Chapters 4 "Preventing Chronic Disease in Developing Countries" & 7 "Transforming Security" in State
Edlin (1990)
Ray (1996)

    Aususbel (1996) makes a strong case that the power of technology in the service of sustainability can be unleashed for not only material acquisition and pursuit of economic sustainability. He thesis is that only by further intensification of society and use of technologies can we free the Earth's ecosystems from pollution and over development. As we learned in Unit 1, economists usually externalize environmental and social costs, measuring resources as "factors of production", and that our Gross National Product not only measures the productive parts of our society but also all of the environmental ills caused from resource exploitation and over consumption (Abramowitz 1997; Goodland and Daly 1996). Ausubel (1997) presents the following data from a number of environmentally important technologies to make his case:

Energy: The efficiency of energy conversion technologies has been increasing for hundreds of years as measured by improvements in motors and lamps. "..the United States has averaged about 1% less energy to produce a good or service each year since about 1800". In addition, the US and other major economies are "decarbonizing". We have moved from a wood to coal to oil/methane economy, and the future is forecast to bring a hydrogen economy. The carbon intensity (emissions in tons/kw-year) has fallen from wood (0.84), coal (0.73), oil (0.55) and gas (0.44) from 1860 to 1990. The carbon output spectrum ranges widely from 3 kg carbon/US$ output to less than 0.2 kg carbon/US$ output in Japan and France. The carbon intensities of China and India, "resemble the American and European economies at the onset of industrialization in the 19^th century".

Land: Agriculture transforms the environment most dramatically, and is the largest contributor to water pollution in many countries of the world. But we need the food that agriculture provides in the crowed world we live. In the last 50 years agriculture has intensified and yields per hectare have been rising quickly, especially in India, Egypt, Ireland and the USA. And even within this the average corn (maize) grower in the world grows only about 20% the yields as the top farmer in Iowa. Ausubel (1996) says this intensification has "permitted the absolute reversal of the destruction of nature that has occurred for many centuries". In India, increased intensities, for example, have spared 42 million hectares of land, a size of California. Globally, the world has saved an area the size of the Amazon due to agricultural intensification. Waggoner (1994) says that if we imagine a population of 10 billion and the increase of global average grain yields to 5 tons grain/hectare (it's about 2 now), 10 billion could enjoy a 6000-calorie per capita diet and save a land area twice the size of Alaska.

Materials: In 1990, each American gobbled up 50 kg of materials/day. Reducing materials consumption will spare land, lessen garbage and reduce hazardous wastes exposures. There is a strong trend towards "dematerialization". Weight of industrial boilers has decreased 100 times. Development of cold forging, radial tires, lightweight optical fibers, plastics and lightweight metals in autos, etc. have dramatically decreased materials costs and densities.

Water: Water use per capita soared between 1900 and 1970 in the US but has decreased by one-third since the 1970's. Industry water use has dropped from 14 gallons/US$ output to less than 3 gallons per dollar. Water consumption per capita in the US and Canada is among the highest in the world.

    Ausubel (1996) has stressed ratios in his assessments, not absolutes. Population growth could doom any efforts to improve efficiencies. He also argues that technology can change carrying capacities. He argues that US population will peak at 400 million in 2010 as we transform to a hydrogen, natural gas, information and molecular technology. He concludes that "we need a smoke free system of generating hydrogen and electricity that is highly efficient from generator to consumer, food decoupled from acreage, materials smartly designed and selected for their uses and recycled, and carefully channeled water. In short, we need a lean, dry, light economy."

The Limits of Science

    Ludwig et al. (1993) and Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) disagree most strongly with Ausubel (1996). They point out the limits of science and the environmental sciences in particular as one of the reasons why science as is currently structured cannot solve environmental or resource problems generated by society.

    They do not believe that science can contribute much to sustainable development because of:

Wealth causes power to exploit resources,
Science needs controls and replicates, so is unsuited to new systems with none of these,
Science is reductionist so cannot handle complex or large problems where replicated experiments are impossible. Large levels of natural variability mask effects of overexploitation.

    Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) argue that ecological research as currently practiced is an unproductive way to determine the limits of sustainability in natural resources management. They state the critical aspects of science are: time, replication, and controls.

Time: Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) contend that "the rate of progress in a field of science is largely governed by how quickly hypotheses can be tested, how many replicates can be performed, how good the controls can be, and whether experimental treatments can be randomized". "All other things being equal, a field that can perform an experiment in a week will make progress 52 times faster than a field where an experiment takes a year." In addition, ecological systems change over time; what we learn at one time may not be true at another time. "We may design a program to learn about the sustainable yield, but by the time the data are collected and we think we know how the system responds to exploitation, it will have changed and our data are obsolete. The key is whether we can design research programs that will learn about a system faster than the system changes."

Replication: In natural resources research there is often only a single resource, and the time scales are on the order of decades (old growth forest, climate change, marine mammals, etc.).

Controls: In ecological field research, no two systems are identical and the larger the sample size the more heterogeneous the controls will be. The results are often ambiguous, with many "non-significant results" occurring.

    Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) state that it is more appropriate to think of resources managing humans rather than the opposite: "the larger and the more immediate prospects for gain, the greater the political power that is used to facilitate unlimited exploitation".

    They point to the "ratchet effect" in resource exploitation.

    During stable periods, harvesting rates stabilize at steady states, but these levels are often excessive.  Additional investments in technologies made during good times are not taken out of the system when conditions return to normal. By now many jobs are at stake and governments pour in subsidies to keep things afloat. "The long term outcome is a heavily subsidized industry that overharvests the resource." They state there are many cases where destructive practices continue even after there is abundant scientific evidence that the practices are unsustainable (irrigation, fisheries).

    Lastly they call for a cautious approach ("the precautionary principle") to resource exploitation recognizes that:

1.Wealth and the prospect of wealth drives us toward  overexploitation

2.Scientific understanding and consensus is hampered by the lack of controls and replicates, so each new problem involves learning about a new system.

3.The complexity of underlying biological and physical systems precludes a reductionist approach to management.  Optimum levels of exploitation must be determined by trial and error.

4.Large levels of natural variability mask the effects of overexploitation. Initial overexploitation is not detectable until it is severe and often irreversible.

5. Scientific consensus is unattainable. The problem is managing humans not fish.

6. Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) is an illusion.

7. Scientific certainty and consensus in itself cannot prevent overexploitation.
 
    What needs to be done:

Includes human motivation as part of the system to be studied (e.g. study the social ecology of a situation),
Take actions before scientific consensus is achieved,
Rely on scientists to recognize, not remedy, problems,
Distrust claims of sustainability because past resource exploitation has not been sustainable and new resource exploitation should be regarded as suspect,
Confront uncertainty by taking uncertainty into account in planning and policy, not eliminating it, and free ourselves from the illusion that science or technology can provide a solution to resource problems.  Theoretical niceties are not required.  Most principles of decision making under uncertainty are common sense.

    Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) recommend elementary decision theory [(Chernoff and Moses (1959, reprinted 1986); Lindley (1985), Berger (1985)] which they state is a consistent and systematic way of dealing with uncertainties rather than ignoring these (as is done with traditional hypothesis testing).

        Hilborn and Ludwig (1993) say we must:

• Consider the variety of plausible hypotheses about the world,
• Consider the variety of possible strategies,
• Favor actions that are robust to uncertainties,
• Hedge,
• Favor actions that are informative,
• Probe and experiment,
• Monitor results,
• Update assessments and modify policy accordingly,
• Favor actions that are reversible.

     The lure of short term profits and the lack of a holistic, long term, and comprehensive valuation system continues to cause immense social and environmental damage. For global environmental decision-making, we need to encourage common sense, ecological conservatism and caution, and avoid risky behavior and subsidies (see Roodman 1997, Chapter 8 in State). 

Ausubel, J. 1996. Can technology save the planet? Scientific American 84: 166-178.

Berger, J. 1985. Statistical decision theory and Bayesian analysis. Springer Verlag, New York.

Chernoff, H. and L. Moses. 1959. Elementary decision theory. Wiley, New York. Reprinted by Dover, New York (1986).

Hilborn, R. and D. Ludwig. 1993. The limits of applied ecological research. Ecological Applications 3(4): 550-552.

Huntley, B. et al. 1991. A sustainable biosphere: the global imperative. Ecology International 20: 6-14.

Lindley, D. 1985. Making decisions. Wiley, New York.

Ludwig, D., R. Hilborn, and C. Walters. 1993. Uncertainty, resource exploitation, and conservation: lessons from history. Science 260: 17, 36.

Waggoner, P. 1994. How much land can ten billion people spare for nature? Council for Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa

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