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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: Key Concepts
- Sprache: Englisch
Sustainability is one of the buzzwords of our times and a key imperative for economic growth, technological development, social equity, and environmental quality. But what does it really mean and how is it being implemented around the world? In this clear-eyed book, Maurie Cohen introduces students to the concept of sustainability, tracing its history and application from local land-use practices, construction techniques and reorientation of business models to national and global institutions seeking to foster sustainable practices. Examining sustainable development in scientific, technological, social and political terms, he shows that it remains an elusive concept and evidence of its unambiguous achievements can be difficult to ascertain. Moreover, developed and developing countries have formulated divergent agendas to engage the notion of sustainability, further complicating its application and progress across the world. Innovative and readily accessible to students from a range of disciplines, this primer takes us on a journey to show that sustainability is as much about unchartered waters as it is about formulating answers to urgent global issues.
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Seitenzahl: 358
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Contents
Series title
Title page
Copyright page
Figures, Tables, and Boxes
Figures
Table
Boxes
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1 What Is Sustainability?
Introduction
How Did We Get Here?
Sustainability in the Popular Imagination
Sustainability Takes Root
Conclusion
Notes
2 The Science of Sustainability
Introduction
The Anthropocene
Planetary Boundaries
The Great Acceleration
Measuring Sustainability
Biophysical sustainability metrics
Socioeconomic sustainability metrics
Integrated sustainability metrics
Final considerations on sustainability metrics
Can We Really Measure Sustainability?
Conclusion
Notes
3 Engineering a More Sustainable Future
Introduction
The Theory of Ecological Modernization
Applying the Tenets of Ecological Modernization
Ecological Modernization in Practice
Circular Economy
Earth system engineering and management
Biomimicry
Green New Deal
Industry 4.0
Can the Engineers Deliver a Sustainable Future?
Conclusion
Notes
4 Planning Sustainability Transitions
Introduction
Enhancing the Sustainability of Consumption and Production
Multi-Level Perspective
Anticipating and Preparing for a Sustainable Future
Cities and Sustainability Transitions
Deep Transitions
Conclusion
Notes
5 Social Innovation and Sustainability
Introduction
Collaborative Consumption and the Sharing Economy
Maker Movement and Self-Provisioning
Economic Localization
Lifestyle Minimalism
Livelihoods in the Era of Digital Automation
Conclusion
Notes
6 Toward Post-Sustainability?
Introduction
Did Sustainability Set Off with the Wrong Navigational Plan?
Alternative Paradigms Beyond Sustainability
Resilience
Regenerative development
Coevolutionary revisioning
Sustainability as flourishing
Global citizens movement
Models for the next system
Conclusion
Notes
Afterword: Sustainability in the Era of COVID-19
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Contents
1 What Is Sustainability?
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Series title
Short Introductions series
Nicholas Abercrombie,
Sociology
Michael Bury,
Health and Illness
Raewyn Connell,
Gender
, 4th edition
Hartley Dean,
Social Policy
, 3rd edition
Lena Dominelli,
Introducing Social Work
Jonathan Gray and Amanda D. Lotz,
Television Studies
, 2nd edition
Jeffrey Haynes,
Development Studies
Stuart Henry, with Lindsay M. Howard,
Social Deviance
, 2nd edition
Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz, and Aswin Punathambekar,
Media Industry Studies
Stephanie Lawson,
International Relations
, 3rd edition
Ronald L. Mize,
Latina/o Studies
Chris Rojek,
Cultural Studies
Mary Romero,
Introducing Intersectionality
Karen Wells,
Childhood Studies
Sustainability
Maurie J. Cohen
polity
Copyright page
Copyright © Maurie J. Cohen 2021
The right of Maurie J. Cohen to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
101 Station Landing
Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4031-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4032-7 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cohen, Maurie J, author.
Title: Sustainability / Maurie J Cohen.
Description: Medford : Polity Press, 2020. | Series: Short introductions | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Authoritative introduction to one of the most important challenges of the 21st century”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020015885 (print) | LCCN 2020015886 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509540310 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509540327 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509540334 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Sustainable development. | Environmental engineering. | Social change.
Classification: LCC HC79.E5 C595 2020 (print) | LCC HC79.E5 (ebook) | DDC 304.2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015885
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015886
Typeset in 10 on 12pt Sabon
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Figures, Tables, and Boxes
Figures
1.1 Brandt Line dividing the global North and global South
2.1 Simplified Geologic Time Scale
2.2 Planetary boundaries framework
2.3 Doughnut model
3.1 Schumpeter’s waves of creative destruction
Table
1.1 Outcomes of Millennium Development Goals
Boxes
2.1 Geologic Time Scale
2.2 Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 speech at the University of Kansas
3.1 Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute
3.2 Breakthrough Institute
4.1 Community energy
4.2 Communal kitchens
4.3 Global Scenario Group’s Great Transition
4.4 Swedish energy system beyond 2020
4.5 Retrofit 2050
4.6 Google’s smart city in Toronto
5.1 Food swaps
5.2 Local Motors
5.3 Local exchange trading systems
5.4 Microsized apartments
5.5 Weaver Street Market
Acknowledgments
While the writing of this book was compressed into a few months, the final product is more accurately understood as an outcome of nearly three decades of work and reflection. I originally became interested in many of the themes discussed in this volume during the years following the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. My interest was initially perked while in my first academic position in the United States, at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and then, in the United Kingdom, as the Ove Arup Research Fellow at the Centre for Environment, Ethics, and Society (OCEES) at Mansfield College, University of Oxford.
The mid- and late 1990s marked an especially fertile era for nascent sustainability-focused activities in the United Kingdom. The intellectual firmament was in flux and new space was opening up for innovative areas of inquiry. It was also a time when, across large parts of Europe, there was a high level of public interest and political engagement on associated issues. This attentiveness propelled research and practice and led to the development of the field of sustainability social science that informs significant parts of this book. I am grateful to my colleagues at OCEES at the time, including Avner de Shalit, Graham Dutfield, Antonia Layard, Joseph Murphy, Jouni Paavola, Neil Summerton, Bhaskar Vira, and the late Darrell Posey.
Upon returning to the United States at the start of the new millennium, it was revealing to discover that in American higher education the sustainability arc had not yet begun to bend in the same direction. After two years teaching environmental policy and politics at Binghamton University (State University of New York), I joined the Environmental Policy Studies Program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where most of my students were simultaneously pursuing a graduate degree and working as staff members of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Sustainability was not exactly on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but I was heartened that it was not an entirely foreign concept. Many of the issues discussed in this book began to take pedagogical shape in courses that I delivered during those years.
Since 2012, I have been the coordinator of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at NJIT, and in this administrative role instigated the establishment of a curricular option that enables students from various disciplines to conjoin their primary degree with a secondary specialization in sustainability studies. Given the university’s focus on applied science, engineering, and the design arts, aspiring architects and designers have disproportionately filled the ranks, though in recent years I have welcomed growing numbers of undergraduates from engineering departments. I regard this experience as evidence that a broadening range of students is becoming cognizant of the need to take prompt action to ensure a more sustainable future for both people and planet.
This book also owes its existence to my activities with the Future Earth Knowledge-Action Network on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production (KAN SSCP). Special thanks go to the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto for generously hosting this group. I am appreciative of extremely productive collaboration with Magnus Bengtsson, Charlotte Jensen, Ria Lambino, Sylvia Lorek, Hein Mallee, Steven McGreevy, Masami Oka, and Patrick Schröder.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my partners from various related and other projects over the past few years and take this opportunity to acknowledge Joseph Blasi, Anna Davies, Leonie Dendler, Paul Dewick, Karin Ekström, Amy Forrester, David Hess, Melanie Jaeger-Erben, Emily Huddart Kennedy, Naomi Krogman, Oksana Mont, Maisam Najafizada, Eilise Norris, Jaco Quist, Lucia Reisch, Thomas Reuter, Marlyne Sahakian, Joseph Sarkis, Dimitris Stevis, Arnold Tukker, Daniel Welch, and Esthi Zipori.
My heartfelt thanks to Louise Knight at Polity for inviting me to contribute to the Short Introductions series and to Inès Boxman for ensuring that I did not deviate from a strict timetable for bringing the manuscript to completion. Evie Deavall and Sarah Dancy expertly assisted in getting the book across the finish line and Leigh Priest prepared the index.
My three children, Lydia, Alexander, and Jeremy, eagerly and enthusiastically accompanied me on many of the excursions that inform this volume. My wife, Patricia, is a shrewd critic who never wavers in telling me when I have rushed to a conclusion or generalized from insufficient evidence. It is to my family that I lovingly dedicate this book.
Abbreviations
ANS
Adjusted Net Savings
APF
Alaska Permanent Fund
BREEAM
Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
CBD
Convention on Biological Diversity
CSD
Commission on Sustainable Development
EFA
Ecological Footprint Analysis
EMS
Environmental Management System
ESEM
Earth System Engineering and Management
FDI
Foreign Direct Investment
GCM
global Citizens Movement
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
GEF
Global Environmental Facility
GFN
Global Footprint Network
GND
Green New Deal
GNH
Gross National Happiness
GPGP
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
GPI
Genuine Progress Indicator
GSSA
Global Standard Stratigraphic Age
GSSP
Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point
GTI
Great Transition Initiative
GTS
Geologic Time Scale
HDI
Human Development Index
HPI
Happy Planet Index
ICS
International Commission on Stratigraphy
ICT
Information and Communication Technologies
IGBP
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISEW
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
IUCN
International Union for the Conservation of Nature
IUGS
International Union of Geological Sciences
JPI
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
LCA
Life Cycle Analysis
LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
LETS
Local Exchange Trading System
LPI
Living Planet Index
MDG
Millennium Development Goals
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MLP
Multi-Level Perspective
MT/P
Metric Tons Per Person
NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NDP
Net Domestic Product
NEF
New Economics Foundation
NGO
Nongovernmental Organization
ODA
Overseas Development Assistance
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PPM
Parts Per Million
RMI
Rocky Mountain Institute
SDG
Sustainable Development Goals
STEM
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
TEP
Techno-Economic Paradigm
TMC
Total Material Consumption
TNSP
The Next System Project
TRI
Toxic Release Inventory
UBI
Universal Basic Income
UNCCD
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
UNCED
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro 1992)
UNCHE
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972)
UNCSD
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio de Janeiro 2012)
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
UNEP
United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
UNFCCC
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNHLPFSD
United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
USCSD
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
WCED
World Commission on Environment and Development
WGA
Working Group on the Anthropocene
WSSD
World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg 2002)
1What Is Sustainability?
Introduction
Imagine this situation. You come home after a long day. You turn on the television news and the first story concerns a “king tide flood” in Florida. You have never heard this term, so you turn up the volume and listen intently as the reporter describes scenes of rivulets bubbling up from storm sewers, waves lapping over the top of seawalls, and water puddling up in coastal roads. The local government has invested more than $100 million in recent years to install pumping stations and a complex network of pipes to reduce the severity of the problem, which is due to the rising level of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the assurances of hydrological engineers, this new equipment has done little to reduce the flooding, which is particularly severe in the spring when incoming tides are at their annual highs. The story ends with a grim commentary. This is just the early stage and the inundations will become worse with each passing year. Because of the ongoing accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, average global temperatures are on track to exceed the 1.5°C threshold that climate scientists contend will lead to catastrophic impacts. Sea levels will continue to rise and forecasts indicate that as much as one third of the state’s landmass will end up submerged by 2100.
After a brief commercial break, the next report is about a small village in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The images on the screen show charming clapboard houses and, in the distance, red cliffs with beaches bordered by sand dunes. Thirty years ago, captains of local fishing boats caught as much cod as they could fit into their storage holds. But no longer. The fishery collapsed along with the optimism of residents who relied on this seemingly inexhaustible resource for their livelihoods. After graduating from high school these days, most young people see little reason to stay in town and instead move to Halifax or Toronto where there are much more lucrative and dependable job opportunities. The remaining population is getting older and struggling to make ends meet. Local stores are closing and there is talk that it is just a matter of time before the regional educational authority decides to close down the local schools. A rumor has started to circulate that the hospital is facing serious financial hardship.
A third story shows hundreds of people standing next to a flatbed truck while two men in uniform pass out cartons of bottled water. As the camera pans around, it becomes apparent that this is not a wealthy community. The houses are modest and in need of repair, and looking further down the street it is possible to discern the faint outlines of shuttered factories and empty parking lots. Scattered about are rusting metal signs warning residents to stay away from these vast open spaces because of toxic chemicals that were long ago buried under the pavement. The reporter explains that, earlier in the day, the mayor declared that the local water supply was not safe to drink. Tests had revealed that lead was leaching from the aging pipes. It would be months – perhaps years – before the problem would be resolved. In the meantime, local officials would distribute boxes of water three times each week.
You push back onto the sofa and wonder what these three dismaying depictions – a municipality inundated by coastal flooding, a village in distress because of a collapsed fishery, and a former industrial city suffering from lead poisoning – have in common. Different though they are, all are examples of what can go wrong when we disregard the essential interactions that occur between people and the surrounding environment. They also offer instructive evidence of how problems that may initially seem to be the result of scientific or technological mishaps are, after closer inspection, more correctly attributable to a wider range of factors.
It is getting late and a final report of the night begins to roll as you start to fall asleep. The scene has an air of familiarity. You stir yourself back into wakefulness, but are not sure whether the images remind you of a place you visited some years ago, or perhaps read about in a book. Or maybe someone just told you about it in a mostly forgotten conversation. The people on the screen appear to be relatively prosperous, but not in the ordinary way. Families reside in well-kempt houses, though you notice that the dwellings are somewhat smaller than is commonplace today in most rich countries. Additionally, each home is outfitted with a solar array for generating energy for the household. Throughout the neighborhood, there are easily accessible recreation centers, communal kitchens, and medical facilities. Residents get around town on bicycles, scooters, and other personal mobility devices. The only vehicles in view are for emergency services, deliveries, and some municipal operations – and these are all electric powered. There is a convivial spirit throughout the community and people are engaged in a diverse and elaborate assortment of daily activities that include formal employment, volunteer service, artistry, and childcare and eldercare. The final segment of the program shows a handwritten placard on the front door of a house that says, “Sustainability, It’s a Lifestyle!”
It is apparent that this community offers a stark contrast to the three reports featured in the earlier part of the newscast. You think about the various places you have lived over the years, but none is particularly memorable. The recollection that comes most readily to mind is spending so much time driving back and forth along the same monotonous stretches of highway, often squandering hours stuck in mind-numbing traffic. You begin to grow hungry and think that it would be great to be able to have your own backyard garden like the people you just saw on television. Perhaps you will give that idea more thought tomorrow. Deep down, though, you know that it is unlikely to happen because you need to work so many hours and when you get home you are so exhausted. But what did that evocative sign about sustainability and lifestyle mean?
How Did We Get Here?
Sustainability is oftentimes interpreted as a kind of supercharged version of environmentalism – a set of practices undertaken by people who are a tad more serious about, for instance, eating less meat, saving some energy, or purchasing “greener” products. It is important to note at the onset that these preferences are not without merit, but this book adopts a more expansive conception. Our perspective contends that sustainability is not only about expedient adjustments in individual behavior. The objective is to demonstrate that a more environmentally tenable and socially equitable future is predicated on a range of innovations. We need to spark a transition in how we conduct science, practice engineering, and, perhaps most importantly, organize society.
Vast systems exist for mining and harvesting natural resources, for assembling raw materials into fabricated materials, for manufacturing components into industrial products, and for discarding finished goods when they have ceased to have discernible value. Along the way, and sometimes counterpoised with periods of relative prosperity, these activities impose adverse consequences in the form of industrial pollution, natural resource depletion, and social upheaval. For a long time, we mostly overlooked these effects. They were ignored because of a perception that the financial returns were larger than the costs of the inflicted damages or because the victims did not have sufficient political power to protect themselves.
Concern for the environmental security of the planet and the livelihoods of its most vulnerable and disempowered inhabitants has tended to evolve episodically and in tandem with other processes of social change. Disruptions during the nineteenth century prompted by the intertwined processes of industrialization and urbanization gave rise to new sensibilities about the availability of vital natural resources and mobilized efforts to rectify the dangerously unhealthy conditions that persisted at the time in densely populated cities. The most critical issues, as well as strategies for improvement, varied from one place to another and were both enabled and constrained by prevailing social norms, economic circumstances, and political opportunities. For instance, the River Thames in London previously served as a cesspool for the dumping of human bodily wastes, offal from butchered animals, and industrial effluents. During the summer of 1858, the stench became so odious that it prompted construction of one of the first sewage treatment plants and the passage of new laws to limit discharges (Halliday 2001).
In North America, explorers, surveyors, and adventurers returned home during the early decades of the nineteenth century with astonishing reports of transcendent landscapes, abounding wildlife, and fearsome indigenous tribes. At the same time, population dispersal and agricultural expansion were, with each passing year, pushing the frontier further westward and prompting prophetic observers to speculate whether unchecked settlement would deny future generations the opportunity to experience the wondrous natural treasures. Others were inspired to action out of a sense of unease that rapacious exploitation would destroy the regenerative potential of forests, fisheries, and other renewable resources. Such concerns gradually led to the implementation of scientific management to control the most devastating practices and to ensure the ongoing availability of these living engines of prosperity (Worster 1993).
During the post-World War II era, these earlier measures proved insufficient to stem the rising tide of industrial pollution and the voracious appetite of producers for raw materials. Initially, a rising tide of wealth diverted attention from the deteriorating environmental conditions unfolding in affluent countries. However, by the 1960s growing numbers of people were no longer inclined to disregard the flagrant and persistent abuses accumulating in both urban and rural areas. The two aforementioned currents – urban public health and responsible use of natural resources – fused together into an increasingly coherent and formidable social movement intent on pressuring the political system to implement environmental reforms (Gottlieb 1993).
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also marked a period of expanding influence for labor unions, antipoverty associations, and social welfare advocates across large parts of Europe, North America, and Australasia. Responding to the pronounced patterns of inequality that characterized industrial society at the time, these organizations sought to give greater social and political visibility to the poor. Their efforts took the form of campaigns to improve housing conditions, to reduce working hours, to provide cash allowances and other forms of social protection, to expand access to education, and to establish progressive systems of taxation. While overall commitment and effectiveness varied across countries, ameliorating the conditions of extreme poverty came to be regarded as a societal undertaking with particular responsibility assigned to government.
During the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which affirms “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” It states in Article 22 that everyone “has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” Article 25 further asserts: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” These commitments are today regarded as “customary international law” and most countries have incorporated them into their constitutions and other national framework legislation. In subsequent years, nations around the world have endorsed a number of other covenants intended to focus attention on poverty reduction, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1969), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).
In the international sphere, mounting concern about poverty and its connections to the natural environment became a matter of special concern during the dissolution of formalized colonialism during the 1950s and 1960s. Beginning with India in 1948, large parts of Africa and Asia that had previously been imperial dependencies governed by foreign powers secured independence. The process of disengagement was in many cases fraught with conflict and violence. The challenges of nation-building were magnified by the pronounced political tensions between, on the one hand, the United States and its allies and, on the other, the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Fragile, newborn countries frequently found themselves having to choose sides in this ideological and military rivalry and these entanglements drained resources from efforts to overcome colonial legacies. Problems were further compounded by the need to participate in systems of international trade and finance that were massively disadvantageous and locked emergent nations into dependent relationships. The period also brought into view the interconnections between entrenched economic inequality, endemic poverty, unfair appropriation of natural resource wealth, and environmental degradation.
The global system came to be divided into three domains: the “first world” comprised the United States and “the rest of the West,” the “second world” included the Soviet Union and other countries in its sphere of influence, and the “third world” encompassed primarily the former colonial dependencies (most of which were located in the southern hemisphere). The first and second worlds had variously progressed through intensive processes of industrialization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, developed into increasingly urbanized societies, accumulated significant amounts of wealth (despite the destruction imposed by two world wars), and, broadly speaking, attained relatively high material standards of living. By contrast, third world countries had only weakly and incompletely industrialized (or did not experience industrialization at all), remained largely rural and reliant on either subsistence agriculture or economically unfavorable forms of primary production, and had substantially lower levels of per capita income.
Beginning in the 1960s, numerous initiatives were launched to narrow this chasm. First, national governments established agencies to provide funding for overseas development assistance (ODA), to create educational exchange programs, and to facilitate technology transfer.1 Second, multilateral institutions – most notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – offered financing to lower-income countries for infrastructure projects and to buffer hardship due to economic crises. Third, transnational corporations were encouraged to locate production facilities and other operations in the less developed nations through processes of foreign direct investment (FDI). Finally, building on practices instituted during the nineteenth century by religious groups and medical associations, numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) became engaged in providing a patchwork of relief and developmental services.2
It was out of this context that the issue of sustainable development (or sustainability as it would come to be recast) began to coalesce. During the 1970s, it became increasingly apparent that financial assistance directed to developing countries frequently failed to achieve its intended objectives because projects perversely exacerbated patterns of environmental degradation such as desertification, deforestation, and soil erosion. Rarely did donor countries and NGOs assess the consequences that their activities might have on ecological conditions. It took time, but eventually awareness began to build that if resource-conservation strategies were to improve livelihoods in poorer countries, it would be necessary to conduct integrated and comprehensive assessments of the possible impacts of economic policies on natural systems.
Recognition of the connections between development and the environment – or “ecodevelopment” as it was termed at the time – crystalized in 1980 with publication of the World Conservation Strategy by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN 1980).3 The report affirmed that the aim should be to enhance compatibility between development and conservation and to recognize that economic growth could contribute to effective environmental management. The authors acknowledged that building up the necessary governance capacity to achieve this goal at both national and global scales – especially with respect to scientific knowledge, planning procedures, legal frameworks, personnel, and financial tools – would require very substantial investments. Furthermore, any effort to roll back the entrenched emphasis on industrially driven expansion or re-envision alternative developmental pathways would confront powerful opposition from numerous quarters. Finally, as noted by political scientist John McCormick (1986: 186), for all its emphasis on forging a new paradigm, the World Conservation Strategy “limit[ed] itself to the conservation of nature and natural resources … and paid little heed to the fact that the problems faced by the natural environment are part of the broader issues related to the human environment. The two cannot be divorced.”
Also significant at the time was the work of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues chaired by Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Initially set up in response to a proposition by the World Bank, the so-called Brandt Commission included representatives from both developed and developing countries and pursued its work in a spirit of mutual interest. The intent was not to produce a technical report but rather to influence public opinion, to seek new ideas regarding the design of successful development programs, and to foster recognition of interdependence among a diverse array of countries.
The Commission produced two reports, North–South: A Program for Survival (ICIDI 1980) and Common Crisis North–South: Cooperation for World Recovery (Brandt Commission 1983), and formalized the distinction between the rich (first world) countries of the global North and poorer nations of the global South. While the demarcation – what came to be known as the Brandt Line – runs roughly along the 30° North latitude, it deviates conspicuously to include Australia and New Zealand (see Figure 1.1). Though the legitimacy of this partition has become increasingly disputed (Navarro 1984; Solarz 2012), the work of the Commission remains notable for elevating environmental and humanitarian issues and linking them to customary matters of international affairs such as monetary policy, financial regulation, and global security.
Figure 1.1 Brandt Line dividing the global North and global South
Source: ©User:Jovan.gec / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.
A second investigatory panel, the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues led by former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, was launched at roughly the same time. The Commission published its final report entitled Common Security in 1982, which was a particularly volatile phase in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (ICDSI 1982). The document argued that effective security required collective action and that over the long run no single country could act on its own narrowly circumscribed military interests. Security must be constructed by coordinating with adversaries or, as stated in the report, “States can no longer seek security at each other’s expense; it can be obtained only through cooperative undertakings.”
Most popular attention devoted to the work of the Palme Commission centered on its recommendation to create a “battlefield nuclear-weapon free zone” in Europe. However, the element of the document that is most immediately relevant is its discussion about the counterproductive expenditure of scarce resources by developing countries on military weaponry. These arms purchases depleted national budgets and diverted money that could otherwise be invested in social programs, education, and other initiatives to overcome poverty. Preoccupation with military preparedness was further problematic because it pulled developing countries into Great Power battles where they became pawns in proxy fights, did little to advance their own national interests, and undermined rather than enhanced security. Moreover, the continual threat of conflict amplified the challenges of improving well-being, human rights, social justice, and environmental quality.
While we can trace the emergence of sustainability as a focal objective for a more socially and environmentally secure future back to the conceptual advances contained in these three international commissions, this is only part of the story. The evolution of these priorities from the margins of international affairs to a central focus for policymaking across a large expanse of contemporary society – national governments, municipal agencies, corporations, community organizations, universities, and more – is also attributable to broader currents of social change.
Sustainability in the Popular Imagination
During the mid-1960s, the fabled innovator and social entrepreneur, Stewart Brand, displayed a stickpin button that posed the question, “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” Even in the psychedelic social scene of San Francisco at the time, this was a curious inquiry. Notwithstanding, a few days prior to Christmas in 1968, three astronauts blasted off in a Saturn rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and later beamed back home the image that Brand had been yearning to see (Cosgrove 1994; Turner 2008). Evocatively titled Earthrise, the picture captured a gibbous and illuminated planet against the inky blackness of the infinite cosmos. The poet Archibald MacLeish, writing on the front page of the New York Times, observed: “To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together.” Four years later, a second, but ultimately more celebrated and iconic, image, Whole Earth, crisply depicted the planet with billowy clouds, readily recognizable landmasses, and oceanic expanses. This photograph soon became the most popular picture of all time, emblazoned on everything from tee shirts to coffee cups (Poole 2008).
The ubiquity, to say nothing of the commercial success, of these depictions diverted attention from the more significant achievement, namely that they ushered in a new age of human consciousness, spiritual cognizance, and planetary awareness. Despite no shortage of prior ingenious schemes – from hot-air balloons outfitted with photographic equipment to camera-toting kites – it had not previously been possible to apprehend the entire expanse of the Earth. Due to the extraordinary technological prowess of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the skillfulness of its astronauts, it was no longer possible to ignore the irrefutable fact that all humanity, as well as other living beings, were united in biospheric citizenship.
This new cosmological conception triggered an onslaught of survivalist-oriented metaphors designed to capture the zeitgeist of the era. For instance, some imaginative scientists characterized the planet as a “spaceship” and others asserted that earthly beings needed to band together in “lifeboats” to ensure their security (Boulding 1966; Fuller 1970; Hardin 1974; see also Larson 2014).4 New environmental organizations mobilized and spurred the establishment of insurgent social movements to press governments and transnational bodies to implement measures to mitigate the most acute ecological abuses. At the international level, prominent groups were Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, but also influential was a host of more specialized and targeted initiatives focused on the protection of endangered ecosystems, wildlife conservation, and marine environments (Weyler 2004; Thompson 2017).
A string of notorious disasters, including the methylmercury poisoning of Minamata Bay in Japan, the toxic contamination of the Love Canal community in New York State, the Bhopal chemical tragedy in India, the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States and Chernobyl in Ukraine, and the occurrence of several catastrophic oil spills, galvanized public attention. A general impression emerged that, during the years following World War II, industrialized (and industrializing) countries had made some ill-fated decisions as part of their headlong pursuit of economic growth.
From the standpoint of today, and acknowledging that the human story does not always unfold in a straight line, it is clear that the remarkable achievements of a half-century ago had a profound effect. New and persistent questions took hold about the efficacy of technological progress, the utility of contemporary measures of prosperity, and the need to align societal ambitions with the resilience of the natural environment. We have further learned over the ensuing decades that customary systems for provisioning human needs – agriculture, industrial production, energy, and transportation – can actively undermine individual and societal well-being. For instance, a clear-eyed visit to a local supermarket in the United States, regardless of the number of organic vegetables on display, is a testament to the fact that the prevailing food system fails the most basic tests of environmental and social responsibility. At the global scale, despite extraordinary achievements in China and other once-poor countries over the past few decades to lift millions of households from deprivation, more than a third of the world’s nearly 8 billion people continue to suffer from extreme poverty. Making the problem even more urgent is that human numbers are on track to increase to an estimated 10 billion by 2050 and most of this demographic increase will occur in the world’s most impoverished countries.5
Sustainability Takes Root
The global circulation of NASA’s photographs of the Earth from space triggered an unprecedented wave of political activism, scientific research, and legislation. Environmentalists in dozens of countries around the world mobilized masses of people to participate in public demonstrations on the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. An estimated 20 million campaigners turned out in the United States for this inaugural event and the scale expanded globally over the following years. By 1990, an estimated 200 million people in more than 140 countries were commemorating Earth Day (Christofferson 2004; Rome 2014).
Soon after the maiden observance of Earth Day, a group of computer scientists based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published Limits to Growth, a shattering report that relied on modeling simulations to explore the relationships between resource availability, industrial output, demographic growth, food production, and environmental quality (Meadows et al. 1972). The upshot of the study was that ceaseless increases in manufacturing production and global population would outstrip resource supplies and cause protracted ecological degradation, ultimately creating conditions for societal collapse. The book sold 30 million copies and was translated into 30 different languages. Critics nonetheless loudly denounced its methodology and conclusions, castigating the authors as irresponsible catastrophists who were recklessly putting human prosperity at severe risk.
In this same timeframe, the United Nations, the Swedish government, and an international network of NGOs convened the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE). In large part the brainchild of Canadian diplomat Maurice Strong, the gathering brought to Stockholm thousands of government officials, activists, scientists, and observers for two weeks of strategizing, protesting, and celebrating under the theme of “Only One Earth.” The luminary of the conference was the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, who delivered the keynote address and sought from the start to overturn complacency. She challenged the assembled group and admonished other world leaders who had stayed away, remonstrating, “Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters? … It would be ironic if the fight against pollution were to be converted into another business, out of which a few companies, corporations or nations would make profits at the cost of the many.” These sentiments would in due course come to inform the emergent concept of sustainable development in powerful ways. Other notable accomplishments included the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which emerged during the 1970s as the primary institution of global environmental governance.
In 1973, the Yom Kippur (Arab–Israeli) War prompted major oil-producing countries to impose an embargo on the export of oil to countries deemed friendly to Israel. This action resulted in the retail price of gasoline increasing by upwards of 400 percent and setting off alarm bells around the world about energy security. The circumstances tapped into a number of escalating anxieties centered on petroleum dependency and energy inefficiency and led to new interest in renewable sources and less energy-reliant lifestyles (Jacobs 2016). Both presaging and amplifying this interest was publication of economist E. F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful (1973) and physicist Amory Lovins’s Soft Energy Paths (1977). The two volumes, in their own ways, catalyzed different ways of thinking about sustainability, the former encouraging the downsizing of scale and the adoption of less material-intensive livelihoods and the latter sparking a focus on ecologically informed technological innovation.
From the standpoint of geopolitics, the 1970s was, however, a treacherous decade characterized by protracted and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In fact, Moscow had refused to send a delegation to the Stockholm conference and the ongoing standoff between the two nuclear powers limited opportunities for multilateral progress in international affairs. Nonetheless, communities of scientists, NGO and civil society representatives, and mid-level government officials continued to meet and to incubate the nascent concept of sustainable development.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution triggered a second oil crisis, more than doubling gasoline prices and resurrecting experiences of just a few years earlier. Popular anxiety again took hold, with long lines at filling stations and widespread apprehension about energy insecurity and fossil-fuel scarcity. The pervasive sense of unease had palpable political ramifications, especially in the United States. President Carter installed solar panels and a wood-burning stove in the White House and gave a televised speech on July 15, in which he famously intoned that:
