Ron's comments on the following:There is a large difference between 'sustainable development' and 'sustainable agriculture'. You mostly discussed the former via Brundtland report. Some say this was so successful because most politicians interpreted to mean that we could have 'development' (i.e. 'growth') in the traditional sense and care for the environment. They obviously didn't get it, but that was what people signed on to in Rio '92, Agenda 21 etc.'Sustainable agriculture' is a US term. It was invented by the more 'progressive' wing of the ag research establishment for the purpose of getting on the agroecology bandwagon without using the "O" word, ( i.e. organic), anathema to ag researchers and congressmen (until very recently). A very different history.
Re sustainable development, a missing figure on your page is Herman Daly, and the concept of "Steady State Economics", (1977)--versus 'growth economics'. He has a recent book called "Beyond Growth" written in economeze [HC79.E5 D324 1996] and a much more accessible one (my favorite) called "For the Common Good" (1989 [HD75.6 .D35 1989]) , written with a theologian J. Cobb. There they discuss alternatives to GNP as a measure of 'development' (as opposed to 'growth')
What does this really mean? Is it, as one commentator says, basically "ambiguous, vacuous, or otiose", a "high-visibility, low-content term" (Bryan Norton)? A bit of exploration reveals that it is a term/concept that first appeared in the 1980s and really bloomed in the 1990s, along with 'globalization', to apostrophize [O.E.D.: "Rhet. A figure of speech, by which a speaker or writer suddenly stops in his discourse, and turns to address pointedly some person or thing, either present or absent; an exclamatory address...] the question "can we keep doing what we're doing?" Its principal application is in discussions of limits, which were once focused on fairly simple extrapolation models for resources ("limits to growth" --Jay Forrester [HD82 .F63], Club of Rome [HC59 .L54 1974]). A long history of dire predictions that didn't turn out (Malthus onward) and unforeseen technological saviours makes for a hard sell for predicted crises, but there are plenty of indicators that irreversible "tipping points" do occur. The most recent warnings I've seen have been in fisheries and in global climate, but there are others (like the ozone layer, and CO2). Consider this:
...the environmental demands of our economic system now fill the available environmental space of the planet... The first environmental limits that we have confronted, and possibly exceeded, are not the limits to nonrenewable resource exploitation, as many once anticipated, but rather the limits to our use of renewable resources and to our use of the environment's sink functions --its ability to absorb our wastes... The details are far less important than coming to terms with the basic truth that we have no real option other than to recreate our economic institutions in line with the reality of a full world...Another rather stirring summary:
(David C. Korten "Sustainability and the Global Economy" in Visions of a New Earth [GF80 .V57 2000], pg 31)
The need for sustainability arose from the recognition that the profligate, extravagant, and inequitable nature of current patterns of development, when projected into the not-too-distant future, leads to biophysical impossibilities.
(Goodland 1995, pg 5 and cited below)
A fundamental document in development and popularization of the concept of sustainability is the Brundtland Report of 1987 ("Our Common Future", HD75.6 .O97 1987) which defined "sustainable development" as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The fundamental question seems to come down to whether growth, which is the fundamental assumption and requisite of conventional economic models, can be sustained. Quoting Korten again:
...the prevailing wisdom continues to maintain that economic growth offers the answer to poverty, environmental security, and a strong social fabric --and that economic globalization --which involves erasing economic borders to allow the free flow of goods and money-- is the key to growth. Indeed, the more severe the mounting economic, environmental, and social crises become, the stronger the policy commitment to these same prescriptions, even as evidence mounts that they are not working. (30)The subdiscipline of Ecological Economics seeks answers to the question of how to value and quantify environmental qualities, so that decision-making in resource management and resource allocation takes account of environmental costs and consequences.[aside: want to see a today's-news version? Hastert Rebukes Bush Adviser]
'Growth' has also meant (or perhaps necessitated?) amalgamation. Korten summarizes:
Any industry in which five firms control 50 percent or more of the market is considered by economists to be highly monopolistic. The Economist magazine recently reported that five firms control more than 50 percent of the global market in the following industries: consumer durables, automotive, airlines, aerospace, ecetronic components, electrical and electronic, and steel. Five firms control over 40 percent of the global market in oil, personal computers, and --especially alarming for its consequences on public debate on tehse very issues-- media. (39)[aside: want to see a today's-news version? The Mouse That Reeled By Robert MacMillan washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
There's nothing much going on today ... other than a $56 billion attempt to reshape the nation's media industry. That $56 billion would come from none other than Philadelphia phenomenon Comcast Corp., which stunned folks during their morning commute yesterday by announcing an unsolicited bid to buy a blue chip piece of America's entertainment industry, The Walt Disney Co.
I've been doing some searching for illuminating materials on 'sustainability', and as usual I've processed fewer than I'd like... but here are some of the bits:
Demographic threats to the sustainability of Brazil nut exploitation
Peres CA, et al.
SCIENCE 302 (5653): 2112-2114 DEC 19 2003A comparative analysis of 23 populations of the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa) across the Brazilian, Peruvian, and Bolivian Amazon shows that the history and intensity of Brazil nut exploitation are major determinants of population size structure. Populations subjected to persistent levels of harvest lack juvenile trees less than 60 centimeters in diameter at breast height; only populations with a history of either light or recent exploitation contain large numbers of juvenile trees. A harvesting model confirms that intensive exploitation levels over the past century are such that juvenile recruitment is insufficient to maintain populations over the long term. Without management, intensively harvested populations will succumb to a process of senescence and demographic collapse, threatening this cornerstone of the Amazonian extractive economy.APPROACHES TO DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE EXTRACTION SYSTEMS FOR TROPICAL FOREST PRODUCTS
BOOT RGA, GULLISON RE
ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS 5 (4): 896-903 NOV 1995There are few if any examples of the demonstrably sustainable extraction of either timber or non-timber forest products. Even well-known products such as brazil nuts and mahogany lack a sufficient knowledge base to design a sustainable extraction system. Potential extraction systems for timber and non-timber forest products from tropical forests should be evaluated both in terms of their sustainability and their impact at the ecosystem level. The impact of forest product harvest on the demographics of the target species can be explored with the use of mathematical models, although we still lack an adequate understanding of some of the basic processes that are structuring tropical tree communities. Matrix models are relatively quick to construct, and they may be appropriate for modeling the dynamics of populations that are harvested without introducing large changes to the ecosystem, while individual-based mechanistic models are more appropriate for modeling the effects of harvest that cause large changes in population and ecosystem structure. Once the maximum sustainable level of harvest has been identified with the use of models, an economic analysis of the range of harvest intensities between zero and maximum sustainable yield should be conducted, with the goal of identifying the range of possible harvest intensities that are both sustainable and economically viable. This range of harvest intensities should then be analyzed in terms of its impact on the ecosystem, so that the harvest intensity that is chosen will not result in impacts to the forest that are unacceptably high.
Others:
Sustainability and the commons
Kennedy D
SCIENCE 302 (5652): 1861-1861 DEC 12 2003New visions for addressing sustainability
McMichael AJ, Butler CD, Folke C
SCIENCE 302 (5652): 1919-1920 DEC 12 2003Assessing the sustainability of the US food system: a life cycle perspective
Heller MC, Keoleian GA
AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS 76 (3): 1007-1041 JUN 2003The US food system, from field to table, is at a crossroads for change. Improving the sustainability of this complex system requires a thorough understanding of the relationships between food consumption behaviors, processing and distribution activities, and agricultural production practices. A product life cycle approach provides a useful framework for studying the links between societal needs, the natural and economic processes involved in meeting these needs, and the associated environmental consequences. The ultimate goal is to guide the development of system-based solutions. This paper presents a broad set of indicators covering the life cycle stages of the food system. Indicators address economic, social, and environmental aspects of each life cycle stage: origin of (genetic) resource; agricultural growing and production; food processing, packaging and distribution; preparation and consumption; and end of life. The paper then offers an initial critical review of the condition of the US food system by considering trends in the various indicators. Current trends in a number of indicators threaten the long-term economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the US food system. Key trends include: rates of agricultural land conversion, income and profitability from farming, degree of food industry consolidation, fraction of edible food wasted, diet related health costs, legal status of farmworkers, age distribution-of farmers, genetic diversity, rate of soil loss and groundwater withdrawal, and fossil fuel use intensity. We suggest that effective opportunities to enhance the sustainability of the food system exist in changing consumption behavior, which will have compounding benefits across agricultural production, distribution and food disposition stages.Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices
Tilman D, Cassman KG, Matson PA, Naylor R, Polasky S
NATURE 418 (6898): 671-677 AUG 8 2002A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.Towards sustainability in world fisheries
Pauly D, Christensen V, Guenette S, Pitcher TJ, Sumaila UR, Walters CJ, Watson R, Zeller D
NATURE 418 (6898): 689-695 AUG 8 2002Fisheries have rarely been 'sustainable'. Rather, fishing has induced serial depletions, long masked by improved technology, geographic expansion and exploitation of previously spurned species lower in the food web. With global catches declining since the late 1980s, continuation of present trends will lead to supply shortfall, for which aquaculture cannot be expected to compensate, and may well exacerbate. Reducing fishing capacity to appropriate levels will require strong reductions of subsidies. Zoning the oceans into unfished marine reserves and areas with limited levels of fishing effort would allow sustainable fisheries, based on resources embedded in functional, diverse ecosystems.Ecological sustainability and biodiversity
Aarts BGW, Nienhuis PH
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND WORLD ECOLOGY 6 (2): 89-102 JUN 1999The immense complexity of ecosystems severely hampers the underpinning of the ecological sustainability paradigm. The few existing definitions of ecological sustainability, such as ecosystem health, are based on the obsolete superorganism paradigm of ecosystems, assuming an equilibrium for every ecosystem. New, anthropocentric approaches, like the ecosystem integrity concept, surmise that ecosystems are dynamic, loosely defined assemblages of species, which necessitates adaptive management. Another complicating factor is our poor understanding of the complex relation between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The few hypotheses about the role of species in ecosystems, like the rivet popper and the functional redundancy hypotheses, are not universally applicable. The functional importance of an individual species is unpredictable and context-dependent, even for keystone species. Biodiversity buffers changes in environmental conditions and might be considered as a kind of insurance.Principles of ecosystem sustainability
Chapin FS, Torn MS, Tateno M
AMERICAN NATURALIST 148 (6): 1016-1037 DEC 1996Many natural ecosystems are self-sustaining, maintaining a characteristic mosaic of vegetation types for hundreds to thousands of years. In this article we present a new framework for defining the conditions that sustain natural ecosystems and apply these principles to sustainability of managed ecosystems. A sustainable ecosystem is one that, over the normal cycle of disturbance events, maintains its characteristic diversity of major functional groups, productivity, and rates of biogeochemical cycling. These traits are determined by a set of four ''interactive controls'' (climate, soil resource supply, major functional groups of organisms, and disturbance regime) that both govern and respond to ecosystem processes. Ecosystems cannot be sustained unless the interactive controls oscillate within stable bounds, This occurs when negative feedbacks constrain changes in these controls. For example, negative feedbacks associated with food availability and predation often constrain changes in the population size of a species. Linkages among ecosystems in a landscape can contribute to sustainability by creating or extending the feedback network beyond a single patch. The sustainability of managed systems can be increased by maintaining interactive controls so that they form negative feedbacks within ecosystems and by using laws and regulations to create negative feedbacks between ecosystems and human activities, such as between ocean ecosystems and marine fisheries. Degraded ecosystems can be restored through practices that enhance positive feedbacks to bring the ecosystem to a state where the interactive controls are commensurate with desired ecosystem characteristics. The possible combinations of interactive controls that govern ecosystem traits are limited by the environment, constraining the extent to which ecosystems can be managed sustainably for human purposes.THE CONCEPT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
GOODLAND R
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECOLOGY AND SYSTEMATICS 26: 1-24 1995 [50 citers]This paper reviews the current status of the debate about the concept of environmental sustainability and discusses related aspects of growth, limits, scale, and substitutability. While the paths leading to environmental sustainability in each country or sector will differ, the goal remains constant. But this conceptualization is far from an academic exercise. Ensuring, within less than two human generations, that as many as 10 billions people are decently fed and housed without damaging the environment on which we all depend represents a monumental challenge.
Sherpas of NepalOK, I can't resist: what does Google have to say about the conjunction of sustainability AND snowmobile?Saami of northern Scandinavia --see, for example, the snowmobile...which might lead us to a search in eHRAF for 'snowmobile' ...455 matches within 26 documents, most of them in material on the Saami (289 matches in 6 documents)
connects to a recent controversy about Yellowstone and snowmobiles ...see Bush admin may appeal Yellowstone snowmobile ruling , and snowmobile AND yellowstone search from Eco-Portal - The EnvironmentalSustainability.Info Source... and Yellowstone snowmobile ban set aside (11 February 2004...) ...and see Dubious Snowmobile Stats and Dubious Snowmobile Stats II and compare with online Snowmobiling Fact Book 2002-2003...