Global Sustainability EE80s Week 8 Monday Ben Crow

Outline 1.Industry 2.Turning points 3.European environmental plans 4.Waste = Food 5.North or South? 6.Global Sustainability alternatives

Industry What images do you have of industry?

Meanings of industry 1.Not agriculture (residual) 2.Manufacturing, mining, energy production (statistical) 3.Productivity - industrialization as increased productivity of human work

Centrality of industry Historical: Capitalist industrialization separates modernity from all previous history Contemporary industry dictates: –Patterns of accumulation (who gets rich, who invests) –Employment and remuneration –Consumption (advertising) –Resource use –Pollution –Innovation and creativity (what products and services are available)

Great debate Is it possible to develop green alternatives within capitalism?

Imperatives What are the challenges? –Pollution –Resource limits –Global warming

2 Turning points Energy, water, air pollution Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) What leads to turning points Patterns (U shape vs N shape) At what level of GDP/person do/might they occur

Film extract The next industrial revolution: William McDonough, Michael Braungart and the birth of the sustainable economy DVD 1553 in McHenry Film and Media Center

Dutch Environmental Plan Main goals –Closing substance cycles –Conserving energy and using cleaner energy sources –Promoting high quality production processes Overall targets for emissions reduction implemented through voluntary agreements between government and industrial sectors. 70 agreements - fair degree of success. But will take decades.

5 North or South Capitalist industry develops in phases/paradigms (craft, Fordism, lean/Toyotism) Succeeding phases greener New phases/paradigms of production may incorporate larger set of changes (production, consumption, accumulation) Resistance in North and opportunities in newly industrializing countries.

Phases of Industrialization

Sustainable industrialization Wallace route - 1.industrial transformation in North requires both technological change and transformation of firms, institutions, production systems 2.New paradigms (institutions, production systems) more likely to emerge in non- industrialized economies

New paradigm in the South? Environmental movements in South lead to environmental plan Global corporations recognize need to invest in that country (large market) To do so, they have to follow plan goals

6 Other global routes 1.Rio de Janiero 1992 UNCED Follow the West, assumed - global south must acquire discrete envtal technologies; new resources (aid) provided by West But, environmental improvements achieved through efficiency/organization improvements, not end- of-pipe technologies. N cannot fund industrialization of South

Routes to sustainability Deep Green Materialism and western society seen as root cause of env’tal destruction. Look to pre- industrial communities for models, oppose western economic models/development.

Lessons from Cuba Collapse of USSR at end Cold War cut trade, energy, aid to Cuba forcing sustainability –Environmental limits force adoption (like Cuba) of sustainable options