THE SUSTAINABILITY DILEMMA

HISTORIC BACKGROUND:

Let us now examine how the current situation developed to the point where we may be facing extremely serious problems.

During the past ten millennia, human civilisation developed a multitude of activities starting from the combination of

• a shift from a lifestyle based on hunting/gathering and itinerant sparse agriculture and herding to a more settled way of life, implying location-specific cattle raising and irrigated agriculture, and in which social communities became larger and more structured.
• the birth of a new concept, that of ownership of the land and of the water and from there, the development of conflicts among people at the end of which the strongest had secured control on more land and water than the others.
• the establishment in some of these stabilised agricultural societies of an authoritarian mode of government, with a hierarchical organisation of society, with a power at the top, allegedly stemming from divine mandates

It took several millennia for this new set of values, organisation and civilisation to take control of the land and the water over the entire planet, and to destroy of subjugate most of the remaining hunter/gatherers. Meanwhile conflict among leaders in the human hierarchy for power and ownership of peoples and resources intensified and systematised. Technologies related to the winning of those conflicts took a much more important proportion of human ingenuity and management means than those dedicated to the use of natural resources for the betterment of lifestyles.

Also, humans grew in numbers and occupied increasing portions of the space available, pushing out concurrent human communities and other living species often to full elimination of human cultures and extinction of species.

The take-over was nearly complete at the beginning of this century, with only a few pockets remaining of the original civilisation of hunters and gatherers, and a good number of living organisms already eliminated.

Some two hundred and fifty years ago, after a relatively slow human spreading across the planet, self-expanding technical and societal changes triggered a rapidly accelerating take-over of everything on Earth. An abrupt change in the compounded rates of human growth started mostly in Western Europe among a Caucasian population living in highly hierarchised and conflictual States. Growth was slower in the other parts of the world, but caught up rather fast when the Western hierarchised undertook to control the world and to overflow into what they saw as empty territories. These societies, being impregnated by a philosophy of similarly hierarchised monotheistic religion which presented Man as created at the image of God, and in charge of all of Nature exported also their conceptual model.

The acceleration of western dominance on the planet was generally presented as civilisational progress. Accompanying waste and destruction were written off as unavoidable, or simply ignored. Yet, as this Western supremacy keeps on expanding, and as it reaches now a point where there is no "new frontier" to open, and there are some indications that the adverse destructive effects of the process may exceed the beneficial ones, even for those who initiate and direct it. Our species is running out of space on earth and perhaps consuming, wasting and destroying more than the ecosphere can support in continuity. If we add to this statement the fact that the distribution of costs, charges and benefits is very uneven among humans, the resulting image can only be that of a worrying and worsening imbalance.

It looks like the human species has reached and is exceeding the load it can safely impose on the ecosphere without causing serious consequences and often damaging its natural context beyond repair.

ARE WE, HUMANS, OVERLOADING THE PLANET?

Suddenly, we are faced with many signs that would suggest that the world may be overloaded and that we are the reason for the overload. Quite naturally, we cannot believe it.

This is the more difficult for us, especially in the affluent parts of the world, that life more or less continues as before. It certainly has deteriorated a little since the early seventies, but all in all, the majority of people still live conveniently. Those who did not manage to keep up have disappeared. They are dead, or marginalised and forgotten.

The confusion starts here. In their communications to the world, learned scientists, economists, seasoned politicians and committed members of the clergy of many religions contradict one another on the subject.

Some propose reassuringly that there is no reason to worry, that there are ample resources and considerable space left. Also, according to them, our species has a good track record of resolving apparently impossible issues.

Others are warning that yes, we are running out of space, taking far more than a reasonable share of the Earth's resources, destroying too many forms of life and putting too many natural settings into shambles. They also spell doubts about our ability to deal successfully with the issues they call critical.

The first side has the advantage of past experience. Until now, the collapse has not happened, in spite of repeated and sometimes solidly founded warnings, which started with the Reverend Thomas Malthus at the end of the eighteen century. The second tries to look forward into the future, rather than basing predictions on the reassuring fact that the threat has not materialised yet, and of course, as they tend to ignore the resilience of our species and of its context, until now, they have been wrong. Or have they? Would it not that the collapse is under way, but at a wider time scale which does not correspond to our usual ways of monitoring things?

Both sides come to the table with impressive figures, each "proving" their point and "showing" the other side wrong. On each side, there also are value judgements and implications of guilt of the other side.

Indeed, the data is insufficient to prove anything one way or the other without possibility of contradiction. To each "proof" provided on either side, counter-arguments were produced. The result was general confusion. The issue soon became unreal in the eyes of the public. It also ceased to be perceived by the decision-makers: by convincing the public that it was unreal, they may well have convinced themselves also... The usual preoccupation's of economic growth, protection of social, educational, health and other services, much more concrete, tangible and immediate, resumed their predominance on the public and private agendas.

In our affluent parts of the world, the risks stemming from the probable fact that we exceed the carrying capacity of our natural context lost the place it had held in the limelight of public concerns. They were replaced by social concerns, fear of unemployment, and other worries, all solidly entrenched in the current socio-economic system and not disputing its premises.

The economy keeps on, following a hardly amended course. The public discourse still insists on the necessity of growth, competition, resumption of full employment, etc. There is still some mention of sustainable development and of the environment, but no perception of what it really means, and no sense of urgency. In the parts of the world where quality of life and affluence are ways below ours, the main concern is immediate survival for the poor.

However, the findings of scientists and other professionals who follow the evolution of the interaction between humans and nature, seem to show that the issue is very serious, needs to be addressed now, and that our civilisation is not on the way to a solution. The situation is not any better than when the World Commission on Environment and Development raised the alarm. It probably is worse.

Yet, the threat is not part of current political discourse, and the action does not follow on the recommendations of the World Commission, except in words, from time to time.

STATEMENT OF DILEMMA

At the National Centre for Sustainability, we think that one of the main reasons why most politicians, economists, financiers, managers and technicians in affluent parts of the world set aside or ignore the issues relative to our collective non-sustainability is that these issues do not fit with the teachings of the past. Another reason is that in their immediate natural context, they feel protected and perhaps immune to the effects of the stress. Also, they shun the issues because they perceive, rightly or not, that their situation would be put into serious question if they started seriously to consider the issue of non-susatinability of the planet under current human load.

These are strong reasons for inaction. They are compounded also by a philosophy of life which can be summed up by the following sentence: If something can be done to improve your personal wealth and power, do it, regardless of all other considerations.

The result is that there has been among these people, next to no perception that it would be necessary and urgent to undertake as a global priority an in-depth research and reflection relative to the risks inherent to the current evolution of interactions among human activities and of their combined impact on nature. The official policy is based on fundamental incredulity. It focuses on a call for more evidence that the situation is critical, while some moderate remedial measures are carried out quietly, besides an intense pursuit of classical objectives, and ignores the pressing recommendations made by the World Commission in 1987 toward a full corrective and preventive action.

Waiting for proof of the risk is not a sound attitude. The dilemma is not about who is right and who is wrong. The issue is not the justification of one position or another about the likely saturation of the planet and over-exploitation of its resources by our species.

We, at the NCFS, see the issue as pertaining to risk management, not search for truth. The lead sentence should be, instead of the one stated above: If you are happy and sufficently well-off, why should you try to get more and increase your wealth and power, as long as others are unhappy and underfed, especially if the resulting activities exceed the human and natural resilience of the entire system?

The dilemma, then, can be formulated as follows:

1. Reality can be anywhere between two extreme sets of conditions:

• At one end of the conceptual range, the universe is infinite and its raw materials and energy are entrusted to the ownership of the human species under the control and leadership of the strongest individuals. The civilization developed by that species (ours) has the power to replace any depleted resource or find alternate sources of supply. It can also correct adequately any ecological damage which we might impose on the ecosphere, before it is irreversible.

There still is, in that world, ample space and resources available and adequate time to deal with the unavoidable irregularities in an otherwise technically sound pattern of resource use and land and water appropriation.

• At the other end of the conceptual range, the planet could be the ultimate limit of our species' practical acess. The Earth receives an annually constant flow of energy from outer space. It is finite in shape and size. It is therefore thermodynamically a closed system. Whatever is done to slow down the trend, entropy keeps on increasing, slowly, but surely.

Nothing in human track record proves that its ingenuity and management skills are infinite and that human inputs can replace natural inputs to cope adequately with resource depletion and ecological damage.

On the planet, the human species, one among millions of living species, has carved a space of such a size that it eliminates a growing number of lifeforms, and threatens many others. Its most powerful members ignore that some of these lifeforms may be essential to our species' own existence. Nothing in human track record proves that its ingenuity and management skills will be sufficient to cope with resource depletion and ecological damage.

• Therefore, there does not seems to be, in this closed system, any significant space left for the free expansionist economic path followed until now.

2. The dilemma is therefore to choose, between the two extremes, an image of what would correspond as closely as possible to reality, and to use it as a foundation for the strategies shaping the future of our species.

However, the information available on all variables affecting the evolution of the inter-effects of human communities on one another and the relations between humans and their ecological context is not sufficient for anybody to be certain of anything else than that the most optimistic assumption is probably not verified.

Some of the data available indicates that for all humans living now to enjoy a North American lifestyle, three planets Earth would be necessary. With projected population and consumption growth, by 2050, we would need somewhere between 11 and 15 planets. Other data show that by 2025, at current rate, we would demand from the Sun an impossible fraction of its power to create life on Earth. The same data shows that we use only a small fraction of the total of what we take. The rest is waste or destruction. This would leave room to adjust. We probably could clean the house if we wanted to.

On the other side, similarly qualified scientists and professionals dispute the data in question and come with other, contradictory information. These other sets of data may not be as solidly founded as the first set, but they are widely broadcast in offical media and education systems.

The result can only be doubt and confusion. There is therefore a wide diversity of opinions about what people consider the true situation and a basis for their strategies.

The public and private decision-makers and managers of Society and most other parties involved in the production and consumption of goods and services provided by the current socio-economic system have chosen to base their strategies on assumption that reality corresponds to the first option proposed above: an infinity of resources, owned by our species, and, in our species, an infinity of ingenuity and ability to manage the unforeseen. Their lead phrase is also the ambitious: "if you can do something to increase your wealth and power, do it, regardless of all other considerations" The result is a strategy of Sustainable development in a neo-liberal economic model of globalization.

Given the uncertainties about reality and the nature, intensity and apparent imminence of the threat, we, at the NCFS, systematically start from the assumption that the situation corresponds to the most pessimistic envisageable. We also assume that our civilisation probably still has the means to prevent the threat of collapse. We decided that trying to define which one corresponds to the true reality and looking for proof of that "truth" is, in our opinion, a waste of time and energy and contrary to the basic principles of risk management. A preventive risk assessment would be more to the point as a risk can only be proven when it materialises. Our choice is summarised in what we call the Sustainability Syllogism.

We chose to resolve the dilemma by assuming the worst and planning for the best possible set of social, economic and ecological strategies and policies which would be:

1. technically and humanly possible, democratic and socially just, and
2. for which the risk would be reduced to an affordable cost of prevention and repairs of damages already incurred (in capital and all other relevant non-monetary values, including destruction, death and suffering).

This is the reason for and the starting point in our search for what is needed to develop a Complementary Strategy toward Sustainability.

This explains also why we are resolutely engaged on a path of education toward deep-sustainability.

We aim at reaching sufficiently soon a point in public awareness, understanding and knowledge will be such that even the architects of the neo-liberal economy with a marginal coat of sustainable development will recognise that their action is inadequate and even dangerous to themselves, and that they need to change course and join forces with those who opposed their drive toward homogenisation of the species at its lowest possible denominator without considering that the world could be full. The alternative is too frightening to be considered.