Chapters 1 "The Legacy
of Rio" and 8 "Reforming Subsidies" in State.
Goodland, R. and H. Daly.
1996. Environmental sustainability: universal and non-negotiable. Ecological
Applications 6: 1002-1017.
Pimental
et al. (1997)
The
Context of Sustainability (UCI
Program in Global Sustainability)
Readings
Chapters 1 "The Legacy
of Rio" and 8 "Reforming Subsidies" in State.
Goodland, R. and H. Daly.
1996. Environmental sustainability: universal and non-negotiable. Ecological
Applications 6: 1002-1017.
Pimental
et al. (1997)
U.S. Secretary of State Madeline K. Allbright (1997) State Department
First Annual Report on Environmental Diplomacy In "Entering the Century
of the Environment: a New Social Contract for Science", Science 279: 491-497.
BACKGROUND
So much air pollution that a city disappears from satellite photos (China). Toxic air pollution levels to the point where the outdoors is unsafe for children to play at recesses (Mexico City). Large "dead areas" of the oceans due to coastal pollution (Gulf of Mexico, USA). Blooms of an organism called "the cell from hell" that turns the ocean blood red, affects those that have fished or swam in the water like AIDS, and causes memory losses (North Carolina, USA). An oceanic "dust bowl" where factory trawlers scoop up all that is living, changing the very basis of how the ocean’s ecosystems function (Worldwide). Deforestation occurring on a scale that huge fires are discernible from the space shuttle (Brazil, Indonesia).
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have documented that 15% of the Earth’s surface is degraded (Europe is 23% degraded). The leading cause of degradation is erosion due to water.
In Poland, 92% of the nation’s rivers are "beyond classification", meaning that the level of pollution is greater than that described by any existing pollution category.
An institute in Denmark (The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies) recently polled its colleagues throughout the world, asking the pressing problems of the world in the next 25 years. A short list developed as follows:
Definition
of sustainable development (Code
of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations)
"Sustainable development is the management and conservation of the natural resource base and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Such sustainable development (in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors) conserves land, water, plant, and animal resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable, and socially acceptable."
Also visit examples of sustainability.
THE
CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability is an overused word with abundant pedagogy but little practice. There has been much lip service given to the concept but little progressive action has been taken, especially in situations where there are time-worn political "turf wars", and in cases where there is a clear need for interdisciplinary actions but there is little scientific knowledge, or where there are clear winners and losers from environmental action.
The birthplace of "global sustainability" was the June 1992 meeting in Rio de Janeiro called the "UN Conference on Environment and Development" (UNCED). More than 100 heads of state agreed to formulate global conventions on biodiversity and climate at UNCED and came up with Agenda 21: Earth's Action Plan a plan of action for sustainable development. A United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was formulated to oversee implementation of Agenda 21 by international agencies, governments, and civil societies worldwide (French, 1995).
What is increasingly clear is that the global economy "as currently configured", is inflicting serious damage on global life support ecosystems and is probably reducing future potential biophysical carrying capacities by depleting essential natural capital stocks (Goodland and Daly 1996). Goals for global economic development rarely take into account the environmental costs. Economists have "externalized" environmental costs.
Goodland and Daly (1996) argue that we need to define sustainability accurately - that sustainability is not like pornography (e.g. "you’ll know it when you see it"). They argue that if we can’t define sustainability it will become a "landfill dump for everyone’s environmental and social wish lists". They attempt to define sustainability in terms in which they hope will help us make real-world progress and take action on the goals of sustainability, rather than always pontificating about it.
They define sustainable development as "development without growth in throughput of matter and energy beyond regenerative or absorptive capacities". However, Goodland and Daly (1996) argue that "if the world cannot move towards intergenerational sustainability for this generation it will be greatly more difficult to achieve intergenerational sustainability in the future", meaning that future sustainability will never be possible unless greater attention is given to decreasing the income gap between rich and poor in all societies of the world. States Socolow et al. (1994), "There is something faintly phony about deep concern for the future combined with callousness about the state of the world today".
They define carrying capacity as "the maximal population size of a given species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future".
Goodland and Daly (1996) separate sustainability
into three categories, social, economic and environmental sustainability.
We will use these categories to examine global issues throughout this course.
| Economic Sustainability (Maintenance of financial capital; keeping financial capital intact). |
| Economic sustainability means making profit. Industrialization and population explosions are challenges to social and economic sustainability. Economics must change to incorporate all four forms of capital, and work to quantify intangibles and common property resources (air, waters, oceans, etc.). Environmental and social costs must be internalized through new policies and valuation techniques. |
| Social
Sustainability (Maintenance of social and human capital; keeping social and human capital intact). |
| The social (and moral) capital is comprised
of:
Community participation; Intact civil society; Equal rights; Social cohesion; Cultural identity; Diversity; Tolerance; Humility; Compassion; Patience; Forbearance; Fellowship; Fraternity; Love; Pluralism; Honesty; Laws; Discipline. Human capital is investments in: health; nutrition; education.
Social capital requires maintenance and replenishment of shared values by communities, social and religious groups. Without this "it will depreciate just as human-made capital does". |
| Environmental Sustainability (Maintenance of natural capital; keeping natural capital intact). |
| The natural capital is comprised of intact ecosystems and ecosystems services (structurally and functionally) comprised of: Gas regulation; climate regulation; disturbance regulation; water regulation; water supply; erosion control and sediment retention; soil formation; nutrient cycling; waste treatment; pollination; biological control; refugia; food production; raw materials; genetic resources; and intact land/forest/soils, water/ocean/freshwaters, atmospheric ecosystems. |
| Protecting natural capital would ensure sustainable stocks of resources and raw materials for human needs and ensure the maintenance of natural sinks for humanity's wastes, but also ensure adequate resources are available for nature, and that humanity's wastes do not disturb nature. Waste emissions are held within the assimilative capacity of the environment without impairing it. Harvest rates of renewables are kept within regeneration rates. |
"Present patterns of OECD per capita resource
consumption and pollution cannot possibly be generalized to all currently
living people, much less to future generations, without liquidating the
natural capital on which future economic activity depends" (page 1004).
If the present world population of 5.8 billion people were to live at North
American standards, the total land requirement would be about 26 billion
ha with present technology. But the Earth has just 13 billion ha of
which only 8.8 billion ha are ecologically productive (see Ecological
Footprints of Nations and Wackernagel
and Rees (1996).
.
In short, we need two Earths to accommodate the increased ecological load of people alive today. At a population of 10 billion, we’d need five additional Earths, all else being equal, and this just to maintain the present rate of ecological decline (Wackernagel and Rees (1996). Projections of consumption into the near term future lead to biophysical impossibilities and unacceptable deterioration of global life-support systems.
Serageldin of The World Bank has argued that achieving income levels of $1500-$2000 per year (not the developed world of $21,000 per year) may achieve 80% of basic welfare needs.
Natural capital is the natural environment, the "stock of environmentally provided assets (the components of the environment) that provides a flow of useful goods or services [e.g. "ecosystems services"])". Natural capital is the Earth's ecosystems and the Earth's ecosystem services. Sustainability means maintaining environmental assets, or at least not depleting them. Sustainability demands that production and consumption be equal so that we do not deplete our natural capital stocks (page 1008, Goodland and Daly 1996).
It is the end of the "empty Earth" and "resourcism". Indeed, our "ecological footprint" (Wackernagel and Rees 1996) as a species is growing to the point where the limits are not the financial capital to harvest resources, but the resources themselves.
"Capital" until recently referred to the form of capital in the shortest supply, namely manufactured capital. Investments were made in sawmills and fishing boats, for example, because the natural capital - forests - and - fish - were thought inexhaustible. But today the limiting factor is not manufactured or financial capital, it's the resources themselves! (the natural capital is becoming exhausted).
The goal of environmental sustainability is "a conservative effort to maintain the traditional meaning and measure of income in an era in which natural capital is no longer a free good" but is limiting. An "economic" definition of sustainability is "non-declining wealth per capita".
According to the above environmental sustainability is related to economic sustainability in 4 ways:
Goodland
and Daly (1996) Input-Output Rules| INPUT RULE for Renewable Resources
|
The harvest rates of renewable resources SHOULD BE WITHIN the regenerative capacity of the natural system that regenerates them. |
| INPUT RULE for Non-Renewable Resources | The depletion rates of non-renewable resources SHOULD BE EQUAL to
the rate at which renewable substitutes are developed.
Part of the proceeds from liquidating non-renewables SHOULD BE ALLOCATED to researching sustainable alternatives. |
| OUTPUT RULE | Waste emissions SHOULD BE WITHIN the assimilative capacity of the local environment to absorb without unacceptable degradation of its future waste absorption capacity or other important services. |
PROGRESS
TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY
The 1980-90’s have been somewhat of a golden era for environmental and social movements, and for the passing of environmental legislation that has locked in important policies and goals for the future. Since 1992, environmental organizations worldwide have quietly built the foundations of international environmental laws that will stand for generations. There are now more than 170 international environmental treaties (see Earth Negotiations Bulletin). Progress has not been rapid, but step by step. The speed of action is regulated principally by the tug of war between national governments exerting their sovereignty and the needs to better manage the Earth across traditional political lines.
The most important international environmental agreements reached in the last 20 years are (see : International Conventions):
The
Kyoto Climate Change Protocols
Senate
GOP Declares Kyoto Pact Dead
Summary
of Kyoto
Contradictions
to Sustainability
Dovers and Handmer (1992) point out some inherent contradictions in the sustainability dialogue:
Technology and Culture.
They state that "our propensity for culture in all its forms" is one
of the main reasons why we impact the environment, and that the only model
of cultural perpetuation the world has is "technology in the service of
resource-intensive growth".
Humility versus Arrogance.
While information is exploding, there is also an "explosion of ignorance"
about larger issues of ecosystem and biospheric-level processes of which
do not fit the conventional modes of scientific investigation. Some examples
of this are climate change, food production, and biodiversity. "recognition
that additional knowledge will not by itself provide all, or even the main,
answers, means that in effect we have to learn how to manage in ignorance"
(Dovers and Handmer 1992).
Intergenerational versus
Intragenerational Equity. As stated above, the income gaps are growing
in many societies of the world. Over 1 billion people live in conditions
which most Europeans would consider intolerable. We can never have global
environmental sustainability without attention to equity.
Growth versus Limits.
"Growth" as defined now is limited largely to physical or material
growth, and the concept is central to the politics of economic management
today. But constant and unconfined growth is impossible in any ecological
system. There are "limits to growth"!, and, societies will be more concerned
with the limits to the assimilative capacity of the environment to accept
wastes than to limits of resource supply.
Individual versus Collective
Interests. Individual freedoms are enshrined in the tenure and common
law systems of the world's democracies. However, it remains to be seen
how a system which glorifies individual choices by promoting the maximization
of resource consumption in resource-intensive capital growth can satisfy
the common goals of global equity and resource conservation.
Democracy: Diversity versus
Purpose. Democratic handling of environmental issues may be impractical
due to the need to evolve common purpose responses to a new world filled
with a myriad of connected regional and global economies. The paradox is
that self-determination and participatory democracy may contradict the
need for strong purposeful action at the global level.
Adaptability versus Resistance.
Modern institutions are good at resisting change and maintaining basic
social structure, choosing a reactive path to change. Global sustainability
requires a proactive path to make major changes needed and to make these
much more frequently in the past. Institutions will need to move from a
culture of resisting change to becoming more flexible and open.
Optimization versus Spare
Capacity. Societies generally view everything that can be used as resources
and that which cannot be used as "wastes". Optimization is the "best" possible
use of resources, which means using the environment to the fullest possible
extent. The rest of life on the planet needs "spare capacity" of ecosystems
and their services to survive. Meanwhile we have an earth with 1 billion
poor who may view anything less than full utilization as a luxury that
cannot be afforded.
Also see Questions about Sustainable Development.
REGENERATIVE
STUDIES
Sustainability can only be achieved if linear flows are turned into regenerative flows and recycling loops by use of ecosystem principles and regenerative designs (Lyle 1994). This transition is especially important in the "North" which accounts for only 21% of the world’s population but uses 86% of its paper and 75% of its energy.
Regenerative Studies (Center for Regenerative Studies) is a terminology coined by Prof. John Lyle at Cal Poly Pomona who is author of "Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development". Lyle’s 12 regenerative strategies are:
THE
WORLD BANK AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The World Bank, actually called The "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)", was created at Brenton Woods, N.H., USA at a UN Conference in 1944 on the principle that many nations were short of money and insufficiently creditworthy to finance post-war reconstruction and development from commercial lenders. The mechanism that was worked out to help these nations was that the World Bank would borrow money on world markets and lend more cheaply to developing countries that could commercial lenders.
The goal of the World Bank is "to promote economic development that benefits poor people in developing countries".
The World Bank is a "multilateral institution" owned and operated by 176 member countries whose share of capital invested is in proportion to their economic size. Each member country appoints a "governor" who in turn delegates authority to a Board of Executive Directors in Washington, DC, USA. This Board makes all policies and loan approvals. IBRD loans have a 5 year grace period and must be repaid in 15-20 years. The current rate is 7.43%. The Bank has over 7,000 staff members from over 100 nations.
There are three affiliates of the World Bank:
Some highlights of this are:
THE
NEW POWER OF NGOs
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (see UNEP NGO Web) have become increasingly powerful voices in sustainability issues and the international arena. Over 20,000 citizens and activists attended the UNCED conference in Rio in 1992. NGO memberships are now global in size, rivaling the size of many nations sitting at the UN. World Wildlife Fund has 3 million members, Greenpeace has 4.1 million. NGOs today shape policy and in some cases have their own scientific infrastructure that rival the size of Universities in developing countries. Global leaders routinely respond to NGO concerns. NGOs represent a new international force with international memberships driving their global concerns rather than narrow national or parochial interests of the past.
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL MARKETPLACE?
There is a sense of urgency because of the dramatic pace of globalization. Not only people and goods are moving all over the globe at a rapid rate but also money (financial capital). Globalization has decreased the power of governments (witness the Prime Minister of Malaysia quarreling recently with the private investor George Soros!)
There has been a remarkable increase in the flow of capital from the developed to the developing countries due increased to private investment. Private money flowing from North to South has increased from $44 billion (1990) to $234 billion (1994) while public development assistance has decreased (French 1997).
As a proportion of funds flowing to developing countries, private capital has risen from 33% in 1991 to 75% in 1996.
Negative net transfers were deficits of developing countries where they paid out more money in interest rates on debt and bad investments than they received in new public and private finances. These negative net transfers equaled $1.5 billion in 1988.
No longer! There is so much money moving into developing countries that negative net transfers have been wiped out and money is going in the other direction. In 1995, $126 billion went from North to South (French 1997). About 40% of these new investments are mutual funds and "portfolio" investments by private individuals, a category of new money that didn't exist 10 years ago (French 1997).
The amount of money in these new investments is so large that when private investors get "jumpy" they can ruin the economies of nations (Mexico, Thailand & East Asia).
The environmental impacts of these flows are high because the North in investing little in sustainability in the developing nations but is continuing the old types of "resource intensive growth" and mining natural capital, and now this type of development is turning to the still resource-rich continent of Africa and remote parts of Asia (Siberia, Mongolia, etc.).
And what about Africa? Is Africa our shared global responsibility, a beacon of hope, a potential model of diversity and environmental sustainability? Do the nations of the world that racked havoc on Africa's human wealth in the last century have a responsibility to not to mine her natural capital as has been done for the rest of the globe and to help Africa develop another, non-Western model of a solar, ecological society?
Webliography
on Sustainability Issues and Information for Chapter 1
California
EPA Home Page
Center
for Regenerative Studies
CERES:
California Environmental Resources Evaluation System
Committee
for the National Institute for the Environment
EnviroLink
Pre Home Page
Environmental
Resources on the WWW
International
Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
IISD's
New and Notable Information Centre
Sustainable
America - SANETWORK
United
Nations Environment Programme UNEP
UNEP
Industry & Environment Home Page
WBCSD
HomePage
Bibliography
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Dovers, S. and J. Handmer. 1992. Uncertainty, sustainability and change. Global Environmental Change 2: 262-276.
Dovers, S. 1993. Contradictions in sustainability. Environmental Conservation 20: 217-222.
French, H. 1995. Partnership for the planet: an environmental agenda for the United Nations. Worldwatch Paper 126. Worldwatch, Washington, DC.
French, H. 1997. When foreign investors pay for development. Worldwatch 10: 8-17.
Goodland, R. and H. Daly. 1996. Environmental sustainability: universal and non-negotiable. Ecological Applications 6: 1002-1017.
Greenpeace Quarterly. 1997. UNCED and undone. Summer 1997 Issue, pages 5-10.
Hardin, G. 1993. Living Within Limits. Oxford University Press, N.Y.
Lyle, J. 1994. Regenerative design for sustainable development. Wiley and Sons, NY., p. 1-48.
Orr, D. 1992. Environmental Literacy. SUNY Press.
Panjabi, R. 1997. The earth summit at Rio: Politics, economics, and the environment. Northeastern University Press, Boston, MA.
Socolow, R. et al. 1994. Industrial Ecology and Global Change. Cambridge University Press, U.K.
Stern, P. et al. 1997. Environmentally significant consumption. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Vosti, S. and T. Reardon (editors). 1997. Sustainability, growth, and poverty alleviation: A policy and agroecological perspective. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Wackernagel, M. and W. Rees. 1996. Our Ecological Footprint. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada,
World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, N.Y.
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