THE SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
In
1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development put the
idea of sustainability into these words:
A
sustainable society is one that "meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs."
From
a systems point of view, a sustainable society is one that has in
place informational, social, and institutional mechanisms to keep in
check the positive feedback loops that cause exponential population
and capital growth. This means that birthrates roughly equal death
rates, and investment rates roughly equal depreciation rates, unless
or until technical change and social decisions justify a considered,
limited change in the levels of population or capital.
Such
a society, with a sustainable ecological footprint, would be almost
unimaginably different from the one in which most people now live.
Before we can elaborate on what sustainability could be, we need to
start with what it need not be.
Sustainability
does not mean zero growth.
Rather, a sustainable society would be interested in qualitative
development, not physical expansion. It would use material growth as
a considered tool, not a perpetual mandate. Neither for nor against
growth, it would begin to discriminate among kinds of growth and
purposes for growth. It would ask what the growth is for, and who
would benefit, and what it would cost, and how long it would last,
and whether the growth could be accommodated by the sources and sinks
of the earth.
A
sustainable society would also not paralyze into permanence the
current inequitable patterns of distribution.
For both practical and moral reasons, a sustainable society must
provide sufficiency and security for all. A sustainable society would
not be a society of despondency and stagnation, unemployment and
bankruptcy that current systems experience when their growth is
interrupted. A deliberate transition of sustainability would take
place slowly enough, and with enough forewarning, so that people and
businesses could find their places in the new economy.
A sustainable world would also not be a rigid one, with population or
production or anything else held pathologically constant.
One
of the strangest assumptions of present-day mental models is the idea
that a world of moderation must be one of strict, centralized
government control. A sustainable world would need rules, laws,
standards, bound- aries, social agreements and social constraints, of
course, but rules for sustainability would be put into place not to
destroy freedoms, but to create freedoms or protect them.
Some
people think that a sustainable society would have to stop using
nonrenewable resources. But that is an over-rigid interpretation of
what it means to be sustainable. Certainly a sustainable society
would use nonrenewable gifts from the earth's crust more
thoughtfully and efficiently.
Suggested Guidelines
The
authors do suggest a few general guidelines for what sustainability
would look like, and what steps we should take to get there:
• Extend
the planning horizon. Base the choice among current options much more
on their long-term costs and benefits.
• Improve
the signals. Learn more about the real welfare of human population
and the real impact on the world ecosystem of human activity.
• Speed
up response time. Look actively for signals that indicate when the
environment or society is stressed. Decide in advance what to do if
problems appear.
• Minimize
the use of nonrenewable resources.
• Prevent
the erosion of renewable resources.
• Use
all resources with maximum efficiency.
• Slow
and eventually stop exponential growth of population and physical
capital.
The
necessity of taking the industrial world to its next stage of
evolution is not a disaster -- it is an amazing opportunity.
How
to seize the opportunity, how to bring into being a world that is not
only sustainable, functional, and equitable but also deeply desirable
is a question of leadership and ethics and vision and courage,
properties not of computer models but of the human heart and soul.
Taken
from the book "The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st
Century's Sustainability Crises.", see
http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=311db31977054c5ef58219392&id=f3c482575e&e=1f571e91b1
for Chapter One:
"Beyond the Limits of Growth".
Other
chapters are available, online, see
http://www.postcarbon.org/reader/downloads
The
book itself is available from "University of California Press"
for $21.95, see
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780970950062
See
also the book "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update", by
Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, link is
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/limitspaper
ISBN:
9781931498586
|
