_______________________________________
Why is there so much talk about sustainability? And what
does that concept really mean? Paul Wilson, the guest editor
for this issue of Northwest Report, examines these questions
and sets the context for the articles that follow. Wilson,
who holds a law degree from Lewis & Clark Law School
and a forestry degree from Yale University, has worked
in government, corporate, and academic settings, most recently
as director of the environmental law program at Lewis & Clark
Law School. Wilson currently mediates natural resource
disputes and "tends a family and garden" at the headwaters
of Tryon Creek in Portland, Oregon.
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Editors' Note
An increasing polarization between economic and environmental
interests threatens to make the concept of sustainable development
little more than an oxymoron. New voices, however, are cautioning
against accepting this false dichotomy. Development can occur
sustainably. We can protect jobs and the environment. In
fact, these voices argue, unless we promote development,
we cannot sustain quality of life; unless we preserve the
environment, we won't have jobs in the future.
This special issue of Northwest Report examines the
concept and practice of sustainable development from a number
of perspectives and includes recommendations for how rural
and urban communities, private enterprise, and individuals
can foster a more sustainable society. Paul Wilson, former
director of the environmental law program at Lewis & Clark
Law School, has served as guest editor in the preparation
of this issue. While the perspectives presented in these
articles are not necessarily those of the Foundation, we
hope they will stimulate discussion on this important topic.
Future issues of Northwest Report will include
articles on how sustainable development considerations affect
specific natural resource sectors, the distribution of resources
in urban areas, and the lives of the nation's most vulnerable
citizens.
Northwest Area Foundation's interest in sustainable development
is an outgrowth of its commitment to the vitality of its
eight-state upper Midwest and Northwest region. Foundation
grantmaking seeks to balance economic development with resource
conservation and find common ground between opposing camps.
To this end, Foundation grants support responsible stewardship
of water and fisheries resources and the exploration of how
sustainability can be achieved by a number of specific industries,
including agriculture, aquaculture, energy, and others. More
detailed information about the Foundation's current funding
interests is available in the 1995 Annual Report and
in the Guidelines for Grant Applicants.
The Foundation welcomes comments on this issue of Northwest
Report and on sustainable development. Readers are
invited to address their comments to the editors or to
Cris Stainbrook, senior program officer responsible for
the Foundation's sustainable development grantmaking.
Yellow bicycles - left on the street for free public use.
Pick one up and ride it across town. When you're done, just
leave it for someone else to use.
Reality shifted slightly in Portland, Oregon, last year.
At least 450 yellow, one-speed bikes are already scattered
around the city. All are donated. A local business has volunteered
to paint them bright yellow. U-Haul distributes them across
the city. If a tire goes flat, the rider calls a number on
the bike, a volunteer picks it up, and it's repaired by at-risk
kids at the Community Cycling Center. The large number of
people involved make the program self-policing.
The program encourages trust and a sense of community, while
providing an environmentally friendly way to get around.
Tom O'Keefe of the United Community Action Network had dreamed
about the idea for years, after reading about a similar program
in Amsterdam. He started Portland's program after his own
bike was stolen.
The bike program in Portland is one small piece of a growing
movement toward a sustainable culture - a way of life that
can be sustained for a long time because it does not deplete
the social and environmental systems that make it possible.
THE CURRENT PROBLEM
Environmental problems are not what we thought they were.
In the 1970s, after Earth Day, we talked about air and water
pollution, toxic chemicals, and hazardous waste. We also
thought we knew how to solve these problems: government regulations
would limit pollution and require enterprises to use the
best available technology to reduce it, thus including the
costs in the price of goods. The more we learned, the more
we regulated. Twenty-five years later, the air and water
are cleaner, or at least not much worse. We have made progress.
But we have also fallen behind. We still face those same
problems, plus more. Acid rain is changing the chemistry
of lakes and the soil, stressing and killing forests worldwide.
The earth's climate is probably changing. We are depleting
stratospheric ozone, increasing the planet's exposure to
ultraviolet rays. We are witnessing an accelerating loss
of biodiversity, from declining songbird and fish populations
to mass extinction of tropical insects. Much of the earth
faces shortages of water, or fuel, or both. The overall problem
is not only bigger than we thought, it is a different sort
of problem. Humans are changing the planet's basic chemistry
and biology, on a grand scale and at an increasing rate.
A population - of any species - uses resources and produces
wastes. The surrounding environment's ability to provide
those resources and absorb those wastes limits the size to
which the population can grow and remain healthy. Our technological
abilities have permitted us to carry resource use and waste
production to an unprecedented level. We have assumed that
those same technological abilities, combined with the planet's
size and bounty, will allow us to continue that expansion.
As is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that assumption
is not only unproven, it is potentially dangerous. Our technology
might act as a buffer, but it cannot isolate us from the
significant changes we are causing in our surrounding environment.
Human beings are a part of a vast web of interconnected
species and systems that fit together in intricate ways,
enabling the whole system to continue. There are limits to
how much our population can grow, and how much we can alter
our surrounding environment, without causing changes that
will reverberate throughout that web and jeopardize our own
future. The warning signs are as close as the daily news.
Technological fixes and single solutions for single problems
are not enough. Instead, what is required is a fundamental
change in the way we meet our needs and a reassessment of
what those needs really are.
Population Growth
Today, there are about 5.8 billion people on the planet;
one out of every five is desperately poor. That population
total, which has taken thousands of years to achieve, is
expected to double in the next 50 years. Overpopulation is
already a serious problem, especially in less industrialized
countries. With 4.3 billion people, these countries account
for 78 percent of the world's population yet have only 15
percent of the world's wealth and income, and use only 12
percent of its natural resources and 27 percent of its energy
each year. One implication is that 40 million desperately
poor people die each year (110,000 per day) from malnutrition
or related diseases or from contaminated drinking water.
Each year less industrialized countries pay industrialized
countries four times more in debt interest than they receive
in aid. These debt payments create enormous pressure to extract
natural resources and grow cash crops for export, further
threatening ecosystems and resources vital to the whole planet,
siphoning off money, and increasing political instability.
This same pattern is also found in rural parts of otherwise
developed countries, Although the consequences of this situation
are felt most strongly by people in less industrialized areas,
they affect us all.
Consumption of Resources
The planet's resources are being consumed at an astounding
rate. Our one species already appropriates for its use 40
percent of all the plant matter produced on land. Currently,
global resource use by humans is growing at about 5.5 percent
each year; at that rate, human demand on the earth's resources
doubles every 13 years.
Many of our most important resources, such as fossil fuels
and metals, are nonrenewable and will eventually run out.
Known world oil supplies, for example, will last for about
40 years at the current rate of consumption; potential sources
might extend the supply for another 20 to 40 years. Even
renewable resources are being degraded rapidly. On about
one-third of the world's cropland, top-soil is eroding faster
than it forms. Fish catches in the northwest Atlantic have
fallen by a third since 1970. Other problems engendered by
this pattern of rapid consumption and degradation include
depletion and contamination of groundwater, deforestation,
desertification, and species loss. As scarcities increase,
we are likely to see not only absolute shortages, but also
increasing political conflict over what remains. This conflict
will create economic disruptions akin to the oil price shocks
of the early 1970s and early 1980s.
Pollution
The wastes created from consuming resources, meanwhile,
are accumulating at a frightening pace. Fossil fuels burned
in 1994 released 5,925 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere;
that compares to only 2,543 million tons in 1960. The biosphere
is disrupted by the sheer volume of our wastes - and also
by the fact that many of those wastes are compounds that
biospheric systems cannot absorb and recycle. Pesticides
and toxic wastes, for example, can render soil and water
unusable. Global warming and probable climate change, acid
rain, depletion of stratospheric ozone, and urban air pollution
all stem from chemicals we have put into the atmosphere.
Social Inequity
Compounding the problem of exponential growth of population,
resource use, and pollution is the inequitable distribution
of resources. Access to wealth, resources, and even basic
necessities is unevenly divided among nations. Industrialized
countries, with 1.2 billion people (22 percent of the world's
population), command about 85 percent of the world's wealth
and income, use 88 percent of its natural resources, consume
73 percent of its energy, and generate most of its pollution
and wastes. Even within industrialized countries, there is
great disparity. These inequities not only cause serious
hardship for many segments of the earth's population, they
also aggravate social conflict.
Expectations and Values
Another factor compounding the problems of exponential increases
in population, resource use, and pollution relates to the
way we think - our expectations and values. Among them are
the following:
Rising expectations. Most people living in industrialized
countries expect to experience a more or less continuous
rise in their standard of living. People who are less fortunate
seek to emulate the way of life they see among the more fortunate.
In our current way of doing things, the environmental costs
of improving standards of living are increased resource use
and pollution.
Economic values. In our industrial society, we tend
to believe that more is better, and to measure our economic
success or well-being in terms of continued growth or increase.
The Gross National Product (GNP), which measures the total
value of goods and services a nation produces, is one example.
Expectations that the GNP should increase by 3 to 4 percent
a year are directly linked to our pattern of exponential
growth in resource depletion and environmental degradation.
Significantly, there is no quantitative way to measure the
environmental cost at which this growth is achieved.
Sustainability
Among other species, a population that exceeds the carrying
capacity of its environment dies back. Our unceasing growth
has created a pattern of increasing resource use and waste
production that cannot be sustained over the long term. Instead,
we must adopt a new mindset and seek a way of life that can
be sustained over the long term - a way of life that is sustainable.
A sustainable society would not undermine its resource base,
the assimilative capacity of its surroundings, or the biotic
stocks on which its future prosperity depends. Sustainability
means living on interest, not drawing down capital. The idea
of sustained yield of natural resources is far from new;
it means, for example, harvesting trees at a rate within
the forest's capacity for regrowth. Sustainable development,
according to the United Nations- sponsored World Commission
on Environment and Development, "meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs."
The question is, how do we do that? Can our society become
sustainable through more efficient technologies and pricing
that more accurately reflects the true cost of goods? Or
does sustainability mean a transition to a fundamentally
different way of life? Both approaches are needed. Social
scientist Lester Milbrath, in Envisioning a Sustainable Society,
draws an analogy to treating a heart attack victim: stabilizing
the victim is essential, but so is the longer process of
finding and addressing the causes of the patient's heart
disease.
We need to apply a similar dual process to environmental
issues. We must identify and "stabilize" specific environmental
problems, but we must also find alternatives to the practices
that have gotten us in trouble in the first place.
Where Do We Go from Here?
What do we know about the prospects for transition to a
sustainable society? In Beyond the Limits,
systems scientist Donella Meadows and her coauthors suggest
some generalizations from their work with computer models:
We can probably develop a sustainable society without reducing
either population or industrial output.
However, neither population nor industrial production can
grow further. Plus, we will need to improve significantly
the technical efficiency with which we use the earth's resources.
A sustainable society can be structured in a variety of
ways. We have many choices about numbers of people, living
standards, technological investments, and allocation of industrial
goods, services, food, and other material needs.
Approaching - or exceeding - the earth's limits for sustaining
human life leads to unavoidable tradeoffs between the number
of people than can be supported and the material level at
which each person can be supported. The exact numerical tradeoffs
are not knowable, and will also change as technology, knowledge,
human coping ability, and the earth's support systems change.
Supportable population sizes and living standards may move
up and down, but the general implication will remain the
same: more people means fewer material resources available
for each person - or higher risk of essential support systems
collapsing.
The longer that regional and world economies take to reduce
resource use and pollution and move toward sustainability,
the lower the population and standard of living that will
be supportable. At some point, delay means collapse.
The higher a society sets its targets for a material standard
of living, the higher its risk of exceeding and eroding those
limits.
Economist Herman Daly has described three necessary conditions
for physically sustaining the amount of resources a society
uses:
The rate at which renewable resources are used should not
exceed their rate of regeneration.
The rate at which nonrenewable resources are used should
not exceed the rate at which sustainable, renewable substitutes
are developed.
The rate of pollution emission should not exceed the assimilative
capacity of the environment.
Meadows adds two additional conditions: human population
levels must be kept low enough to allow these three conditions
to be met; and all four of these conditions must be met through
processes that are democratic and equitable enough that people
will accept them.
Sustainability means thinking in terms of whole systems,
with all their interconnections, consequences, and feedback
loops. This way of thinking avoids artificial and often misleading
categories such as humanity versus nature, or jobs versus
the environment. Instead, it places a high value on responding
to problems realistically, but through learning and innovation
rather than critique and complaint. Implementing the necessary
changes involves removing artificial barriers and creating
partnerships, seeking leverage points where small shifts
can set in motion processes that have beneficial, systemwide
effects.
Beginning the Transformation
From yellow community bicycles to a new agricultural techniques,
people around the world are experimenting with new ideas
that can move our societies toward a more sustainable way
of life. This issue of Northwest Report is about the
beginnings of that transformation. The articles that follow
provide sketches of what is being done - and still needs
to be done - by communities, private enterprise, and individuals.
Although the articles demonstrate different approaches and
points of view, they all tend to reflect seven themes:
Problems are multifaceted and interrelated. Burning
fossil fuels to use increasing amounts of resources, for
example, leads to depletion, oil spills, air pollution, acid
rain, and global warming.
However, solutions are multifaceted as well. Reusing
materials decreases landfill use as well as air and water
pollution, and also conserves resources and diminishes the
environmental consequences of extracting them. Local changes
produce both local and global benefits.
Crises, then, offer both risk and opportunity. When
a crisis looms, and neither the conventional explanations
nor the usual solutions seem to be working, fear of the unknown
can lead us to grasp even more tightly at our old ways of
behaving. Being open to change, however, is what leads to
solutions.
Equity is essential. The people who use a disproportionate
share of resources and contribute a disproportionate amount
of pollution will also bear most of the financial costs of
changing the practices that have led to the present situation.
And ecosystem preservation cannot happen unless basic human
needs are met.
Bigger (or smaller) is not inevitably better. Appropriate
size-of a business, a national economy, an area to be governed,
or even a monthly paycheck-is not a simple, inevitable outcome
of fixed factors. Instead, size is a complex variable; appropriate
size can be determined through testing, discussion, and adjustment.
Place matters. People and cultures thrive when they
adapt to the necessities and pleasures of life as they are
uniquely presented by a particular place, and evolve ways
to ensure that they can occupy that place successfully over
the long term.
Both the individual and the community play crucial roles. The
activities of involved people, and the models they provide,
transform the lives of other people, organizations, and entire
societies, often in unanticipated ways and with surprising
speed. People working together are vastly more powerful than
individuals alone. In North America, the transition to sustainability
is happening from the bottom up as countless people and organizations
respond to current crises by modifying the ways they live
and work; larger organizations are being transformed as changes
ripple through them.
The ideas suggested in these articles might be the beginning,
but they are far from the end. Every aspect of our lives
together on earth will change in the next few decades. Through
awareness, innovation, and participation, we can help shape
the direction those changes will take.
What Does Exponential Growth Really Mean?
We have accommodated our increasing human population
by using more resources and producing more wastes, counting
on our planet to provide whatever we want and absorb whatever
we discard. Each of these factors - population, resource
use, and pollution - has been growing exponentially, but
what does that concept really mean? Exponential growth
means doubling and then doubling again and then again.
Simple examples can create a vivid picture.
Suppose you agree to eat one peanut on the first day of
the month, two on the second, four on the third, and keep
doubling the number every day. How long will a one-pound
can of peanuts last?
Well, you'll have eaten the first half of that pound by
the eighth day; the second half will be gone on the ninth
day. On the tenth day, you'll open a new can and eat the
whole thing. On the fifteenth day you'll eat 32 pounds of
peanuts. On the seventeenth you'll eat your own weight in
peanuts, on the twenty-first a ton, and on the last day of
the month, 500 tons. Doublings add up ferociously fast.
Worse, when problems grow exponentially you don't get much
reaction time; they sneak up on you. Imagine a pond with
a water lily growing in it. The lily pad doubles in size
every day. After 30 days it covers the pond. On what day
would you notice that the lily pad is growing? On which day
does it cover half the pond? The lily pad does not become
large enough to cover half the pond until the twenty-ninth
day. Then it takes only one additional day to cover the rest
of the pond.
What Do Growth and Development Really Mean?
According to our current mindset, economic development
is usually assumed to mean the same thing as economic growth;
the result is expanding use of resources. But is that assumption
necessarily correct?
Growth means an increase in size or number. Development,
on the other hand, means bringing something to a fuller or
better state. A society can certainly grow without developing
- but it can also develop without growing. Consider economist
Herman Daly's example of a steady-state library. The stock
of books is constant but not static. As a book wears out
or becomes obsolete, it is replaced by a newer or better
one. The quantity of books does not grow, and the quality
of the library actually improves. The library develops without
growing.
Sustainable development of human culture means improving
the quality of human life while living within the carrying
capacity of supporting ecosystems. What is sustained is not
a rate of growth, but rather a level of physical resource
use. What is developed is the capacity to convert those physical
resources into improved goods and services for satisfying
human needs, without degrading the supporting systems.
