1. Foundations of the Field and The State of Nature
What is sustainability?
Assessing the trends
Population, Consumption and Technology
The Earth System and the World System

2. Limits to Growth & Its Critics
Carrying capacity: a key ecological concept
Neo-Malthusians
Humans, like any species, must live in limits.
Cornucopians
Our ingenuity enables us to transcend limits.
From limits to growth to sustainability
“meeting the needs of present generation without compromising ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED)
Can growth be sustainable?
POL S 384 Lecture 1

3. Being a Person Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke the owls
Being a Person   Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke the owls. Invoke winter, then spring. Let any season that wants to come here make its own call. After that sound goes away, wait.   A slow bubble rises through the earth and begins to include sky, stars, all space, even the outracing, expanding thought. Come back and hear the little sound again.   Suddenly this dream you are having matches  everyone's dream, and the result is the world. If a different call came there wouldn't be any world, or you, or the river, or the owl’s calling.   How you stand here is important. How you listen for the next things to happen.  How you breathe.   ~ William Stafford     Sustainability Beyond the Triple Bottom Line
Ecological
Economic
Social
Consciousness
POL S 384 Lecture 1

4. Indicators of state of nature
Population growth
Food production
Energy consumption
Deforestation
Species extinctions
Desertification
Fresh water shortage
Ozone depletion
Climate change
POL S 384 Lecture 1

5. Planetary
Boundaries

6. The State of Nature E = P x C x T (or I = PAT) Human population growth
Agricultural revolution
Industrial Revolution
1 billion in 1800; 7.3 billion now
The “Population Bomb”
Rule of 72
Malthusians vs. Cornucopians
UN prediction: ~9 billion by 2050
A note on population density
Into the fray: Demographic transition theory
Is affluence the solution?
POL S 384 Lecture 1

7. POL S 384 Lecture 1

8. Consumption How much do we need?
Hunter-gatherers compared to Americans
2500 vs. 192,000 kcals.
40% of Earth's primary productivity supports humanity
Have's & have-nots
North compared to South
Avg U.S. footprint  20 Indians
or 50 sub-Saharan Africans
Can affluence be globalized? Should it be?
Do ethics matter?
POL S 384 Lecture 1

9. Technology Energy ~ the master resource
Fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas…
Primacy of oil
Environmental effects
Atmospheric pollution
Marine pollution
Deforestation, destruction of local habitat
Renewables: solar, wind, hydrogen
Can technology save us?
POL S 384 Lecture 1

10. The transition to sustainability
The end of more?
Necessary or optional?
What would a sustainable economy look like?
What social & political institutions would be required?
Time line?
Evidence?
Obstacles
POL S 384 Lecture 1

11. Sustainability
on a global scale?
ENVIR 100 Lec_2

12. Earth System: Spheres within the Sphere
Where are the people?

13. Elements of the Noosphere
Culture
Institutions
Technology
Political & economic structures
Multi-level
Nation-state & international law
Consciousness
Subjective & intersubjective
POL S 384 Lecture 1