Sustainability Competing Visions and Collaborative Research

1. SustainabilityCompeting Visions and Collaborative Research Paul B. Thompson W.K. Kellogg Professor of Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics Michigan State University

2. Sustainability • Something that can be evaluated through factual inquiry… • We could be mistaken… • Sustainability can be informed by scientific research… • Science can help identify paths to sustainability. • Something to which we aspire… • Something we ought to achieve… • Lack of sustainability shows that we have a problem… • An unsustainable practice or world calls for change or reform. A Moral Ideal

3. 1948 The Emergence of an Ideal 1900 1950 2000 Liberty Hyde Bailey 1858-1954 “Permanence” Ideals of progress, prosperity and perpetual peace. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

4. 1987 The Emergence of an Ideal Proliferation of definitions for sustainability and sustainable development 1900 1950 2000 The Brundtland Commission Report: Our Common Future Sustainable Development Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Emergence of “environmentalism” along with civil rights and women’s movements. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 1962 “Sustainable Agriculture” 1970’s

5. Economy Society The Philosophy of Sustainability Profits People Planet Environment Three Circle Sustainability

6. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability? Functional Integrity

7. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability? True False Functional Integrity

8. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability A system or practice is sustainable if the resources needed to carry it out are foreseeably available. Resource sufficiency might be thought of as dynamic if we include the possibility that we will shift and substitute our resource use as scarcity increases or as technology changes. Functional Integrity

9. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability A system or practice is sustainable if it is resilient or relatively invulnerable to the threat of internal collapse. This might apply to ecosystem functions, but it might also be applied more broadly. Functional Integrity

10. Game ManagementAldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac • Resource Sufficiency Wild game populations are sustainable if there are enough individuals for hunters to shoot. • Functional Integrity Wild game populations are sustainable if the ecosystem that regulates habitat and population levels is intact.

11. Real Estate Values circa 2006 Resource Sufficiency Functional Integrity Real estate values are sustainable if the home finance system is not vulnerable to structural factors that distort the incentives of lenders. • Real estate values are sustainable if there are enough home buyers entering the market to prevent a surplus.

12. The Lansing Catholic Diocese Resource Sufficiency Functional Integrity The Diocese is sustainable if the system for recruiting and retaining priests is adequate to populate each parish. • The Diocese is sustainable if there are enough Catholics foreseeably available to continue to populate all of the churches.

13. Biomass Electrical Generation Resource Sufficiency Functional Integrity Biomass plants are sustainable if they do not pose (or re-impose) threats to processes that stabilize climate and air quality or to regeneration of markets for regional income from tourism. • Biomass fueled plants are sustainable so long they comply with regs and there is enough wood waste (or other biomass) to fire the plants. The Main Point: This is not just the economy/environment thing over again A Secondary Point: While the underlying mechanisms are related, FI calls attention to the value (importance) of systemic interactions.

14. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability? A system or practice is unsustainable if it is generating acts of resistance, protest and political change. Sustainability is conceptually linked to social justice, fairness and recognition. Functional Integrity

15. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement A Better Philosophy of Sustainability? A system or practice is unsustainable if it is generating acts of resistance, protest and political change. Sustainability is conceptually linked to social justice, fairness and recognition. Functional Integrity

16. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement Sustainability and the Sciences Functional Integrity

17. Sustainability as Resource Sufficiency Brundtland Era Sustainability • Grounded in • Economic • Development • Theory • just/fair savings • -growth theory • -discounting • -measurement Production Economics -input/output -supply chain modeling Basic Accounting -life cycle analysis -resource depletion & renewal “External costs” -toxicology -pollution -ecosystem services

18. Sustainability as Functional Integrity • Grounded in • Ecology • sustainable yield • -resilience • -ecological • Integrity • -functionalist • social science Humans as Stressors -Pollution -Life cycle analysis -Production economics Policy Science -market failure -regulation -incentives System Resilience and Reproducibility

19. Sustainability as a Social Movement Basic Problems: Injustice Lack of Recognition Imbalance of Power Unsustainability rooted in social conflict. Economic and ecological approaches omit key goals Sustainability is a banner that can promote human rights and environmental concern.

20. Resource Sufficiency Social Movement Sustainability and Interdisciplinarity Values/Emphasis Individual vs. System Local vs. Global Short vs. Long Term 1. If sustainability just is whatever the move-ment says it is, what’s the role for science? Use of common indicators, metrics or methods can both obscure differences and facilitate collaboration. 2. If sustainability is owned by a social movement, won’t someone have to be opposed to it? Functional Integrity Theorizing sustainability as a social movement legitimizes those who are “against” sustainability.

21. Sustainability, Ethics and Technology Technology is good when it increases the efficiency of a production process or a consumption activity, or when it substitutes plentiful for scarce resources. It is bad when it increases total resource consumption. The Ethical Maxim: Find the optimal ratio between benefit and risk. Functional Integrity

22. Sustainability, Ethics and Technology Technology should not introduce fragility or brittleness into the system. It should not create new sources of vulnerability. The Precautionary Approach: Lack of full scientific certainty about risks should not preclude taking precautionary measures. Functional Integrity

23. Sustainability, Ethics and Technology Enough for whom? How is the system defined? Technology is good when it levels power relationships. It is bad when it strengthens or entrenches power relationships. Functional Integrity

24. A Technology Case StudyIntegrated Biosensors

25. An Application:Animal Disease Responding to animal disease imposes costs in livestock production that have effects on resource use. Use of prophylactic antibiotic dosing threatens the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Animal disease vectors have huge impacts on both human and animal health. Diseases such as HIV, avian flu, West Nile Virus and Ebola are cases in point.

26. Animal Disease:Resource Sufficiency Responding to animal disease imposes costs in livestock production that have effects on resource use. Use of prophylactic antibiotic dosing threatens the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Animal disease vectors have huge impacts on both human and animal health. Diseases such as HIV, avian flu, West Nile Virus and Ebola are cases in point. Greater efficiencies in animal production mean less feed and fewer animals, which means less water and less energy. In short, efficiency means greater resource sufficiency.

27. Animal Disease:Functional Integrity Responding to animal disease imposes costs in livestock production that have effects on resource use. Use of prophylactic antibiotic dosing threatens the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Animal disease vectors have huge impacts on both human and animal health. Diseases such as HIV, avian flu, West Nile Virus and Ebola are cases in point. An enhanced ability to monitor and track disease on a real-time basis eliminates the need for prophylactic use of antibiotics. Removing antibiotic use is good for wildlife and helps limit microbial resistance to antibiotics.

28. Animal Disease:Power Issues Responding to animal disease imposes costs in livestock production that have effects on resource use. Use of prophylactic antibiotic dosing threatens the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Animal disease vectors have huge impacts on both human and animal health. Diseases such as HIV, avian flu, West Nile Virus and Ebola are cases in point. A good thing...

29. Animal Disease:Power Issues A good thing?

30. What Have We Done? • Traced the evolution of sustainability as an idea… • Offered a “typology” with three different ways to understand sustainability as a philosophical ideal… • Discussed links between each type and the sciences… • Examined the example of biosensors…

31. thomp649@msu.edu