Sustainability Class 7

1. SustainabilityClass 7 Human Influence on Sustainability (McKibben, Meadows, et al)

2. YoutubeVids • E2 Series • Story of Stuff--Consumption

3. McKibben’s “End of Nature” • Main Point: Natural nature has been replaced by an hybrid nature in whose processes human beings now play a part. • Humans have changed the land, forest, air, atmosphere, ice/glaciers, oceans, rivers/lakes—all that composes the “environment” • We cannot escape them by fleeing to the woods. We have progressed beyond removing parts of the earth from the domain of true nature -- through farming, mining, construction -- to actually altering the global processes that define our environment. • Our environment is now in part defined by our actions • ME: Think about what we have built in this process of change • Humans and natural nature are now “tightly bound”…Our cars, our houses, plastics, and pesticides are as much a part of the world we know as are the trees, waters, and hills that we live among. The human race will need to decide between our material world and the natural world. "One world or the other will have to change.” • In this world, McKibben thinks that human beings could take a less dominant relation to nature, and nature might once again establish itself as independent, constant.

4. 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.

5. Global Ecological Footprint

6. Unsustainable Consumption • 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.

7. 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

8. Freshwater • Nearly ½ World’s population will experience water shortages by 2025

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

10. 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

11. McKibben’sEaarth • “The planet on which our civilization evolved no longer exists. The stability that produced that civilization has vanished; epic changes have begun…We may, with commitment and luck, yet be able to maintain a planet that will sustain some kind of civilization, but it won’t be the same planet, and hence it can’t be the same civilization. The earth we knew—the only earth that we ever knew—is gone.” (p27)

12. McKibben’sEaarth, Ch 2 • Limits to growth not wrong, just “ahead of the curve.” • In 2008, a study found that, after tracing all variables in Limits to Growth that “for the first 30yrs of the model, the world has been tracking along the unsustainable trajectory of the book’s bus as usual scenario.” • “The curves matched the stnd model, the one that ended in economic collapse sometime before 2050.” (McKibben, p96) • Contemporary issues like peak oil, GCC, food and water security resonate with model • Rips Tom Friedman’s more growth, but green growth approach—lives in 11k sq ft home and owns a company called “General Growth Properties”

13. McKibben’s Suggestions • Instead of this doomsday scenario, and running with blinders on toward it, we could choose to manage our descent. • His 2 main Needs to accommodate this change: • 1. Need to Mature: focus on perpetual growth and “progress” has kept us as “adolescents” (see p99-100) • 2. We need to figure out what to jettison—many habits like consumeristic lifestyle. Simplicity is a way forward