impact our demand on carrying capacity is having.” (p26)

6. Hawken - Berry • Book of Genesis “dominion over the planet and all creatures” justifies this exploitative evolution. • Hawken: “wrong and disingenuous” b/c ignores 5 previous extinctions (by natural causes) whereas this one is by our species.” • “Human activity is part of the natural world, in the largest sense, but human activity ignores the means-and-ends, give-and-take factors that are inherent in any maturing ecosystem.”

7. Hawken’s 8 Elements to Solve Enviro Crisis • Reduce energy/resource consumption by 80% in next half century • Secure, productive employment for all • "Be self-actuating as opposed to regulated or morally mandated.” • Honor market principles • Be more rewarding (than our present way of life) • Exceed sustainability by restoring degraded habitats and ecosystems to their fullest biological capacity.” • Rely on current income • “Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic outcome."

8. Individualization • Solution (The Lorax), planting tree, understands enviro degradation as the product of individual shortcomings (the Onceler’s greed, for example), best countered by action that is staunchly individual and typically consumer-based (buy a tree and plant it!) It embraces the notion that knotty issues of consumption, consumerism, power and responsibility can be resolved neatly and cleanly through enlightened, uncoordinated consumer choice. Education is a critical ingredient in this view—

9. Individualization of Responsibility • Responsibility for enviro degradation is upon the individual (e.g. paper or plastic)  it is destructive consumer choice • When responsibility for environmental problems is individualized, there is little room to ponder institutions, the nature and exercise of political power, or ways of collectively changing the distribution of power and influence in society—to, in other words, “think institutionally.

10. Why? IndividRepsonsibility? • historical baggage of mainstream environmentalism • the core tenets of liberalism (economic) • the dynamic ability of capitalism to commodify dissent, and • the relatively recent rise of global environmental threats to human prosperity.

11. Consequence • Indiv of responsibility is “narrowing” • It is undermining our capacity to react effectively to environmental threats to human well-being • This indiv of responsibility calls for people to see themselves as consumers first and citizens second • the individually responsible consumer is encouraged to purchase a vast array of “green” or “eco-friendly” products on the promise that the more such products are purchased and consumed, the healthier the planet’s ecological processes will become. “Living lightly on the planet” and “reducing your environmental impact” becomes, paradoxically, a consumer-product growth industry (p34) • Must be reversed  citizens engaged in participatory democracy