“SUSTAINABILITY” Thinking Across Disciplines … and Beyond Tomorrow Don Burnett

1. “SUSTAINABILITY” Thinking Across Disciplines … and Beyond Tomorrow Don Burnett Dean, University of Idaho College of Law Center for Advanced Energy Studies Colloquium 21 June 2010

2. Defining “Sustainability” Sustainability overtime (temporal): • Human generational perspective “… meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” WCED [Brundtland, Our Common Future] ◦ Compare: Iroquois Confederacy “7th Generation” “The greatest good for the greatest number” applies to … people within the womb of time … restrain[ing] an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations.” T. Roosevelt

3. Defining “Sustainability” Sustainability overtime: • Ecosystem perspective “[B]enefit present and future generations without detrimentally affecting the resources or biological systems of the planet.” President’s Council on Sustainable Development “[F]orms and processes of development that do not undermine the integrity of the environment on which they depend.” J. McNeill (Secretary General SCED)

4. Defining “Sustainability” Sustainability across communities (spatial) “Dynamic harmony between equitable availability of energy-intensive goods and services to all people and the preservation of the earth for future generations.” J.W. Tester, Sustainable Energy “What are the prospects for stability on a planet where about 10% of the people consume more than 90% of its resources, a small island of wealth in a sea of great poverty?” Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Deputy to Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs, US State Dept

5. Dimensions of Sustainability “Vertical” sustainability (temporal) Intergenerational equity and protection of the ecosystem as development ascends an axis of time “Horizontal” sustainability (spatial) Win-win (non-exploitive and therefore durable) development strategies across a horizontal axis of connected communities

6. Dilemmas at Intersections of Vertical and Horizontal Sustainability The challenge of poverty now • “Throughput” growth versus development within natural source and sink constraints [Goodland et al., Population, Technology, and Lifestyle] • Expansion of the world economy and the geometric impact on depletion of sources and sinks (an end-game doubling of these constraints, from 50% to 100%, would take no longer than an earlier doubling from 1% to 2%)

7. Dilemmas at Intersections of Vertical and Horizontal Sustainability Competing concepts of optimality in shaping public policy – an economic perspective Pareto: Does the gain of one constituency produce loss for another constituency? Kaldor-Hicks: Does the gain of the gainers exceed the loss of the losers? Synthesis: Can/will the gainers compensate the losers? Illustration: The farmer and the fisherman

8. Dilemmas at Intersections of Vertical and Horizontal Sustainability Regulatory versus market-based methods of implementing policy goals • Cumbersome and counter-productive regulatory approaches in a global economy [L. Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society] • Blind spots in the market/price system • The “wealth effect” • Intertemporal effects • Irreversibility • Externalities

9. Dilemmas at Intersections of Vertical and Horizontal Sustainability Finiteness of the Physical World • Our fifty-mile atmosphere • Viewing the earth as a closed system. [Hermanowicz Slawomir, Entropy and Energy: Toward a Definition of Physical Sustainability] • Interconnectedness: Disappearing bike lanes in Beijing [T. Friedman, The Earth is Flat] and parasite damage to Colorado aspen trees

10. Principles for Decision-Making? • “Triple bottom line” accounting • Profit (or immediate policy objective) • Social impact across communities and across generations • Ecological impact (long-run and cumulative) • “Environmental compensation” • Use of environmentally offsetting (shadow) projects in cost-benefit analysis • Barbier, Markandyn, Pearce, Environmental “Sustainability and Cost Benefit Analysis”

11. Sustainability and Professional Ethics Engineers • “Engineers shall at all times strive to serve the public interest.” • “Engineers are encouraged to adhere to the principles of sustainable development … [“the challenge of meeting human needs … while conserving and protecting environmental quality and the natural resource base essential for future development”] NSPE Code of Ethics

12. Sustainabilityand Professional Ethics Lawyers • “A lawyer … is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a public citizen with a special responsibility for the quality of justice.” • “A lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation will result in violation of … law.” • “In rendering advice a lawyer may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social, and political factors ….” • “A lawyer may withdraw from representing a client if …the client insists upon taking action the lawyer considers repugnant.” ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct

13. Sustainability: A universal ethical framework? “Here is the conclusion of the whole matter: That we should do unto others as we would have them do to us—that we should respect the rights of others as scrupulously as we would have our own rights respected, is not a mere counsel of perfection to individuals, but it is the law to which we must conform social institutions and national policy if we would secure the blessings of abundance and peace.” [Henry George, applying the “Golden Rule” to an issue of international trade]