An Introduction to Sustainability.pdf

An Introduction to Sustainability An Introduction to Sustainability provides students with a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and ideas which are encompassed within the growing field of sustainability. The fully updated second edition, including new figures and images, teases out th...

An Introduction to Sustainability An Introduction to Sustainability provides students with a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and ideas which are encompassed within the growing field of sustainability. The fully updated second edition, including new figures and images, teases out the diverse but intersecting domains of sustainability and emphasises strategies for action. Aimed at those studying the subject for the first time, it is unique in giving students from different disciplinary backgrounds a coherent framework and set of core principles for applying broad sustainability principles within their own personal and professional lives. These include: working to improve equality within and across generations; moving from consumerism to quality of life goals; and respecting diversity in both nature and culture. Areas of emerging importance such as the economics of prosperity and wellbeing stand alongside core topics including: Energy and society Consumption and consumerism Risk and resilience Waste, water and land. Key challenges and applications are explored through international case studies, and each chapter includes a thematic essay drawing on diverse literature to provide an integrated introduction to fundamental issues. Housed on the Routledge Sustainability Hub, the book’s companion website contains a range of features to engage students with the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability. Together these resources provide a wealth of material for learning, teaching and researching the topic of sustainability. This textbook is an essential companion to any sustainability course. Martin Mulligan is associate professor and senior lecturer in the Sustainability and Urban Planning teaching programme, and senior researcher within the Centre for Urban Research in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies (GUSS) at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. ‘This is a timely and much-needed book, written by experienced university educa- tors who know how to engage with students and spark and sustain their interest. This involves being engaging and hopeful – and having the skill to explain quite complex ideas in a lucid, meaningful way. The second edition builds on the many strengths of the first, with updated information, figures and photos capturing the dynamism of sustainability thinking and practice.’ Allan Johnstone, Murdoch University, Australia ‘This is a clear, well-pitched introduction to sustainability issues for undergraduate students. The book combines analysis of contemporary environmental concerns and their interwoven social dynamics with a real sense of the personal dimen- sion of sustainability. Built on a decade’s worth of teaching experience, this book encourages a wide-ranging and accessible approach to the subject for students from a diversity of academic backgrounds. I would happily recommend this as a core introductory text for a 1st year undergraduate module on environmental issues as it covers so many of the most important issues with critical appreciation while retaining a sense of optimism too.’ Sam Randalls, University College London, UK ‘Sustainability is a “wicked problem,” in which everyone is enmeshed; deep systemic change, rather than a cookbook of simple solutions, is required. The immensity of facing such a problem leads some of us to despair, others to complacent denial; Mulligan avoids both. The emergence of enviro-hatred as a mode of power, espe- cially in the US, means that hope for any future requires champions, well-informed, critically thoughtful, and emotionally prepared. This book is excellent preparation on all three fronts.’ Kim Sorvig, University of New Mexico, USA ‘In this new edition, Martin Mulligan adds a renewed emphasis on systems thinking, the “triple bottom line” concept of corporate responsibility, and provides a series of global challenges framed as “wicked” problems to illustrate the magnitude of the transition to the sustainability paradigm. And yet the book retains the hopeful element that made the original edition such a worthy addition to the sustainability literature. This mix of reality and hope creates a compelling story about humans, our social and economic needs, and the health of the planet on which we dwell.’ Thomas Theis, Director of the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois, USA An Introduction to Sustainability Environmental, Social and Personal Perspectives Second Edition MARTIN MULLIGAN With Michael Buxton, Ruth Lane, Melissa Neave and Anthony Richardson Second edition published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Martin Mulligan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2015 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mulligan, Martin, author. Title: An introduction to sustainability : environmental, social and personal perspectives / Martin Mulligan. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Earlier edition: 2015. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017019707| ISBN 9781138698291 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138698307 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315519456 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sustainability. Classification: LCC HC79.E5 M856 2018 | DDC 338.9/27—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017019707 ISBN: 978-1-138-69829-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-69830-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-51945-6 (ebk) Typeset in Akzidenz Grotesk and Eurostile by Keystroke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton This book is dedicated to the youngest in my clan – Indu, Roshan, Amelie and Baxter – because your future is at the forefront of my mind. Contents Visual tour x List of photos xiii List of figures xv List of tables xvii Prefacexix Acknowledgementsxxi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 PART I HISTORY, KEY CONCEPTS AND OPERATING PRINCIPLES13 Chapter 2 Biography of a concept 15 Chapter 3 Consumption and consumerism 33 Chapter 4 Global challenges as wicked problems 51 Chapter 5 Energy and society 71 Anthony Richardson and Martin Mulligan Chapter 6 Sustainability models and concepts 89 Chapter 7 Risk and resilience 105 PART II FINDING FOCUS AND TAKING ACTION 123 Chapter 8 Environmental dimensions of sustainability 125 Chapter 9 Social dimensions of sustainability 141 Chapter 10 Personal dimensions of sustainability 157 Chapter 11 Taking action 173 Chapter 12 Introduction to assessment and monitoring tools 189 viii Co nt e nt s PART III KEY CHALLENGES AND APPLICATIONS 203 Chapter 13 Focusing on water 205 Chapter 14 Food and agriculture 221 Mel Neave and Martin Mulligan Chapter 15 The urban challenge 241 Michael Buxton and Martin Mulligan Chapter 16 Rethinking waste 259 Ruth Lane and Martin Mulligan Glossary273 Bibliography295 Index306 Photos 2.1 Scientist Rachel Carson (1907–64), appearing before a Senate Government Operations subcommittee studying pesticides (4 January 1963) 19 2.2 The poor are watching! Some of the biggest slums in the world surround the CBD in Rio De Janeiro, where leaders gathered for the 1992 Earth Summit 22 3.1 The stomach contents of a dead albatross on Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean show how far plastic waste is spreading through the world’s oceans 36 3.2 Major sporting and cultural facilities are being rebranded with corporate names: Arsenal’s home ground in London 39 3.3 A farmers’ market in Portland, Oregon 44 4.1 Poverty is rife and highly visible in countries such as India, as seen here in Kolkata 61 4.2 Poverty is rife but less visible in countries such as the USA, as seen here in New York 62 5.1 The age of oil has resulted in an explosion of motor vehicle use and widespread traffic congestion in major cities, such as Mexico City 75 5.2 A man works in an urban garden in Havana, October 2008  81 7.1 Sign erected by protesters in New Zealand to warn hikers of an unexpected poison hazard 108 7.2 Residents rifling through relief supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina117 7.3 RMIT University researcher Yaso Nadarajah consults community leader Ashraff Mohammed, among tsunami-ravaged houses at Sainthamuruthu in south-east Sri Lanka 119 8.1 Wild animals can be closer than most city-dwellers think: a fox in London 135 9.1 An employee in the Evergreen Co-operative Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio 145 9.2 Community festivals make communities of place more visible: Llanwrtyd Wells food festival 150 10.1 Outsized protesters confront an oil drilling ship near the coast of Aotearoa New Zealand: hope driven by courage 165 11.1 Rosa Parks: the woman who sparked a civil rights campaign by refusing to give up her seat on a bus 186 xiv Ph o t o s 13.1 Algal blooms resulting from hypoxia intersect with sediment churned up by storm activity to radically disrupt the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico 214 13.2 The Aral Sea disaster should stand as a reminder of what can go wrong when we use water wastefully: satellite image of what was left of the sea in 2012 218 15.1 Shanghai has grown exponentially in recent times 245 15.2 Detroit, Michigan – Michigan Central train station, which has fallen into disrepair after closing in 1988 247 15.3 An urban slum in New Delhi, India 250 Figures 1.1 The ‘triple bottom line’ represented as three overlapping sectors 5 1.2 From the prevailing model to the Social Ecology model 7 2.1 A timeline of key events in the evolution of sustainability thinking 17 3.1 Global Footprint Calculator: resources required and waste disposal impacts 34 3.2 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 41 4.1 Observed globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature changes 1850–2012 55 4.2 Arctic summer sea ice extent 55 4.3 Image of ocean conveyer belt 57 5.1 Hubbert’s prediction compared to observed US oil production 73 5.2 World growth in GDP, energy and oil 76 5.3 Participation in labour-intensive and energy-intensive farming 77 5.4 Energy return on investment 82 6.1 Nested diagram of sustainability 91 6.2 Four pillars model and four domains model 92 6.3 The Social Ecology Model 94 6.4 Soft systems methodology 97 8.1 The carbon cycle 129 8.2 The hydrological cycle 131 11.1 Matrices for identifying stakeholders in relation to professional interests, impacts and influence 175 11.2 Policy cycles 177 11.3 Behaviour change model 182 12.1 Risk assessment matrix 192 12.2 Life cycle of common clothing 196 13.1 Five nations have an interest in the management of water flows in the Mekong river basin 207 13.2 The ecology of a stream 211 14.1 Change in percentage of agricultural land area for the major global regions 223 14.2 Global food produced from wheat and population (1961–2009) 225 14.3 The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nation’s nominal Food Price Index (1961–2010) 228 15.1 Percentage of population living in cities 243 16.1 Sources of electronic waste being reprocessed in Bangladesh 265 16.2 From linear flows to cycles 266 16.3 Waste hierarchy 267 Tables 6.1 Comparing prevailing assumptions with what happens in natural ecosystems99 12.1 An LCA illustrated 194 12.2 Main stages of cost–benefit analysis 197 16.1 Activities involved in revaluing waste electronics in Bangladesh 264 Preface A survey of academics using the first edition of this book suggested a number of amendments and improvements. For example, it was suggested that the significance of the ‘triple bottom line’ model introduced by John Elkington in 1994 needed to be acknowledged and that the concept of ‘ecosystem services’ deserved more attention. One respondent suggested that more attention should be given to the influence of ‘systems thinking’ on the emergence of sustainability discourses. In general it was suggested that less emphasis should be placed on the way the introduction to sustainability subject has been taught at the author’s university. Amendments have been made to almost all chapters to make the suggested improvements. The introduction of the ‘triple bottom line’ model, seven years after the publication of the landmark Brundtland Report, has been acknowledged (see Figure 2.1), although the book continues to work with the view that it has not been helpful in the longer term to separate economic policies and practices from the domain of social sustainability. For pedagogical reasons, the book still features the ‘Social Ecology’ model introduced by Professor Stuart Hill at the University of Western Sydney because it brings the ‘personal dimensions’ of sustainability challenges into play. The author is grateful for the opportunity to work on a second edition of the book because it is always possible to make improvements. In reworking almost all the chapters, key ideas have been highlighted, information updated and influential concepts explained better. New references and source materials have been used and many items have been added to the marginal glossary. Discussion questions have been revised and new figures and photos have been included. Sustainability is such a broad-ranging topic that it is not easy to decide what should be included in an introductory text and other authors would structure such a book differently. Even with amendments, there is still a strong influence in the book on the way the introductory subject is taught at RMIT University because the approach has been developed and refined for teaching diverse cohorts of students for more than 15 years. However, the book also aims to go beyond the scope of a single introductory subject and Chapters 13–16 were added for those who may prefer to approach sustainability through a range of contemporary socio- environmental challenges. Hopefully the revised book, and the companion website housed on the Routledge Sustainability Hub, provide flexible resources for teaching sustainability to a wide range of student cohorts. Martin Mulligan April, 2017 Acknowledgements The seed for the first edition of this book was planted when Earthscan/Routledge senior commissioning editor Khanam Virjee visited me at RMIT University in early 2012 to ask if I was working on anything that could be turned into a book proposal. At the time, I had just assumed responsibility for teaching a ‘foundational’ intro- duction to sustainability subject to 300–500 first year students in RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies and I said that it was hard to find suitable introductory texts for such a subject. Khanam said that an extensive Earthscan/ Routledge review of academics teaching sustainability in the UK, North America and Australia had reached the same conclusion and she encouraged me to develop a proposal based on the survey responses. Khanam and production editor Alexandra McGregor backed my proposal enthusiastically and both played active roles in developing the first edition of the book. No author could wish for more support than I received from Khanam and Alex. When Khanam moved to another publishing house, Rebecca Brennan stepped in as a strong advocate for the book and it was Rebecca who proposed a second edition and conducted a survey of academics using the first edition to suggest improvements. Rebecca has conti- nued the outstanding service I have received from Earthscan/Routledge. I must also acknowledge the diligent support I have received from Leila Walker as the editorial assistant and Hannah Ewing as the production editor for this second edition; wonderful! The introductory subject that I took over at RMIT in 2012 had very strong foundations and I acknowledge the work of those who had developed it for nearly ten years before it fell into my hands; they include Ian Thomas, Kathryn Hegarty, Nicole Cook and Cathryn Kriewaldt. Several of the tutors who worked with me in 2012 had taught the subject before I arrived and some were still with me in 2017. I was fortunate to have experienced tutor Anthony Richardson as my Head Tutor in 2012 because he helped me develop ideas for the book; including the development of the composite ‘RMIT Principles’ which serve an important pedagogical role in teaching an introduction to sustainability course to a very wide range of students. Anthony offered a lecture on the topic of ‘Energy and Society’ which became the basis for Chapter 5 in both editions of this book. Others who have helped me in the role of Head Tutor are Laurel Mackenzie, Anne-Lise Ah-Fat and Arley Marks. At the time of writing I had worked with Arley as Head Tutor for three consecutive years and her diligent and creative work on our teaching pedagogy is reflected in changes made for the second edition of the book. At RMIT I must also acknowledge the support I have been given by Professor Jean Hillier, who first asked me to teach the subject, and Professor Robin Goodman in her role as head of the Sustainability and Urban Planning teaching programme xxii Ack no wl edge ment s within the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies. I also received wonderful support from the Dean of the school, Professor David Hayward. I am blessed to be able to work in a supportive and innovative academic environment. Raven Cretney, at RMIT, helped to locate some better photos for the second edition. Because ‘sustainability’ is such a broad-ranging topic it is very hard to know how to best carve it up for an introductory subject. The focus on unsustainable human impacts on global ecosystems means that it is often seen as a matter for environmental scientists, however the introduction course at RMIT is taught to students undertaking study in areas such as social work and psychology as well as environmental sustainability and so the emphasis is on social sustainability as much as environmental sustainability. I wish to acknowledge Professor Stuart Hill, at the University of Western Sydney, for his work in developing the Social Ecology model which also seeks to bring the personal dimensions of sustainability into view. The first 12 chapters of the book reflect the way we choose to teach introduction to sustainability at RMIT University, although I have taken into account feedback on the need to broaden the scope to some extent. Chapters 13–16 focus on the kinds of topics more commonly found in introductory courses on sustainability (as reflected the Earthscan/Routledge survey which underpinned the development of the first edition). I wish to thank my RMIT colleagues Michael Buxton and Melissa Neave for being willing to take the lead in drafting chapters relevant to their fields of expertise whilst Ruth Lane, from Monash University, agreed to take the lead on writing Chapter 16, knowing that she would get little credit for doing so. I appreciate the generosity of Michael, Mel and Ruth for contributing to a book that would be published in my name. My thanks also go to Kelly Winter and the team at Keystroke for their diligent work on the manuscript. Finally, I want to thank my wife and life partner Nelum Buddhadasa for her constant support and inspiration after I decided to pursue an academic career at the age of 43. We have shared so many journeys together, in Australia and Sri Lanka, that it is difficult to even imagine life without her and her very strong moral compass. I have also shared many inspirational journeys with my younger children Indu and Roshan and I want to thank my three children – Will, Indu and Roshan – and my grandchildren – Amelie and Baxter – for their constant inspiration. This book is dedicated to the youngest in my clan – Indu, Roshan, Amelie and Baxter – because your future is foremost in my mind. CHAPTER 1 Introduction AUT HO R’ S IN T R OD U CT I O N When I stepped down as director of RMIT University’s Centre for Global RMIT University Research at the end of 2011, I was invited to take responsibility for teaching an Centre for Global Research was introduction to sustainability course for students enrolled in a wide range of established in 1992, degrees within RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies. It had been initially under the more than ten years since I had taught at undergraduate level and I was rather name Globalism daunted by the prospect of introducing such a complex and contested topic to Institute, to conduct such a diverse array of students, most of them in their very first year of university research on sources study. To make matters worse, I knew that a significant number of the students of insecurity, community resented having to take a course on ‘environmental issues’ when they planned sustainability and careers in human or social services. How could I convince them that sustainability globalisation and is about social wellbeing as much as environmental care and that every person on culture. Earth needs to grapple with the dilemmas of sustainability? How could I convince them that the idea of ‘sustainability’ has not already lost its vitality and relevance? What particular concepts and themes would I select in order to engage the students with the history and enduring relevance of the idea? Fortunately, the course I inherited already had very strong foundations; with a lot of work going into the way it was set up and taught for nearly ten years before it was handed to me. I also inherited a talented team of tutors, most of whom had already worked in the course before my arrival and had figured out ways to make it appeal to diverse cohorts of students. I was confident that I had accumulated enough experience and expertise to add value to what had been done before me. My own career – inside and outside of universities – had taken many twists and turns since I completed an Honours degree in animal ecology at the University of Sydney in the early 1970s. This course gave me a rare opportunity to draw on much of that diverse experience. After completing my first degree I had decided that life as a scientist was not for me and I left university to become a community development worker in several different Australian cities. I returned to university in the early 1990s to complete a Ph.D. in ‘development studies’ – with a thesis focusing on environment and development in Latin America. From there I was able to win a position in the very innovative Social Ecology teaching and research programme at the University of Western Sydney. Ten years later I returned to RMIT University, where I had undertaken my Ph.D., to help build what was then called the Globalism Institute (now Centre for Global Research). For another ten years my research focused on challenges facing local communities in Australia and Sri Lanka in the context of global change. My career path might be called opportunistic rather than premeditated and yet it seemed that I had been preparing myself to teach in the area of environmental and social sustainability for a very long time.  2 Intr o d ucti o n T HE C O N C E P T A S WE N OW K N OW I T In introducing first-year undergraduate students to the concept of sustainability I argue that we can draw hope from the fact that we humans only really began to think about it as a global challenge in the 1970s. The 1987 report prepared by a special United Nations commission headed by three-times Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland – published under the title Our Common Future – drew attention to a growing body of research showing that on a global scale human economic activity had been degrading planetary ecosystems while the majority of people in the world faced worsening conditions for life, often caused by environmental degradation. Reflecting the growth of global awareness that had gathered momentum since the early 1970s, the report argued that we now face ‘interlocking crises’ because ‘the global economy and global ecology’ have been ‘locked … together in new ways’ Brundtland Report (p. 5). The Brundtland Report did not coin the term ‘sustainability’ and nor did it was a report prepared initiate the argument that growing global human impacts on non-human environments for the United Nations cannot be sustained. However, it did give birth to the notion of ‘environmentally by a World Commissionon sustainable development’ and it triggered a series of global gatherings and nego- Environment and tiations aimed at giving substance to this headline concept. In an interview marking Development headed the 20th anniversary of the report which carries her name, Brundland noted that her by Gro Harlem commission could have taken the easy option of making recommendations which Burndtland. It was would have been relatively easy for national governments to adopt.1 Instead they published in 1987 under the title Our decided to highlight challenges which are transnational or global in scale and Common Future. they decided to write a report arguing that sustainability is not a matter to be left to experts or governments because it affects the future of every person living on Planet Earth, and those who are yet to be born. The report argued that sustainable use of the planet’s non-human ‘resources’ cannot be separated from the ongoing need to radically reduce global poverty; i.e. sustainability is about both environment and society. While it argued that much more needs to be done to improve equity of opportunity in the present (intragenerational) we now need to focus on the even bigger challenge of ensuring equity of opportunity for future generations (intergenerational). In the context of human history, 25–30 years is a relatively short time to have been grappling with the challenges of global sustainability. We know much more about the challenges we face than ever before and yet this book will make it clear that the challenges are continuing to escalate rather than abate. This is a rather challenging message to present to first-year university students as they embark on the professional development course they have selected. For that reason, I was determined to infuse my teaching with the conviction that there are still reasons for feeling hopeful about the future of humanity. This book does not shy away from the extent and complexity of the global challenges we face; indeed it seeks to counteract all tendencies towards denial or retreat. It argues that we need to work with the rather perplexing concept of ‘wicked problems’ in order to ensure that action taken in the name of sustainability does not, inadvertently, make things worse. A R GU M E N T S F O R HO P E At the beginning of the course that I teach at RMIT University, I tell the students that we are embarking on a journey together, noting that it may at times feel like  Intr od ucti o n 3 a roller-coaster ride through the ups and downs of hope and despair. Here I refer them to an article I wrote (Mulligan 2008) after a rather challenging journey from Melbourne to Edinburgh which is summarised in the box below. After a series of mishaps along the way I finally enjoyed a relaxing walk around the festive and beautiful city of my apparent destination only to find myself seduced by a thought from the famed Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson which continues to prompt me to remember that journeys are never fully completed and that they always hold the hope of new and exciting discoveries. To travel hopefully … In August 2006 I arrived at Melbourne Airport to catch a flight that would take me to London and on to Edinburgh where I was due to present a paper at an international conference on ‘art and society’. About a week before my departure Heathrow Airport in London had been thrown into prolonged chaos in the wake of credible threats made to use bombs to bring down undisclosed flights to the USA and I found that extraordinary security measures had been imposed on all passengers travelling to or through Heathrow Airport. A ban had been imposed on all cabin bags and the only thing that each passenger could carry on board was a clear plastic bag with passport and documents; even pens were banned to prevent their potential use as weapons. The early symptoms of a head cold that I felt when the plane took off had blossomed into a raging illness by the time the plane landed, some 24 hours later, at Heathrow. Because I had travelled with a set of car keys in my pocket, I was plucked out of the line of passengers wanting transit on to Edinburgh and told that I would need to check out through airport security and re-enter the domestic terminal so that my keys could be given a security clearance. It mattered little because all flights to Edinburgh had been cancelled for the day and no intending passengers – transit or otherwise – could get inside the overcrowded domestic terminal. A security guard told me that I needed to head for an information marquee erected outside the terminal to get information about possible flights to Edinburgh. The marquee was too small to cope with the crowds of people wanting to know if or when they might be able to get on a plane and I was obliged to wait in a very long queue. To make matters worse it started to rain. I stood in the rain, clutching my plastic bag and nursing a heavy head, alongside a woman holding an infant; all of us hoping that we would eventually make it inside the tent. I felt I got a small insight into what it might feel like to be a refugee or asylum seeker, although we were blessed by the presence of some cheerful volunteers from the city and by the some amusing running commentary offered by a Scottish joker in the queue. A sense of great frustration slowly transformed into a palpable feeling of camaraderie as people took time to share stories and boost each other’s spirits. A volunteer took the mother and her family to the head of the queue inside the tent, amid cheers from those alarmed at her plight.  4 Intr o d ucti o n After a night in an expensive Heathrow hotel, I managed to get myself on a flight to Edinburgh although my booked-in luggage would not arrive for more than a week. With only the clothes I was wearing and my small plastic bag I finally arrived at my university accommodation, grateful to see the sun shining for a change. The next day I set out for an exploratory walk Edinburgh’s around a city in a mood to enjoy its annual festival season and high on festival season the hill, before reaching the famed castle, I noticed a sign pointing to a occurs in August rather quaint old stone building that served as the Edinburgh Writers each year when a range of concurrent Centre. In a room dedicated to the work of the celebrated novelist and festivals are held; travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson a quote from his work was prominently perhaps the most displayed, as if designed to catch my attention. It read: ‘To travel hopefully famous being the is better than to arrive.’ Edinburgh Comedy The Stevenson citation spoke directly to my own travel experience Festival. because I learnt to enjoy the journey once I stopped worrying about when, or even if, I would reach my destination. I learnt something about my own resilience and about the capacity of my fellow travellers to act with unusual care towards each other. At a global level, humanity is heading into a period of great uncertainty. No one can really be sure what lies ahead of us. However, we will learn a lot about what we are capable of achieving together if we can learn to travel hopefully. S U CC ESSES A N D FA I L U R ES S I NC E 1 9 8 7 The Brundtland Report began with a section on ‘Successes and Failures’ in meeting ‘the global challenge’. At the time, the failures clearly outnumbered the successes and that continues to be the case. While some manifestations of environmental degradation that were highlighted in the report – such as ‘acid rain’ in Europe – have been effectively mitigated, others – such as deforestation and the accumulation of greenhouse gases caused by the burning of fossil fuels – continue to head in the wrong direction. It was never going to be easy to address challenges which transcend the jurisdictions of national governments, and it is important to note successes as well as failures. A gathering of world leaders in Montreal in 1989 agreed on a protocol aimed at phasing out the use of gases known to be causing the dangerous thinning of the atmosphere’s ozone layer and action on this global problem has had significant success. The Brundtland Report laid the foundations for the very large and energetic Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and its pacesetting Agenda 21 proposals were adopted by many nations. The Rio Earth Summit, in turn, built momentum for the global convention for ‘biological diversity’ and other agreements on combatting the spread of deserts and protecting endangered wetlands. Efforts have been made to establish rules to prevent the degradation of marine environments in ‘international waters’ although these are very hard to enforce. The Rio Earth Summit set wheels in motion for the global summit held in Kyoto in 1997 which aimed to develop an international protocol for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, it is much harder to phase out the use of fossil fuels than to replace the use of  Introducti on 5 the gases which thin the ozone layer, and action on reducing greenhouse gases has been much less successful than phasing out the use of the ozone-depleting gases. Ongoing efforts to reach a global agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions continued to be frustrated by governments prioritising short-term national economic interests until frustrations boiled over at a very disappointing summit held in Copenhagen in 2009. However, the disappointment of Copenhagen stimulated an intensified effort to transcend national differences and the next summit, held in Paris in December 2015, produced much better results. The Brundtland Report’s radical call to put global interests ahead of narrowly conceived national interests is finding some success. Other successes have been racked up at a conceptual level. In particular, English planner, psychologist and sustainability consultant, John Elkington, teased John Elkington out the concept of environmentally sustainable development by introducing the (b. 1949) is an ‘triple bottom line’ model in 1994, suggesting the need to balance economic English planner and psychologist, development policies and practices with equal concern for environmental impacts turned sustainability and social outcomes. This, in turn, led to the very influential ‘three sectors’ model for consultant, who representing the challenges of sustainability (see Figure 1.1). While ecologists have invented the ‘triple long argued that human wellbeing ultimately depends on the effective functioning bottom line’ concept of a host of overlapping ecosystems, the concept of ‘ecosystem services’ has gained in 1994. considerable momentum as a way of representing this within economic and social development policies and practices. While environmentalists worry that many of the Figure 1.1 The ‘triple bottom line’ represented as three overlapping sectors  6 Intro ducti o n ideas associated with the overarching concept of sustainability articulated in the Brundtland Report are very human-centred, there is little doubt that they have put environmental issues onto other policy and practice agendas and they have also encouraged environmentalists to think more deeply about the nexus between human needs and environmental protection. As a representation of key ideas in the Brundland Report, Elkington’s triple bottom line model highlights the need to balance often competing policy and practice agendas in the present. Even more challenging, however, is the call to stretch our thinking way beyond short-term political or policy cycles, or even lifetimes, in order to contemplate the legacy we are creating for the young and those yet to be born. ‘Intergenerational equity’ is, perhaps, a rather bland name for such a radical idea but it is an idea which is hard to ignore, whether you are a policy-maker of simply a parent. WOR K I N G BE TWEE N T HE G LO BA L A ND THE LO CA L Rio Earth Summit (1992) was a The Brundtland Report reflected the growth of global awareness which may have gathering initiated by triggered plans for the impressive ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 the United Nations and this probably represents the high point of global optimism about our capacity Commission on Environment and to successfully meet the challenges of global sustainability while the 2009 Development for Copenhagen summit on climate change may represent a low point, before heads of state, other world leaders decided to act with much more resolution at the follow-up climate representatives of change summit held in Paris at the end of 2015. Of course, we should avoid national governments reading too much into individual events or global developments because action and representatives of a wide range of needs to be both ambitious and sustained to address trends such as those international and reviewed in Chapters 3–5. However, there can be little doubt that the complexities national organisations. associated with global climate change have undermined confidence in humanity’s It attracted around ability to act globally. According to the communiqué that emerged from the 17,000 delegates. Rio+20 gathering held in 2012, global humanity knows what needs to be done Copenhagen and but lacks the ‘political will’ to do what is needed. Paris Climate This book will confirm that global climate change is indeed a ‘wicked problem’ Change summits that cannot be resolved with particular, short-term, responses. Similarly, it will argue (2009 and 2015) that global poverty cannot be easily ‘ended’ and that our growing global dependency were part of a series on oil and other ‘fossil fuels’ is making human societies much more vulnerable to of UN-sponsored global gatherings forms of collapse than we dare to imagine. It is easy for most people in the world aimed at negotiating to think that problems of this magnitude are matters for heads of state and international international agencies and that there is little that individuals can do. This book will agreements to reduce argue that this response is a form of denial because there is much that individuals emissions of can, and should, do. However, we do not encounter and interact with global greenhouse gases. The first conference systems and global change at a global level but rather at the level of daily living in the series was held within localised environments. We encounter local weather rather than the global in Kyoto in 1997. climate; we make daily decisions about our use of energy; and we interact with the global economy – and its global social consequences – in local shops and Rio+20 was held in markets. Rio 20 years later with more delegates The US-based science writer Rachel Carson is widely acknowledged as but fewer heads of being the mother of the modern environmental movement which began in the USA state in attendance. before achieving global reach and significance in the 1970s. Carson died in 1964  Introducti on 7 before witnessing the growth of the movement that she simulated but it was her Rachel Carson cry-from-the-heart book of 1962 – Silent Spring – that made people realise that (1907–64) trained as a zoologist synthetic chemicals sprayed on crops in the USA were capable of killing fish and before becoming birds in remote locations, even outside the borders of the nation. We live in a world editor-in-chief of US in which global communication technologies have largely dissolved old boundaries Fish and Wildlife imposed by space and time; we can be in real-time contact with people anywhere Service publications on the planet. However, we live within local ecosystems where our environmental and a newspaper columnist. Before the impacts begin before spreading through the kinds of ecological flows that were publication of Silent depicted by Carson. We need to understand both the globalisation of social Spring in 1962 her systems – including the economy – and the ways in which ecological flows link main publication was local ecosystems into the biosphere. This book will argue that we need greater The Sea Around Us social and ecological literacy in order to understand the dynamic interrelationships (1952). between the local and the global. ecological flows is a term used in this book to highlight BRINGING I N THE PE RSO N A L the ways in which materials and energy flow through As mentioned above, the ‘triple bottom line’ model introduced by John Elkington ecosystems at all is often represented as a ‘three-sector’ diagram and this representation has been levels for the local to very influential. However, as we will see in Chapters 6 and 9, many scholars have the global. questioned the suggestion that economic policy and practice can serve needs which are somehow outside the domain of social wellbeing and this has prompted biosphere is the term used to refer a move to place economic thinking inside the social sphere. This line of thinking to the zone prompted the development of a ‘Social Ecology’ model of sustainability – used in surrounding the an innovative Social Ecology teaching programme at the University of Western planet in which living Sydney – which shifts economic thinking into the social sphere in order to make organisms can thrive. way for naming the ‘personal’ as a major sphere for acting on sustainability It extends from just below the challenges (see Figure 1.2). surface of the planet There is no need to counterpose the Social Ecology model with the triple to the part of the bottom line model because the latter continues to challenge existing areas of atmosphere which contains sufficient oxygen to sustain life. Figure 1.2 From the prevailing model to the Social Ecology model  8 Intro ducti o n policy and practice, as they are currently conceived. However, the Social Ecology model helps to bring the personal into view and this has strong pedagogical merit. The Social Ecology model underpins the way the introduction to sustainability course is taught at RMIT University and it has a major influence on the way this book is structured. Use of the Social Ecology model has enabled the teaching team at RMIT to focus on both the professional and personal dimensions of sustainability work. This helps to counter the assumption that sustainability is a matter for designated experts. Bringing sustainability back to the personal scale can also help to counter some of the despair we may feel when we contemplate global trends and challenges. There is always something we can do at a personal level, and personal action can lead us into broader forms of social action. At the same time, personal action can only ever be an entry point into the challenges that stretch across scales from the local to the global. Rather than enabling us to keep despair at bay, personal action takes us into the enduring battle between hope and despair, which will be further discussed in Chapters 9 and 10. B U Z ZWORDS A N D KEYWO RDS The concept of ‘environmentally sustainable development’ tends to suggest that we can have our cake and eat it too. This has prompted many reviewers – such as Hayden Washington (2015) – to argue that it has become imperative to distinguish between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ interpretations of what ‘sustainability’ means. There is a danger, such scholars note, that weak interpretations of the concept can turn it into nothing more than benign policy rhetoric. In Chapters 2 and 7 we will discuss the suggestion that the concept of ‘resilience’ may have gained more urgency than the concept of ‘sustainability’. There are plenty of commentators who feel that sustainability has lost its radical, transformational, appeal. However, this book takes a lead from the suggestion made by pioneering keywords is a term cultural theorist Raymond Williams (1976) that particular words become ‘keywords’ introduced by cultural in any language partly because they are open to competing interpretations. theorist Raymond Language can only ever provide entry points into complex human experiences, Williams in 1976 to refer to words in the Williams argued, and ‘keywords’ are those which endure because they signify English language something of enduring importance. The author has noted that Williams picked which have particular ‘community’ as a keyword in English even though it can have almost opposite significance and meanings to different people because the desire to experience community is a enduring appeal. deep human need. This book accepts that ‘sustainability’ and ‘resilience’ have also become keywords – not buzzwords – in English even though they defy simple or one-sided definitions. Because they touch on deep and complex human experiences ‘keywords’ – extended to included phrases – tend to be either used uncritically or contested rather fiercely and this applies to a number of words and phrases associated with debates and discourses on ‘sustainability’. For example: Limits to growth is a term that is gaining rather reluctant support although the two words ‘limits’ and ‘growth’ can both be misleading if they are used simplistically. At the global level the biosphere imposes certain limits to economic growth; limits that are being exceeded in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases. Economic growth and development are often necessary  Introducti on 9 for social wellbeing and even for environmental protection and limits are always context dependent. However, the discourse on limits has called into discourse is a term question the cherished notion that endless growth is the only thing that used to refer to ongoing debates and makes economies function. dialogues on a Diversity is a term that is used uncritically in the sense that it is generally particular topic. assumed to be a good thing without questioning why. Ecologists have long Contributions to a understood that ‘functional diversity’ is needed to make particular ecosystems discourse can take dynamic and adaptable but this is not diversity for its own sake but rather many forms; from academic papers to enough diversity to enhance adaptability. In this sense diversity has functional public commentary value, not just normative value and the same applies to social and and policy cultural diversity. Taken to its extreme, diversity – as in the multiplication of formulations. difference – could undermine interdependence and community. Community is a term that is also used uncritically in the sense that it is assumed to be universal good. However, a community excludes as much as it includes and the functional value of community formation needs to be understood in particular contexts or settings. This book will argue that a sense of belonging to community is no longer a given within contemporary human societies; rather, it needs to be consciously constructed and this, in turn, poses many questions about who is included in, or excluded from, any particular community. Resilience is a term that is gaining popularity because it is widely assumed that it has more substance than the concept of ‘adaptability’. Resilience – generally understood as a capacity to ‘bounce back’ after some kind of disturbance – implies strength as well as adaptability. However, this book will argue that prevailing discourses on ‘risk management’ tend to legitimise risk aversion even though a capacity to cope with risk and uncertainty are key requirements for resilient individuals and resilient systems. R MIT S USTA I N A B ILITY P R IN CIP LES Even though many attempts have been made to support the broad notion of sustainability with a set of guiding principles, Chapters 2 and 6 will make it clear that there is no consensus on this matter in the relevant literature. The Brundtland Report introduced a number of terms and concepts that can be turned into principles and chief among them are the principles of intragenerational and intergenerational equity. The problem in posing a set of ‘guiding principles’ for sustainability is that they might be treated as a rather banal ‘tick-box’ exercise, yet the principles of intragenerational and intergenerational equity defy such banal consideration and they lay the foundation for a more challenging set of guiding principles. In teaching an introduction to sustainability course at RMIT University, the author has found it pedagogically useful to build a set of nine guiding principles around the foundations of intragenerational and intergenerational equity in order to mitigate against any banal interpretation of what is implied. Like ‘keywords’ such ‘guiding principles’ can have enduring significance precisely because they defy simple interpretation. They can serve as enduring guiding principles for personal or professional action because their provocations can never be extinguished  10 Intro ducti o n RMIT Sustainability Principles 1 Acknowledge interconnections at all levels within the biosphere. 2 Acknowledge that there are limits to growth. 3 Remember that prevention is better than cure. 4 Work to improve intragenerational equity. 5 Face up to the challenges of intergenerational equity. 6 Respect requisite diversity in both nature and culture. 7 Work for relocalisation with global connectedness. 8 Move from consumerism to quality-of-life goals. 9 Learn how to travel hopefully in a world of uncertainty. THE S TR U CT U R E O F T HE B OOK Part I of this book reflects the way in which the introduction to sustainability course at RMIT University is run over a period of 12 teaching weeks. Chapters 8–10 Social Ecology reflect the use of the Social Ecology model of sustainability as a teaching model of heuristic. However, there is no simple or obvious way to break the very big topic sustainability of sustainability into a set of smaller topics for separate book chapters and other reworks the ‘triple bottom line/three authors would have used different headings and a different sequence for the way sectors’ model in the material is covered. Chapters 11–16 have been added in response to requests order to bring the made, and feedback offered, by academics running sustainability courses in a wide ‘personal’ into view. It range of universities in a wide range of countries. However, all the chapters aim was introduced into a to be relatively independent so that they can be used selectively and in different Social Ecology teaching programme sequences. There may well be enough material in the book to support more than at the University of one course, especially if the book is used in conjunction with the companion Western Sydney by website. Professor Stuart Hill While the book relies on contributions made by a number of chapter in the late 1990s. co-authors, the selection of topics and the book structure as a whole reflect the author’s personal preferences and preoccupations. This includes the decision to start with the notion of travelling hopefully – as the students begin their shared journey – and end the first sequence of chapters – i.e. Chapter 10 – with a presentation of ‘arguments for hope’. This is not a shallow gesture, because the opportunity to join a global movement for sustainable living is an enticing one. It is often said that humans have a demonstrated capacity to cope well in crisis situations and rise to meet big or unexpected challenges. This will be put to the test in the challenging times that lie ahead but we might learn to focus as much on the journey – and all its emergent possibilities – as much as the destination we hope to reach. NO T E 1 See www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNTw3kyQkyk  Intr od ucti o n 11 R EF E R E NC ES Mulligan, Martin (2008) ‘To Travel Hopefully’, Arena Magazine, no 97, Melbourne, 19–22. Washington, Haydn (2015) Demystifying Sustainability: Towards Real Solutions, Abingdon: Earthscan/Routledge. PART I History, key concepts and operating principles CHAPTER 2 Biography of a concept Key concepts and concerns emergence of global environmental concerns in the 1970s significance of Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring Brundtland Report (1987) defines sustainability Brundtland Report links the environmental and social dimensions intragenerational and intergenerational equity outcomes of Rio Earth Summit of 1992 strengths and weaknesses of global summits building global political will RMIT Principles of Sustainability Gro Harlem Brundtland served three separate terms INTR OD UCTI O N as Norwegian prime minister between The 1987 publication of the report by the United Nations Commission headed by 1981 and 1996. She was in her first term three-times Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland proved to be a when she was asked turning point in giving the word sustainability the meaning it now carries globally. by UNCED to oversee The Brundtland Report did not coin the term ‘sustainability’ and nor was it the the production of the first publication to warn that human impacts were imposing unsustainable landmark report which pressures on planetary ecosystems. However, it presented a concise and was published by Oxford University compelling overview of disturbing global trends and it firmly established the Press in 1987 under principle that the challenge to achieve sustainability involves an interplay between the title Our Common environmental and social factors. It coined the term ‘environmentally sustainable Future. development’ (ESD) and defined this as development which ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their The Brundtland Report is the short needs’.1 For people with a strong concern for protection of the world’s natural name used for a environment this seems like a rather human-centred definition of sustainability, report that emerged however the report introduced the innovative ‘intergenerational equity’ principle in from the work of the order to encourage people to think more deeply about the possible future World Commission on consequences of what they do in the present. Environment and Development that The publication of the Brundtland Report reflected the fact that the UN had was established by taken the lead in contemplating the global dimensions of the sustainability the United Nations in challenge ever since it held a landmark conference in Stockholm in 1972 on the 1983.  16 Hi st ory, ke y co nc ept s and ope rating principle s ‘human environment’ which produced a statement with 26 principles for ensuring wise use of the world’s ‘natural resources’. The convening of Stockholm conference, in turn, reflected the steady growth of global awareness about global ‘limits’ which is often attributed to the fact that people living in the 1960s saw, for the first time, images of our rather lonely looking blue planet taken from circling spaceships. In 1970 an estimated 20 million people had turned out for ‘Earth Day’ rallies in the USA and the global environmental organisations Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were formed in 1971 and 1972 respectively. A number of organisations began to use the word ‘sustainability’ during the 1970s; however the Brundtland Report deserves credit for articulating the concept as we know it today. The Brundtland Report shone a spotlight on the intractable problem of global poverty because it stressed that poor people and poor communities are often most vulnerable to environmental hazards and, at the same time, they lack the resources to implement nature conservation strategies. It is hard to think about environmental wellbeing if you are desperate to access clean water, reliable supplies of food and adequate shelter. Furthermore, long-running regional and civil conflicts – often triggered by competition for resources – make it even harder. While poverty is worst in particular parts of the world, there are pockets of poverty and disadvantage in every country, and a strength of the Brundtland Report was that demonstrated that global environmental sustainability is bound up with the need to radically reduce poverty and disadvantage. The Brundtland Report set in train plans for a series of global gatherings discussed in this chapter and its concept of ‘environmentally sustainable development’ was fleshed triple bottom line out in the influential ‘triple bottom line’ model developed by UK planner and is a way of teasing consultant John Elkington in 1994. While the report was the culmination of a out the key principles lot of earlier work, the decision by the drafting commission to pull no punches articulated in the Brundtland Report in ensured that its publication was a turning point in the evolution of a concept order to highlight the (see Figure 2.1) need to In the history of human thought the concept of sustainability, as we know it counterbalance today, emerged and spread quickly and it is important to keep that in mind economic policies and whenever we worry about the apparent lack of progress in enacting its principles. practices with equal concern for This chapter will briefly review the history of that emergence before turning to environmental and efforts that have been made since 1987 to turn the emerging consciousness into social needs. global agreements for action. The chapter will focus on: John Elkington achievements and limitations of global action; (b. 1949) is a UK planner and the prospects for building a new global movement for sustainability; and psychologist turned efforts to build on principles articulated in the 1987 Brundtland Report consultant who in order to develop a more comprehensive set of sustainability principles. introduced the triple bottom line concept in 1994. EA R LY I N F LUE N CES: SPA CESH I P EA R TH A ND ‘ LIM IT S T O G ROW TH’ The startling colour images of Planet Earth that were sent back from early spaceships showed that our planet is unlike any other in our solar system and gave people a new sense of the vulnerability of the conditions that have made life Figure 2.1 A timeline of key events in the evolution of sustainability thinking  18 Hi st ory, ke y co nc e pts and operating principle s Spaceship Earth possible on our particular floating planet. Richard Buckminster Fuller may have was probably coined coined the term ‘Spaceship Earth’ when he published a book titled Operating by US Ambassador to the UN, Adlai Manual for Spaceship Earth in 1968 although Sharon Beder (2006) also credits Stephenson, in a US Ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stephenson, for popularising the idea that speech given at the our blue planet can be seen as a kind of isolated spaceship with its inbuilt life UN in 1965, shortly support systems, floating in the vastnesss of space and ‘saved from annihilation before he died. It was only … by care and work’.2 The term was subsequently picked up by economist made famous by Kenneth Boulding in Kenneth Boulding in his pioneering work on the economics of sustainability 1966. published in 1966. Kenneth Boulding The prominent historian of western environmental awareness, Donald Worster (1910–93) was born (1994), argues that the seemingly obscure English rural parson and nature lover in England and Gilbert White (1720–93) was responsible for triggering a ‘natural history’ educated at Oxford movement in England and beyond which aimed to increase public concern for the University before taking up US protection of nature. He goes on to suggest that a western ‘Arcadian’ school of citizenship in 1948 to thinking about the need to respect nature can be depicted in the work of writers work as an economist and scholars ranging from William Wordsworth in England to Johann Goethe in at the University of Germany to Henry David Thoreau in the USA. Worster also stresses that Michigan. As well as Charles Darwin’s epic work gave birth to modern western understanding of being a renowned economist he was a ecology which serves to remind humans that our own wellbeing is dependent on peace activist and a the wellbeing of many non-human species and ecological systems. So post- devout Quaker. European Enlightenment thinking about human ‘mastery over’ nature has long Gilbert White been contested by significant schools of environmental thought. However, it is (1720–93) was a widely believed that the 1962 publication of a book by US science writer Rachel rather obscure parson Carson – entitled Silent Spring – sparked an upsurge in ecological awareness; in an unrermarkable thereby giving birth to the ‘modern’ environmental movement (see Photo 2.1 and English village before the publication of his the box on Rachel Carson). lovingly written Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne in 1789. He is widely seen as Emergence of global environmentalism the father of the ‘natural history’ 1 1962: Publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson movement in England 2 1966: Publication of Spaceship Earth by Kenneth Gouding and his work inspired 3 1969: Friends of the Earth formed in USA many people, including a young Charles 4 1970: 20 million people turn out for Earth Day in the USA in 1970 Darwin. 5 1971: International Friends of the Earth established Henry David 6 1972: Greenpeace formed Thoreau 7 1972: UN Conference held in Stockholm, Sweden (1817–62) was 8 1972: Club of Rome Limits to Growth report published a US-based writer and philosopher who was influenced by the European In 1968 an international think-tank established by Italian businessman Aurelio Romantics and by Peccei – the Club of Rome – commissioned a study on the implications of the ‘transcendentalist’ recognising that we live on a finite and ultimately vulnerable planet. This study was school of philosopher undertaken by a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established by his headed by Donella Meadows. Using modelling techniques available to them at mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. A skilled the time, they put forward the argument that the planet’s finite resources ultimately writer and public impose ‘limits to growth’ and their report to the Club of Rome was ultimately speaker, Thoreau published as a book with that name in 1972.  Bi o grap hy o f a c o nc e pt 19 The computer modelling programs and techniques available to Meadows and created an enduring her team were rudimentary and this subsequently allowed critics to say that the body of work on the joys of reconnecting predictions were astray and too alarmist. As Beder notes,3 a key criticism was that with nature. the discovery of new resources and new ways of using resources efficiently were not factored into a model which assumed an absolute limit on resources needed Donella Meadows to meet human needs. The approach taken by Meadows et al. has been dismissed (1941–2001) was a pioneering US as being ‘neo-Mathusian’ in reference to similar predictions about human needs environmental outstripping available resources made by English political economist and scientist who demographer Thomas Malthus in 1798, which proved to be unnecessarily gained her Ph.D. gloomy. However, Meadows et al. responded to the criticisms in a book published in biophysics from to mark the 30th anniversary of Limits to Growth (see Meadows et al. 1972) by Harvard University in 1968. She is best saying that the difficulties involved in trying to predict the future should not detract known as the lead from the underlying argument that population growth and increasing global author of the report consumption will, at some point, outstrip our capacity to find enough resources on entitled Limits to of Planet Earth. Furthermore, they argued that the onset of global climate change Growth which suggests that humanity is already exceeding global limits to growth in ways they analysed global trends in resource could not predict in 1972. use modelled at MIT University in Boston. She later became a leading scholar in Rachel Carson systems thinking. neo-Malthusian When Malthus’s dire predictions of escalating crises did not materialise, he was widely dismissed as an alarmist and the term ‘neo-Malthusian’ was used to dismiss environmental writers of the 1960s and 1970s who raised new concerns about the sustainability of uncurtailed global population growth. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) was a prize-winning classics Photo 2.1 Scientist Rachel Carson (1907–64), appearing before a Senate scholar at Cambridge University before Government Operations subcommittee studying pesticides (4 January taking his orders as 1963). Author of Silent Spring, which established the harm caused to an Anglican priest. He wild animals by the chemical DDT ended his career as a © Everett Collection Historical/Alamy professor of political economy but it was Rachel Carson would not have expected the response that her book Silent his 1798 essay An Essay on the Spring received after it was published in 1962 – and sadly she died, in Principles of 1964, before its full impact could have been known. Written in an Population that has given him enduring  20 Hi st ory, ke y co nc e pts and operating principle s fame. The essay – published six times authoritative scientific voice but with evocative and accessible style, the between 1798 and 1826 – predicted that book showed that the use of inorganic pesticides on crops in the USA was uncurtailed growth in having deleterious effects on birdlife, fish in nearby streams and even for human population marine life in areas where the persistent toxins were entering the oceans. worldwide would Readers of Silent Spring were startled to learn that the most commonly result in widespread and widely used pesticide in US agriculture – DDT – was turning up in the famine, disease and conflict. fatty tissue of penguins in the Antarctic and in the breast milk of lactating US mothers. In her masterful book, Carson had revealed that human action DDT (Dichlorodiph- always has unforeseen ecological consequences and she demonstrated enyltrichloroethane) that inorganic compounds can enter a system of ‘ecological flows’ that is a synthetic begin locally before spreading vast distances. Public concern triggered by compound first produced by Swiss Carson’s book is said to have led to the formation of the US Environmental chemist Paul Muller in Protection Agency in 1970 – the first of its kind in the world – and in the 1939. It was initially same year huge crowds turned out for the celebration of Earth Day in April. used to kill mosquitos No one could predict that Carson would become a significant national carrying malaria and figure when she was born in Pennsylvania in 1907. She graduated from the parasites responsible for the spread of Pennsylvania College for Women in 1922 and in a rare achievement for typhus during the women of her time she gained a Master’s in Zoology in 1932 and began a Second World War, long career working as a federal service scientist in 1936. Fortunately, her before being released supervisors in the US Bureau of Fisheries recognised her writing talent and commercially after the after beginning her writing-for-the-public career by writing radio scripts she war for use in controlling pests in subsequently rose to become editor-in-chief of all US Fish and Wildlife US agriculture. Service publications. She retired from government service in 1952 to become a full-time writer and her first significant book was The Sea Around Us published in that year. Carson also wrote feature articles for the Baltimore Sun and a range of pamphlets and books aimed at children and their parents. Silent Spring captured attention with the shock suggestion that we might be facing future spring mornings without the reassuring sound of bird song. Her manifest passion for the wellbeing of non-human life and her evocative writing style gave her an important place in the history of environmental thought. Carson’s warning that inorganic compounds that humans put into the environment can travel far and wide as a result of ‘ecological flows’ is now reverberating in the ways in which plastic waste is accumulating in ‘garbage patches’ in the Pacific Ocean and showing up in the stomachs of seabirds and marine animals far from human settlements. Even more worrying, perhaps, is the way in which plastic waste is breaking down into ‘microplastic’ particles which are accumulating in global marine environments (www.unep. org/story/plastics-and-microplsatics-in-our-oceans). G L O B A L GAT HE R IN G S F O R G L O BA L A C T I O N The 1972 UN conference in Stockholm not only set in chain the process that led to the establishment of the Brundtland Commission and its influential report of 1987, it also set in chain plans for follow-up global gatherings. The most significant  Bi o graphy of a co nc ept 21 of these was the 1992 ‘Earth Summit’ held in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro. The build-up to the Rio Earth Summit was a very public affair and it became the biggest UN Rio Earth Summit gathering ever held outside New York, with 172 governments represented and (1992) was a UN-sponsored 108 heads of state in attendance. A total of 17,000 delegates participated in the Summit held, rather conference sessions. Many feared that expectations of what could be achieved by controversially, in the this global gathering were unrealistic and there was considerable criticism about Brazilian city of Rio choosing to hold it in a city with some of the worst urban slums in the world and de Janeiro with 108 in a country that was responsible for alarming rates of deforestation in the globally heads of government present to discuss the important Amazon rainforests. However, the Summit did produce some important implications of the outcomes (see box) and most delegates would have left with a heightened sense Brundtland Report. of responsibility and increased optimism about the possibility for global agreements and global action. Achievements of the 1992 Earth Summit Development of a 308-page action plan for environmental sustainable development which bore the name Agenda 21. Although this was a non-binding summit outcome, it was soon endorsed by 178 nations and that number eventually reached 197. Development of a supplement to Agenda 21 – entitled Local Agenda 21 – aimed at devolving responsibilities for ESD to sub-national levels of government, putting this matter on the agenda for local government for the first time. Adoption of a Climate Change Convention which set in train plans for a binding protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions which was brought to a special-purpose conference held in Kyoto in 1997. Development of a UN Convention of Biological Diversity which became a binding international treaty signed by 193 nations in December 1993. Establishment of a Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded by ‘developed nations’ to support ESD initiatives in ‘developing nations’. Local residents of Rio were excluded from many parts of the city to make way for the influx of international visitors and it is rather poignant to think that people living Rio+20 (2012) was in the city’s massive slums – known in Brazil as favelas – watched on as tens of a UN-sponsored thousands of conference attendees held their meetings (see Photo 2.2). This Summit held to mark the 20th anniversary symbolises the fact that the poor of the world have little choice but to watch and of the 1992 Earth wait for meaningful global action on the related problems of environmental Summit. It had degradation and entrenched poverty. more government The relative success of the Earth Summit created a strong appetite for further representatives global gatherings hosted by the UN and many were held – with limited success – but fewer heads of government present in the period leading up to a return to Rio for an event known as Rio+20 in 2012. than the 1992 Rio+20 had even more participants than the original Earth Summit; with an Summit and released estimated 45,000 conference-goers. However, it did not set in train any new global a call to arms titled initiatives and an earlier promise to set up a new global fund of $US30 billion to The Future We Want. 22 Hi st ory, ke y co nc e pts and operating principle s Photo 2.2 The poor are watching! Some of the biggest slums in the world surround the CBD in Rio De Janeiro, where leaders gathered for 1992 Earth Summit Photo by Alicia Nijdam (Wikimedia Commons) help developing nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions was dropped, essentially because key European governments argued that the combined effects of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–9 and ongoing economic woes within the European Union had undermined their capacity to contribute to such a fund. Furthermore, while there may have been more people at the 2012 summit than for 1992 and even more governments represented (192), only 57 heads of state were in attendance (compared to 108). Key western leaders – including the US president, German chancellor and the British prime minister – were absent. The summit produced a call to action – under the title The Future We Want – with a total of 283 ‘commitments’ to be considered. Like Agenda 21, this is a non-binding summit outcome, yet the critics suggested it did not contain anything new or innovative. However, the failings of Rio+20 were at least partially offset by the fact that host nation Brazil – with a more ‘progressive’ government than it had in 1992 – was able to play a big role in ensuring that The Future We Want contains some fairly sharp criticisms of the lack of progress made since the 1992 Earth Summit. Other rapidly developing nations, such as China and India, also played a more significant role in this summit; perhaps confirming a shift in global leadership on the question of sustainability. Summit documents like The Future We Want have to use cautious language to attract wide endorsement. Yet it suggested that there had been ‘areas of insufficient progress or setbacks’ since 1992 and that the time had come to ‘reinvigorate political will’ for acting on international agreements and action plans. Arguably, the relative success of the 1992 Earth Summit set unrealistic expectations for what might come out of big global gatherings because  Bi o grap hy o f a c o nc e pt 23 little can be achieved without a quantum shift in political will to take on big and ozone hole refers to seemingly intractable challenges. the annual thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica was first reported in a scientific S UCC ESSES A N D FA ILU R ES AT A paper in the journal GL O B AL L EVE L Nature in May 1985 and concern quickly arose that the ‘hole’ The optimism that infused the 1992 Earth Summit and its outcomes can be at was getting least partially attributed to the fact that global political leaders managed to incrementally negotiate a fairly successful ‘protocol’ for phasing out the use of ‘aerosol’ gases larger each year. that were blamed for thinning the atmosphere’s ‘ozone layer’, which screens out Chlorofluorocarbons harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. Concerns about ozone thinning were (CFCs) stay in the upper atmosphere sparked by a scientific study published in 1985 which suggested that an annual for a long time so it ‘hole’ in the ozone layer over Antarctica was getting bigger and that periodic is hard to monitor holes were also appearing over the North Pole. The study suggested that the effectiveness chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) gases being used commonly in aerosol sprays were of the CFC ban. contributing to ozone thinning because they break down under UV radiation to How