Sustainability Class 7: Defining Limits: Lessons for Sustainability POLS 319 Maymester 2011 P. Brian Fisher

Agenda Lessons from Analysis #2 Hawken, Ecology of Commerce What is Sustainability? Student vids

Part I: Ecology of Commerce

Hawken, Ecology of Commerce (1993) Thesis: Biosphere is being destroyed by our industrial society and economic system, but same elements that destroy the biosphere—markets and gov’ts, are the solution (if can replace “greed”) “I have come to believe that we in America and in the rest of the industrialized West do not know what business really is, or, therefore, what it can become.” (p1) "The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy. Making money is, on its own terms, totally meaningless, an insufficient pursuit for the complex and decaying world we live in. We have reached an unsettling and portentous turning pt in industrial civilization.” (p1) The current economic system is not "the inherent nature of business, nor the inevitable outcome of a free-market system. It is merely the result of the present commercial system's design and use."

Ecology vs Commerce “there is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.” (p3) An oxymoron that speaks to the gap between how earth lives and how we now conduct our commercial lives. “We don’t think of ecology and commerce as compatible subjects. While much of our current environmental policy seek a ‘balance’ between the needs of business and the needs of environment, common sense says there is only one critical balance and one set of needs: the dynamic, ever-changing interplay of the forces of life” (p3) Ecology of commerce is the unity of them into “one sustainable act of production and distribution that mimics and enhances natural processes” (p3)

What we Need to Do “Constructive changes in our relationship to the environment have thus far been thwarted because business is not properly designed to adapt to the situation we face.” (p5) “having expropriated resources from the natural world in order to fuel a rather transient period of materialistic freedom, we must now restore no small measure of those resources and accept the limits and discipline inherent in that relationship. Until business does that, it will continue to be maladaptive and predatory.” (p6) Today, the liner process of industrialization creates massive amts of waste and its grossly inefficient, resulting a decayed earth. “the economics of restoration is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial economics separated production processes from the land, the land from people, and, ultimately, economic values from personal values…in a restorative economy, viability is determined by the ability to integrate with or replicate cyclical systems, in its means of production and distribution (p11).

Birth of Death Biodiversity loss is massive and widespread  “Every natural system in the world today is in decline.” (p22) Human systems exceeding carrying capacity (p24-6) Econ System = “immature” system “immature system” = aggressive & invasive weeds take over space…wasting energy, undermining diversity, with plants of lower quality and usefulness (p19) Mature system = evolution from “growth” to high efficiency and resource- conserving  “climax systems comprise an assoc of organisms that reach a state of equilibrium which leaves the habitat largely unchanged…they are more diverse, stable and complex communities, and are thus more resilient.” David Wann: “the present American culture is still the bare field full of colonizing weeds, struggling toward something more sophisticated, interwoven and permanent. Until now, we’ve consistently chose the resource-hungry path of least resistance. (p20-1). “Because richer northern countries do not see or experience the impact they have on their poorer southern nations, we do not realize what a powerful and destructive impact our demand on carrying capacity is having.” (p26)

Hawken’s 8 Elements to Solve Enviro Crisis 1.Reduce energy/resource consumption by 80% in next half century 2.Secure, productive employment for all 3."Be self-actuating as opposed to regulated or morally mandated.” 4.Honor market principles 5.Be more rewarding (than our present way of life) 6.Exceed sustainability by restoring degraded habitats and ecosystems to their fullest biological capacity.” 7.Rely on current income 8.“Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic outcome."

Part II: Defining Sustainability

Defining Sustainability Sustainability Explained Animation (2m) Sustainability Explained

Care Instructions for Sustainability Sustainability: “things can keep going, and sustain themselves, and keep going into the future.” Planet Sustainability: “can continue to do what it was designed to do” Reduce dependence on fossil fuels Reduce dependence on chemicals Reduce destruction of nature Remove barriers to meeting basic needs

Our Enviro History In NA, mainstream enviro discourses have “failed to halt advancing enviro degradation. Even more, these same discourses have failed to halt advancing social degradation. In spite of our overall optimism, we hold that things are getting worse, not better, and the trajectory of history is directly tied to, if not entirely caused by, the development of liberal capitalism as a means of production.”

History  Sustainability Our shared understanding of “sustainability” is less a scientific concept than an historical discourse through which we might imagine more hopeful futures.” We need “new ways of talking about sustainability that will galvanize diverse and experimental forms of action b/c it is through such experimentation that we will find the vocabulary we need.” (p4)

What is Sustainability? Sustainability = resource sufficiency and functional integrity Non substantive Sustainability: much of discourse is based on political, ethical, and cultural concerns—that have nothing to do with above (sufficiency) Jamieson: Sustainability does little to explain human activities in terms of philosophy (moral obligations) and/or motivational power (little effect on behavior) Sustainability must be more than optimization (or well being over time), it must be a by product of resource sufficiency and functional integrity of the system

Studying and Employing Sustainability Resource Sufficiency = Econ sustainability Functional Integrity = Ecological sustainability Equity Fairness = Social Sustainability Environ + Soc Justice? Sustainability as social mvmt Sustainability = interests of labor, marginalized Sustainability = storyline contested in locale

Thompson’s conclusion Social Sustainability (or non-substantive sustainability) amount to merely normative commitments and is insufficient. – Need empirical factors like resources & functionality Yet, sustainability as social impetus is important and compensates for its vagueness. Believes that storylines are important, esp around democracy and social justice

Beyond Limits to Growth Heinberg 1. Rapidly Reduce dependence on fossil fuels 2. Adapt to the end of economic growth: reworking our current economic system without “continuous expansion” 3. Design and Provide basic needs for 7billion people (and constrain pop growth (e.g. education) 4. Address environmental consequences—first and foremost is GCC Post Carbon Transition: “must entail the thorough redesign of our societal infrastructure, which today is utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuels…This difference will be reflected in urban design, land use patterns, food systems, manuf output, distrib networks, job mkt, transportation, health care, tourism, etc…It will also require a fundamental rethinking of our financial and cultural systems.” (p10-11)

What is Sustainability Heinberg Heinberg’s five axioms 1. Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse 2. Pop growth and/or growth in rates of consumption cannot be sustained 3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is less than or equal to rate of natural replenishment 4. To be sustainable, the use of non-renewables must proceed at a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion 5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the enviro from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to the biosphere

Vids Visions of Sustainable Future