1. Sustainability Myth Busters 2016
National security interests trump global challenges?
Green Office, 10 October 2016
Jaap de Wilde
Centre for International Relations Research

3. I = P A T bottom-line Carrying capacity of the earth:
the total patterns of consumption that the earth’s natural systems can support without undergoing degradation
I = P A T
I = environmental impact
P = population pressure
A = affluence
T = technology
Another game changer? Environmental degradation versus the challenge of creating a so-called sustainable society.

4. Global dimension of environmental security
= North-South & elite-masses dimension
Paradox:
in order to preserve our affluent life-styles it is necessary to change them fundamentally, given their unsustainability
Tension: sustainability, equity, liveability
Who is to pay a price today to avoid that others
have to pay a higher price tomorrow?

5. Three approaches to environmental security
Neo-Malthusians
Distributionalists
Economic optimists (techno fix)
All caught in state-centric thinking

6. Side-track: What is security?
Definition: Absence of threat
How do actors relate to each other and to their natural environment in terms of threats and vulnerabilities?
Securitization Theory (Ole Wæver)
objective / subjective / intersubjective security
security as a speech act
securitization & desecuritization

7. Looking for a world society perspective
How do 7.4 billion people organize themselves in terms of cooperation and conflict?
See:
[the site aggregates all kind of statistical data on a global level. Parameters of social life – the world as one ‘organism’?]
How do these global data relate to local security concerns?

8. Caught in an identity, a sovereingty & an economic discourse
A World Society Perspective: How do 7.4 billion people relate to each other in terms of cooperation and conflict?
individuals
international organizations
identity groups
Family, Tribe, Class, Firm,
Civil Society, Nation
sovereign states
transnational corporations
The approach.
markets
world society
Caught in an identity, a sovereingty & an economic discourse

9. The problem of state-centrism & traditional geopolitics
National Security always comes first
Comparative analysis is misleading and misrepresenting actual living conditions
Towards a new understanding of geopolitics?

10. Theory: Practice: Urban Security trumps National Security
Combine IR, Urban Sociology, Critical Geopolitics, Security Studies
Population density as the ontology of world society
Rethink levels of analysis (zooming in/out)
Revival of Functionalism
Practice:
> 50% world population in cities
750 largest cities > 57% of Global GDP (GWP)
Cities & Environmental problems:
80% of world’s population within 100 km from sea
3-5°C ↑ by 2025
pollution, heat waves, infrastructure, health issues
No subsistance farming or self-reliance

12. URBAN / RURAL SOCIETIES
A World Society Perspective: How do 7.4 billion people relate to each other in terms of cooperation and conflict?
individuals
international organizations
identity groups
Family, Tribe, Class, Firm,
Civil Society, Nation
sovereign states
URBAN / RURAL SOCIETIES
transnational corporations
The approach.
markets
world society
Caught in an identity, a sovereignty & an economic discourse

13. Creating a ‘google earth’ for the social sciences, economics and humanities