Sustainability

1. POLS 319 CofC Maymester 2011 Sustainability

2. Agenda • Comments on Blog • Comments on Worldometers? • What do you think about readings? • Lecture/Discussion (Class 2) • Lecture/Discussion (Class 3)

3. Worldometers • http://www.worldometers.info/

4. Comparative History: Role of Environment(Diamond and White) Part I

5. Diamond, “The Last Americans” and Collapse • Diamond’s research compare many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility, relations with neighbors, political institutions, and other "input" variables postulated to influence a society's stability and their likelihood to lead to decline/collapse or buildup • Thesis: Civilizations prosper and ultimately decline because of environmental conditions • Thesis of Collapse: All (but one) factor associated with rise and fall of civilization has to with population growth (and technology) vs. earth’s carrying capacity (or resources) • Population, deforestation, wealth, resource consumption, and waste production reach limits that outstrips resources leading to societal decline

6. Diamond, Factors contributing to past Societal Collapse 8 Factors Contributing to Past Societal Decline/Collapse • Deforestation and Habitat Destruction • Soil Issues, including erosion and salinization • Water management • Overharvesting/Overfishing • Overhunting • Non-native species introductions • Population Growth • Increased affluence/consumption 4 other ‘new’ factors may contribute to social decline (in future): • Climate change • Build up of environmental toxins and contaminants • Energy shortages • Utilization of earth’s photosynthetic capacity

7. Diamond, Misconceptions about Environment • Must balance the environment against human needs: actually the reverse—we depend on the environment! • Can Trust technology to solve problems (GMOs, hydrogen, biofuels, etc)”all of our current enviroprobs are unanticipated harmful consequences of existing technology” • Environmentalists are fear-mongering, overreacting extremists—the problems we face are compounded by ignorance and arrogance (lack of history)

8. Lynn White, “Roots of Our Ecological Crisis” • Main Point: Our solutions to environmental issues are determined by how we see ourselves in relationship to the environment. Until this shifts, little will be accomplished in preserving the enviro • Support: • We all change our environment or “modify its context” • Industrial Rev turning pt in our history • Combined Technology with Science to create a potent destructive force to environment • Baconian Mentality: “Earth as a resource” • Driven in large part by Christianity • “dominion over nature”  mode of Anthropocentrism • Man created in “God’s image” is superior over rest of nature • Conclusion: Religion-driven attitudes have created indifference toward environment; technology/science won’t help either. It’s human ideas about nature that must change. • they must abandon "superior, contemptuous" attitudes that make them "willing to use it [the earth] for our slightest whim."

9. History of Environmental Problems—Globally(McNeil, Something New Under the Sun) Part II

10. Historical Continuum of Global Environmental Governance • 1972, Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (differences b/w GS and GN) • 1982, UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (1994)—strongest environ agreement • 1992, Earth Summit, UN Conference on Environment and Development World (based on Brundtland Commission or WCED, 1983), Rio • Created sustainable development paradigm • 2002, Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Jo’burg  Thrust was implementation of Rio

11. Clashing Backdrop to 1972 Stockholm Convention Developed: Surge of environmental concern, primarily within nation Developing (G77): concern over preserving their sovereignty and control over their resources  poverty, lower life expectancies, illiteracy, sanitation, etc Indira Gandhi at Stockholm: “Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?...How can we speak to those who live in villages and slums about keeping oceans, rivers and air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source? The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.”

12. 3 Massive Historical Changes Social Triumph at a Price: • Economic Growth • Population Growth • Massive Increase in Energy Use (primarily driven by fossil fuels)

13. Economic Growth Per capita, the world economy has grown 120 fold since 1500; yet, individual (avg) income has grown only 9 fold.

14. Population Growth

15. Energy • 2 Costs of Energy Intensification: • 1. fossil fuel combustion generates pollution and GHGs • 2. fossil fuel use SHARPLY increased the inequities in wealth and power globally (McNeil, 15-6) Global Energy Use in 1800: 250m (metric tons of oil equivalent) Global Energy Use in 1900: 800m Global Energy Use in 2000: 10,000m

16. 3 Marked Results from 20th Century 1. Econ Growth: Exponential increased economic growth & living stnds (because of ↑ pop, ↑ tech) 2. Environmental Harm: Increases in widespread environmental degradation (from burning of fossil fuels for energy consumption & waste) 3. Inequality: Modern expansion, while liberating to many, brought severe inequality

17. Population & Environment Video • Population and Environment Video (5m) • Downsides to Economic Growth (Bill McKibben) (6+m)

18. Inequality

19. Global Policy Solutions • Global Policy since 1950 (post WWII) has been an emphasis on: • 1. faster economic growth (“rising tide raises all boats”) • 2. raising standards of living • Elite powerbrokers/nations erected new politics, ideologies, and institutions predicated on this principle. • Harnessing fossil fuels played a central role in widening gap wealth & power • RESULT: • 1. More environmental degradation than any pt in history • 2. More inequality between humans than any pt in history • 3. More complexity to problems themselves • 4. Ideology that technology is part of “progress” that will save day; abstraction of nature

20. McNeil, Epilogue • “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 toi 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.”

21. McNeil • “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).

22. Unsustainability Part III

23. “Limits to Growth”Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens 1972 Projections: Limits 2004 Projections: Limits

24. 3 Conclusion from “Limits to Growth” • 1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years (from 1972) • 2. It’s possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and econ stability that is sustainable. The state of global equilibrium could be designed to meet basic material needs of each person on earth • 3. If the world decides to strive for this 2nd outcome, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater the chances of success