The Many Definitions Of "Sustainability"

I've been skeptical of terms as they come and go. (earlier post) Sustainability, again, is one of them. Yup, cultural definitions evolve and morph. But when the tag for the future dynamic of Earth jumps all over the map, we need to take stock of what exactly is at stake. 

The following definitions were compiled and distributed recently by a conference session here in Madison. They represent some current versions of sustainability. I'm taking the liberty to comment. Others?

• Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs.

Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment & Development)

Is sustainable development an oxymoron?

• Sustainable design is the set of perceptual and analytic abilities, ecological         wisdom, and practical wherewithal essential to making things that fit in a world of microbes, plants, animals, and entropy. In other words, (sustainability) is the careful meshing of human purposes with the larger patterns and flows of the natural world, and careful study of those patterns and flows to inform human purposes.

David Orr, Ecological Literacy 

Philosophically sound if humans follow suit with patterns and flows. 

• Sustainability is the ability to achieve continuing economic prosperity while protecting the natural systems of the planet and providing a high quality of life for its people. Achieving sustainable solutions calls for stewardship, with everyone taking responsibility for solving the problems of today and tomorrow-individuals, communities, businesses and governments are all stewards of the environment.

 Environmental Protection Agency

This government agency has two sides to its mouth: economic prosperity vs. stewardship.  Paradox.

• Sustainability is asking ourselves today: How much do we really need? Then, not taking more from the earth than that.

Alliance for Global Sustainability Principle Investors

Huh…?

• A transition to sustainability involves moving from linear to cyclical processes and technologies. The only processes we can rely on indefinitely are cyclical; all linear processes must eventually come to an end. 

Dr. Karl Henrik-Robert, MD, founder of The Natural Step, Sweden

True.

• Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

Wikipedia (Jan 2011)

The first sentence is true, which is why resilience may be a better overall concept than sustainability.

• Sustainability occurs when human activity does not adversely affect the quality of the environment and resource base available for future generations of living things on the planet.

Alliance for Global Sustainability Principle Investors

Many resource bases have already been altered beyond future availability.

• Sustainability is equity over time.  As a value, it refers to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as well as the present. You might think of it as extending the Golden Rule through time, so that you do unto future generations (as well as to your present fellow beings) as you would have them do unto you.

Robert Gilman, Director Context Institute

Yes.  ["Why should I do anything for future generations. They haven't done anything for me." Groucho Marx]

• Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do.

Paul Hawken

True, but already unattainable. 

• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Aldo Leopold, A Land Ethic, from Sand County Almanac

Simple and wise…

• Clean air, clean water, safety in city parks, low-income housing, education, child care, welfare, medical care, unemployment (insurance), transportation, recreation/cultural centers, open space, wetlands... 

Hazel Wolf, Seattle Audubon Society

Finally getting to the social justice?

Toddlers At The Saturday Farmers' Market

I’ve spent time down at the Capitol Square on summer mornings this year. The square is long the home to the famous Farmers’ Market.  There is, also, a troop of organizations who have information tables across the sidewalk from these local farmers. They attempt to pass along their various messages to the crowd.  In our case, it’s the climate change action agendas of 350.org.   Science, politics, petitions. 

Admittedly, these tables are sometimes just wallpaper for the counter-clockwise conveyor belt of market goers. Folks are, after all, on the mission of vegetables and honey and pasteries.  A glance and a smile our way is the norm.  So I get the chance to really watch people as they slowly stream by.  It occurred to me on my recent visit that one demographic really stood out in this crowd...toddlers.

Two-year-olds and three-year-olds. On market morning in Madison there are probably more toddlers in one place than any other in the city at any time of year.  Young families obviously take advantage of this wonderful weekend morning event. (They’re up...they might as well be out...)

Toddlers on Dads’ shoulders.  Toddlers under one arm.  Toddlers walking independently behind parents.  Toddlers falling in Capitol Square flower beds.  And, it’s stroller mania.  Strollers and double strollers.  Sibs in strollers.  Strollers full of market produce being pushed by toddlers and Mom.

I realized it was not incongruous that my business on the Square on those Saturdays was related to these toddlers.  Though I had a smile all morning watching the kids, I was also so very aware of a poignancy:  Me, trying to convey a message of a wounded Earth and a future of mind-boggling questions.   Me, hoping that these parents have pathways in mind that will infuse a resiliency into that generation.

NASA scientist James Hansen has long been the leading public voice on climate disturbances and their cultural reprecussions. But his voice has added a very personal tone in past years as his two grandchildren were born.  Along with his science, Hansen is focused on how the younger generation today will be handed failing systems and harsh climates that might have been forstalled by an earlier generation.  His recent book on climate change issues is titled Storms Of My Grandchildren.  He would agree that parents of toddlers today need to be, themselves, active agents for a resilient society as well as the nurturers of their children.

Finally - I Hit That Hopelessness Wall...

I had a bad couple of days. I knew it would come at some point.

I am certainly an on-again-off-again acquaintance with depression and anxiety. This time, though, is the first I can tag it directly to dismay and fear for our futures. What had usually been anger and rational thought turned on itself last week and came out as, well, sadness. Hopelessness. From the intellectual, to the gut. From “humanity will negotiate the Great Turning”, to “We are so screwed.”   (Luckily, Denial didn’t show its face.)

This perfect storm began as my wife was out of town for a few days and I had, therefore, more time to think and mull alone. I do a good deal of daily blog reading and keeping an open and watchful mind. But this “hopeless factor” slid right in my front door, sat down, and began a staring contest. 

Obviously, this was the result of a cumulative effect, and on another day I might take things with more finesse. What, exactly, flipped my switch? Here's how I recall my gut reacting:  

Set-up #1:  Watching TV. Within a very short time I had surfed past a National Hotdog Eating Contest program where folks were trying to control their gag reflexes; to another report from droughted Somalia highlighting thousands of migrant children, dehydrated and starving. This may be the beginning of the 21st Century Water Wars, for crissake! Children! Hotdogs?? How insensitive and selfish can we get in the Western World??

#2:  I hesitantly peeked in on the starting week of my beloved Tour de France, still disillusioned by the doping. I found more TV commercial time than actual racing time (no surprise).  But many of the commercials were for -  automobiles!! Now, I understand  (regrettably) the cultural target market for this program, but the paradox is bazaar:  A seemingly benign and clean/green sport of man and simple machine, tainted by drugs, bankrolled by Cadillac (the new king of acceleration and power and fuel consumption). This isn't about bicycles after all!! What the...??

#3:  Exxon Mobile’s pipeline UNDER(!) the Yellowstone began leaking crude. Here we go again with arrogant petroleum puppet sound bytes! (That would be a Mr. Pruessing.) Do they think I’m stupid? Do these people have passports from Mars?  Is there no recognition from them that they poison a landscape and its inhabitants, and that they are Past Peak Oil On Earth and staring at liquid carbon collapse?? (Correction: They are fully aware - that’s why a $ is a $ right now…) How did this moralless industry coronate themselves king of culture??

#4:  Two branches of the US government were arguing whether to extend the debt ceiling to “save” our economy. Save?? The ceiling is irrelevant! There is not enough money on Earth, literally, to repay these debts. (Are these the Mars passport guys?) Who are they kidding? Our economy cannot grow further - get over it and start preparing for austerity procedures and resiliency for simpler and more reasonable lifestyles in this country!! Everyone participates; the rich twice over! Default now for a bad result, or ten years from now for catastrophic collapse. Get off the pot!!

#5: On all stations: The top-billed national media-generated courtroom Casey frenzy of the year became a viral infection of OJ Simpson Syndrome. Shame on all the networks who entered the whirlpool of predatory human tabloidness at the expense of public issues that will drop us to our knees in the near future!

I pulled the plug on the TV. Literally. 

The hopelessness factor had found my gut. Do we all pass through that door? 

“But, I’m informed!  But, I do my part!”

“Too bad - the ship is sinking.”

"Damn- there's Debbie Downer again."

[Throw hands in air and turns away.]

I'm better now. I know the full range of human emotional reactions are going to hit home. Bitter realities and pleasant surprises. We are going to need to simplify. We are going to learn the concept of finiteness and take it seriously. There will be a new normal to economies after natural consequences of greed and standard of living are modified.

Fortunately, there are a whole host of wonderful individuals and organizations that are guiding the way to resilience and positive forward movement to transition times.  

I guess I have a new appreciation for speedbumps, and then healing resolve.  

7/10/11

Got To Have Happiness! :-)

What is Gross National Happiness??

“An interviewer asked why I put so much store in young people. Because young people don’t know what’s impossible. They are less burdened by the past so will try something new without bothering to ask if it has been tried before. That is always how big changes occur. When people set out to imagine a different future, there are no authorities."

William Greider

Youth will lead the way into a different future. But is there a spirit or outlook that can drive this leadership? Well-being? 

(love this graph's title)

We have something called the Gross National Product, which measures the full amount of economic productivity by a nation in terms of dollars. Then there's the Gross Domestic Product, which measures such activities only within a country’s borders. Since 1992, the US and most countries have used Gross Domestic Product. 


The GDP tends to be the dominant measure for the health of a nation. If this is the case, exactly which sector of health are we talking about?

“Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”        
 Robert F. Kennedy

For the past 40 years or so, a corollary view to GDP has been Gross National Happiness. Begun in the early 1970‘s in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan, the concept of Gross National Happiness is spreading today, notably in Brazil, Italy, Canada and the USA.

Measuring GDH is somewhat dicey but it does provide a framework for shifting away from our reliance on economic development and toward a focus on human contentment. GDH is a check and balance indicator of how healthy and happy a society is within this economic growth trance we've nurtured. 


Certainly, one form of a wake-up call to Gross National Happiness came from Egypt these past weeks. Citizens met their breaking point with frustrations involving jobs, food availability, an overpopulated region and restricted liberties. Lack of resources for sustaining daily life would frustrate anyone. Was there too much reliance on a GDP? Did this force GNH to take center stage?

Closer to home, Gross National Happiness USA is spreading its wonderful messages from the East Coast. Movements such as Sustainable Seattle are leading the way on the West Coast, where their Seattle Area Happiness Initiative includes a survey of The Nine Dimensions of Happiness. This list comes from GNH-USA, where you'll find more detailed explanations. 

How do these dimensions of happiness fit for you?

1. psychological well-being;

2. physical health;

3. time or work-life balance;

4. social connection and   community vitality;

5. education;

6. access to arts, culture and recreation;

7. environmental quality and access to nature;

8. good governance;

9 material well-being.

Is this a list pertinent to all global cultures? Just a thought…

"There's no present like the time." (Hard to say, isn't it?) 

Take Back Your Time, another US/Canadian venture incorporating GDH, seeks to encourage community interactions by refocusing daily "time famines" and overwork issues.

Collectively, then, GDH movements enable us to begin down the road of resiliency: a contentment with eyes wide open.

Which Is It? Sustainability Or Resiliency?

I'm having a semantics conflict.

Is “sustainability” going down the same path as “green” and “eco-friendly?”  

On the one hand, cultural buzzwords come and go. They start as enlightened concepts, become overused, then tedious, then meaningless. If product marketing gets ahold of them, they become twisted and their meanings gutted. Even George Zens, publisher of the Sustainability Times in the Madison area, brought this up recently in an article under his Sustainability 101. Regarding sustainability:

“...there is a real danger that its significance is in the process of being diluted to the point where it is nothing more than an empty shell...”

On the other hand, I am not convinced that we use sustainability correctly to begin with. This concept implies a level of continued living standard and stability even though energy resource availability and distribution may (will) diminish.

Technically, sustainability is defined by phrases like: to hold up, to endure, to keep it going, to keep from giving way, to bear up from below. To be sure, it is a most positive sentiment of strength. But I am not sure it's the best definition for the future dynamics of life on Earth.

A level of maintained stability is not possible for world cultures in the coming decades. This is especially so for our country and our “developed” buddies. You know the culprits: population overshoot, peak oil, climate changes, economic crises, political conflicts over resources, etc. Collectively, there is no rational way we can overcome these global elephants in the room without simplifying and living with much less. 

So, then, at which level do we strive to sustain? Is it the business-as-usual level per our present year? Do we, then, have the option to reset the stability dial backward during 2020, if necessary? When the cultural lifestyle levels of 2020 cannot be maintained, do we recalibrate? Stepping down the rungs of a cultural contraction ladder is not sustainability. Sustainability implies staying at the same rung from...well, now. Today. And, that can’t happen. Can one recalibrate sustainability?  

A more promising concept?  Resiliency. 

[This term will really, really, really be the best one!]

As Americans acculturate to the requirements of less carbon emissions, less oil and tighter community dependence they will need a positive sense of retooling as the life standards change. We can’t dig in our heels and refuse to relinquish. We may not be able to sustain, but we will be able to adjust, rebound, and recover: Resiliency.

The resilience component does not imply that we don’t work hard nor work together for the best and fairest of living situations. It is certainly not a weakness. It does imply a feel of flow, a buoyancy. It is meeting the stability level of the moment in a fluid manner. Riding the surface of events, not simply “treading water.”  It is a positive preparedness; a fishing bobber.

       Enough water metaphors.

Resiliency in our lives gives us the permission to adjust to realities and to work with others to do the same. The Transition Culture movement, begun in the UK, is a leading citizen-based proponent of resiliency. It focuses on one’s immediate community, the lessening of transportation needs, use of local food, and reskilling. It underscores positive and flexible behavior habits of change: Resiliency.