Teach
Yourself Sustainability – by Richard W. Franke Ph. D.
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Sustainability:
What Is It?
The word “sustainability” came into the public sphere
in 1987 with Our Common Future, also known as the “Brundtland
Report,” from the The World Commission on Environment and
Development, commissioned by the United Nations. This report contains the
most widely cited definition of sustainability: 
Meeting
“the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs… sustainable
development must not endanger the natural systems that support life on earth:
the atmosphere, the waters, the soils and the living beings.”
World Commission on Environment and
Development. 1987. Our Common Future.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 8, 43 and 45.
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History of Sustainability
The idea of sustainability developed over the course
of the 20th century as scientists and others began to notice that human
production and distribution systems – the
economy — were
beginning to push against the limits of earth’s resource base and/or to disturb
natural systems in ways never before observed.
Four important
milestones:
1.
Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring warned that “Future generations
are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the
natural world that supports all life.” (page 13)
Carson worried especially about the effects of new chemical pesticides overused
in place of natural balances that had evolved over many millennia.
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2. In 1972
a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer geeks —among the
first of the genre — came out with a study supported by an industry group
called “The Club of Rome.”
Based
on complicated computer simulations, authors Donella
Meadows, Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers argued that if (then) present trends
in population, industrial and consumption growth continued, it was
likely 
that “a rather sudden and
uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity” would occur
“sometime within the next one hundred years.” In other words,
a collapse of civilization. Mainstream economists criticized and even
ridiculed The Limits to Growth but over the years since 1972 more and
more experts and ordinary people have come to consider it an appropriate
warning.
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3. The Scientists’
Warning to Humanity was issued in November of 1992. Signed by 1,700 leading
scientists including a majority of the Nobel Prize Laureates in the sciences
who were alive at the time, it begins “Human beings and the natural world are
on a collision course.” The Warning noted “critical stress” on the atmosphere,
fresh water, the oceans, soil, forests, and living species and went on the
claim that “Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries or
permanent.” Signers claimed we face the prospect of “vast human misery” and the
threat that the earth could become “irretrievably mutilated.” The scientists
acknowledged that the scale and timing of vast human misery was hard to
predict, but argued that “Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot
excuse complacency or delay in facing the threat.”
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4.
The
Rio Earth Summit of 1992 reinforced the idea that uncertainty
“cannot excuse complacency”, enshrining this idea as The
Precautionary Principle, number 15 of 27 principles adopted by the
conference. Principle 7 includes the statement that “States shall cooperate in
a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and
integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem.” In
June 2012 a Rio + 20 Conference was held in Johannesburg, but many observers
consider it to have had less impact than desired.
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Science and
Sustainability:
Developing Necessary
Concepts
Parallel
to the various conferences and statements, scientists have conducted substantial
research into many aspects of sustainability. Economist Herman Daly proposed a set
of basic definitions and rules for thinking about sustainability:
·
The economy is a subsystem of the
earth. The subsystem cannot grow beyond the frontiers of the total system.
Humans must live within Earth’s limits.
·
Renewable resources should be
harvested at a rate not to exceed their regeneration ability. If harvested
faster than they can regenerate, at some point they will be exhausted. Examples
of renewable resources: soil, water, forests, fish.
·
Nonrenewable resources should not be
exploited faster than the rate at which they can be replaced by renewable
resources. Examples of nonrenewable
resources: fossil fuels, high-grade mineral ores, fossil groundwater.
·
Wastes should not exceed the
assimilation capacity of the environment. Examples of wastes: sewage, lead in
children’s blood, DDT, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere above a reference
amount such as 350 parts per million.
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See More Definitions of Sustainability |
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Short Pieces about Pioneers of the US
Environmental Movement |
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