SUSTAINABILITY

 What Is Sustainability & How Do We Get There? 

  by Brian Kermath                                                                                 References               Links

Although the essential conceptual elements of the "sustainability" idea have been around for a long time, the term in its present context did not become a significant item of academic discourse across a range of disciplines until the 1980s following a few seminal publications, and it did not become popularized until a decade later after the release of Our Common Future by the WCED in 1987.¹  Since then, a veritable flood of publications has defined, redefined, and scrutinized the idea and applied it to most human endeavors.²  Although its charge is undeniably needed for forging a quality and durable future and comes with nearly universal appeal, some commentators have argued that sustainability is conceptually too vague to have much practical value.³  Others have suggested that the idea became so diluted and misapplied as to be meaningless in most forums.⁴

Yet despite the many misinterpretations of what sustainability is, widespread cooption of the term, and countless questionable claims of praxis,⁵ the concept has historical and theoretical foundations from which it grew that are only now beginning to solidify into a defined science.⁶  Here, it is important to note that sustainability does not simply involve attaching the broad meaning of the root word "sustain" to a free-for-all of any and all human activities (despite being done with regularity), nor does it necessarily mean maintaining the status quo in perpetuity; instead, it has antecedents that place it in a fairly clear and definite context. Indeed, calls for sustainability grew out of a need for real change — out of concerns that economic growth-based development efforts were performing poorly in meeting human needs and improving human welfare in many regions,⁷ while simultaneously depleting resources rapidly, degrading the environment, pushing environmental thresholds in unprecedented ways, and compromising ambitious nature conservation efforts.⁸

Thus, sustainability can be articulated with methodological and scientific rigor making it credible and useful for analyzing and managing human activities, especially as they relate to nature, resources, and development. Moreover, the importance of the doctrine's timeliness and urgency should be underscored given a number of undeniable challenges we face including tremendous and growing population pressure, huge and mounting socioeconomic disparities, and increasing human-induced environmental degradation including global-scale changes. The culmination of all of this is that we are now for the first time in our occupation of the planet capable of and already pushing many complex and interconnected global biogeochemical thresholds to their breaking points.

* * *

In the present context, sustainability represents an idealized societal state where people live long, dignified, comfortable, and productive lives, satisfying their needs in environmentally sound and socially just ways so as to not compromise the ability of other human beings from doing the same now and into the distant future. It is, in effect, an attempt to merge development and nature conservation efforts in a mutually beneficial way for the common good of the planet’s present and future generations alike. In practice, achieving sustainability occurs through the process of sustainable development —  discovering, adopting, implementing, establishing, and adjusting appropriate institutions, policies, strategies, and technologies to produce a just transition that moves society toward the envisioned idealized state of existence. Democracy is often viewed in the same way, as a process of working toward the ideal.

In the case of sustainability, the ideal consists of the simultaneous establishment of the two spatially and temporally essential and universal conditions — "environmental integrity" and "social justice" — that must be maintained over the long haul.

"Environmental integrity" refers to the ability of the whole environment to function as naturally as possible and to do so without compromising the ability of the ecosphere from supporting all life forms on the planet and to maintain its inherent evolutionary potential. To maintain environmental integrity societies must:

• work with Earth's components, connections, and complexities to design human systems that function as parts of living landscapes that stress adaptability, efficiency, harmony, regeneration, resiliency, and sufficiency, and mimic natural patterns, processes, and rhythms;⁹

• design human systems for efficiency, so that the sum of their outputs ideally is equal to, or even greater than the sum of the inputs required to construct and maintain them, especially as related to embodied energy or emergy;¹⁰

• consume resources conservatively and efficiently;

• consider the optimal values of resources, the most efficient use of resources, time frames for the substitution of nonrenewable resources with alternative resources, the potential alternative uses of resources, the potential values to future generations of nonrenewable resources, and the phenomenon of resource supply curves (as with peak oil);

• use renewable resources no faster than they can be renewed and in a way that does no harm to human populations and Earth's life-giving systems, the latter of which have no substitutes and little market value in the current economy;

• maximize their reliance on clean renewable energy;

• diligently observe the "Rs of resource use" including rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle; [HERE for more "Rs of resource use"]

• consider historically viewed wastes as resources to the extent possible, but also to discharge them — to the extent that they must be discharged — slower than they can be absorbed by the environment and in a way that does no harm to human populations or Earth's life-giving systems;

• strive to eliminate the production and use of toxins, especially those that are not rendered benign by the environment in short order;

• extract ecosystem products, as in agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, without a net loss of natural capital;

• encourage resiliency and fitness, in both human and natural systems, by favoring regenerative, heterogeneous, and complex landscape mosaics over homogeneity and simplicity;

• favor polycultures over monocultures and consider perennial plants over annuals in biological production systems to the extent possible;¹¹

• protect biodiversity at all levels (i.e., ecological, genetic, and species) and ensure the ecosphere's evolutionary potential;

• restore degraded environments to the extent possible through management techniques or by establishing conditions conducive for nature's restorative processes to function.

"Social justice" refers to the fair and equitable access to, and distribution of essential resources and power, fairly applied laws and regulations, and the guaranteed opportunity for all individuals and communities to contribute to the pursuit of meeting human needs, improving the human condition, fully realizing human potentials for everyone in safe and clean environments, and to receive an adequate and fair return on their investments of capital, creativity, labor, and time.

Notice that I identify two essential and universal sustainability conditions — environmental integrity and social justice — in contrast to the many authors who variably include other system components like economic viability, institutions, social capital, and technology. Although these and other components are undeniably important to make sustainability a reality, I argue that social justice and environmental integrity are the real objectives of sustainability, whereas the other system elements are merely means to those ends. Moreover, the importance of the other attributes and how they function may vary widely over time and space and may even be theoretically irrelevant under certain conditions.

From an ecologically-centered (ecocentric), or biologically-centered (biocentric), perspective, environmental integrity is often viewed as sustainability's single most critical element. It can be argued that all else depends on a healthy environment or conversely that nothing else matters if the planet can no longer support life. From an anthropocentric perspective, however, it can be argued that social justice is sustainability's only essential condition. Even environmental integrity can be viewed through the social justice lens; for example, environmental degradation that occurs as a result of someone's negligence, narrowly-focused interest, or short-term gain often unfairly negatively impacts other people somewhere at sometime.

As to economic viability, the arguments for including it in the contemporary context are straight forward and not without merit. After all, who would promote an economic activity that could not be viable? It is possible, however, to include economic viability as an element of social justice/equity. For example, economic failure may be seen as a function of a range of inequities including unfair access to information, resources, technologies, incentives, and/or markets.

Beyond that, the economic leg is often discussed in the context of the triple bottom line (3BL), which combines measures of a business' environmental and social performance with those of profit and loss to evaluate success. The obvious attractiveness of the 3BL concept as a sustainability measure within the capitalist system not withstanding, the idea has been challenged for several reasons having to do in part with the inherent difficulties in measuring environmental and social variables compared to conventional profit and loss indicators. Moreover, some authorities view unrestrained capitalism itself with its growth imperative as unsustainable over the long-term in a finite world.¹²  Others characterize the transfer of the burden to deal with externalities to consumers and suppliers as a function of neoliberal policies.¹³  Alternative economic paradigms would internalize such costs through full-cost accounting mechanisms, thereby eliminating the need to turn 'responsibility' over to companies and consumers, which results in part in a system with a minority of elite conscious consumers and much talk about corporate responsibility and sustainability, but little action other than lip service, posturing, tokenism, greenwashing, and distortion.¹⁴

It should also be noted that for most of human existence, people subsisted without cash economies, and even in some places today groups survive largely beyond the greater cash economies. Of course, the logic of including economic viability in the modern capitalist context is obvious and I do include it along with other system components — e.g., political and cultural — that may be treated in similar theoretical frameworks as secondary components of the modern system. But again, economic viability is merely a means to an end within the concept of sustainability.

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Difficult though it has been to accurately disseminate sustainability's history and meaning,¹⁵ it has been far more difficult to implement, and few enduring examples of its complete embodiment exist, despite the many dwindling remnants of marginalized indigenous societies, many of which are associated with sustainable ideals,¹⁶ and the countless recent initiatives that show promise. Although numerous factors impede sustainability's march, chief among them is the reality that all landscapes have been shaped by complex and committed constituencies — both internal and external to them — that do not defect easily to new visions without assurances that a change of course would bring them more gains than losses.

Moreover, the policies, institutions, and physical infrastructures that have grown from their vested interests and sunk costs,¹⁷ and the structural realities of the larger political economies that govern and impact them, distort the human system, often standing as "systemic limits" (or limits imposed on the current system by past decisions). An example here would include the byproducts of colonial mercantilism and neoclassical economics that are now manifest in neoliberalism at the international/national scale and clientelism at the regional/local scale, along with widespread corruption.¹⁸  These structural realities obstruct or otherwise impair the necessary processes of change and either permit and/or encourage and indeed reward unsustainable activities to persist that would not be viable in a truly sustainable system.¹⁹

• strives to engage, enlighten, empower, and include all community members/stakeholders and builds local capacity, participation, and human and social capital for posterity, while also recognizing the importance of influential leaders and powerful individuals;²⁹

• encourages experiential learning, life-long learning, service learning, shared learning, and transformative learning, in addition to conventional forms of education;³⁰

  promotes community-based production, consumption, organization, learning, decision making, governance, and investing, while also understanding the importance of more distant connections;

• seeks to open the blinders and correct the myopia that derive from the bounded rationality and cultural inertia that characterize all societies, and in so doing strives to avoid and/or eliminate human-induced systemic limits, problem denial, and social traps;³¹

• addresses the misguided arguments that have contributed to the concept's cooption and misunderstanding;³²

• recognizes that although humanity's field of possibilities is infinite on some levels, not all things are possible, and that all human realities represent only subsets of what could have been and what could be;

• celebrates and values biological and cultural diversity and natural and cultural heritage and cultivates a sense-of-place that is deeply rooted in both cultural and natural heritage;³³

• develops and employs appropriate technologies and stresses adaptability, durability, effectiveness, efficiency, and simplicity;

• recognizes that current consumption patterns must change and so encourages critical, or conscious consumption that stresses efficiency, ethics, fairness, functionality, purpose, responsibility, and simplicity, and considers the sequence factor of all inputs in the production and distribution paths in the life cycle of all goods and services;

• works estimates of natural capital — including ecosystem services (HERE & HERE) — and historically externalized costs (or externalities) into full-cost accounting procedures and fixes development policies (e.g., grants, loans, and debt), discount rates, subsidies, taxes, and trade policies to reflect its values;

• in seeking to eliminate poverty, recognizes that economic growth does not necessarily correlate positively with human welfare,³⁴ and thus measures progress broadly on quality of life and well-being for all, rather than narrowly on economic growth rates and per capita incomes.

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Endnotes

 ¹ Some of the early seminal publications around 1980 include Allen (1980), Catton (1980), Coomer (1979), Brown (1981), and IUCN (1980).

         For older references that articulate some of sustainability's many ideas see Barnett & Morse (1963), Brown (1954), Carson (1962), Commoner (1971), Cottrell (1955), Cunha (1902), Daly (1973), Dasmann (1965), Dasmann et al. (1973), Detwyler (1971), Ehrlich (1968), Ehrlich et al. (1971), Farvar and Milton (1972), Forrester (1973), Freire (1970), Goldsmith (1978), Goodland et al. (1978), Gordon (1954, 1958), Hall (1978), Hardin (1968, 1974), Illich (1974), Leopold (1949), Lovins (1977), Malthus (1798, 1826), Marsh (1864), Meadows et al. (1972), Meggers (1971), McHarg (1971), Miller (1978), Mishan (1971, 1977), Muir (1911), Myers (1979), Myrdal (1957, 1968), Odum (1971), Osborn (1948), Page (1977), Saches (1974), Sauer (1938, 1956), Schumacher (1973), Shepard (1967), Smith (1919, 1929), Sweet (1974), Thomas (1956), Thoreau (1854, 1864), Udall (1963), Vogt (1948), White (1936, 1942, 1962), White (1968), Wilkes (1972), Wood & Schmink (1978), and Yapa (1979).

        Although connected more to environmental issues, the first Earth Day in the U.S. took place in 1970. The broader idea then appeared as a central theme of a special issue of The Ecologist in 1972 (Ecologist 1972) and at the United Nations' Conference on the Human Environment also in 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. <<return to text

 ² See for example Molnar et al. (2001).

 ³ For a range of critical discussions and definitions of sustainability see Allen (1993), Baker et al. (1997), Barbier et al. (1991), Beder (1994), Brown et al. (1987), Cairns (2004a, 2004b), Caldwell (1984), Carley & Christie (2000), Chichilnisky (1997), DiLorenzo (1993), Ekins (1989), Esty (2001), Gatto (1995), Goodland and Ledec (1987), Graaf et al. (1996), Hediger (2000), Heyes & Liston-Heyes (1995), Holdren et al. (1995), Hornborg (2003), Korten (1992, 1996), Lélé (1991), Miller (1990), Mitcham (1995), Ponting (1990), Redclift (1987, 1991), Rees (1998), Sachs (1991), Tisdell (1988), and Williams (1998).

         Lists of definitions online are available HERE, HERE, & HERE. <<return to text

 ⁴ See Bruno (2002), Bruno & Karliner (2002), Hecht & Cockburn (1992), Hunter (1997), and Willers (1994).

 ⁵ Some of the misunderstanding stems from the definitional ambiguity that is common when single terms represent complex ideas and from the concept's youthfulness. For a brief discussion of cooption see Beder (1994).

 ⁶ For accounts of the historical development of the concept see Allen (1980), Cohen (2006), Lee (2000), Martens (2006), Miller (1978), and Ponting (1990).

         For discussions on sustainability science see Capra (2002, 2004), Cash et al. (2003), Clark (2007), Clark et al. (2005), Clark & Dickson (2003), Clark & Munn (1986), Goodland & Daly (1996), Kates et al. (2001), Kates et al. (2005), Palmer et al. (2005), Reitan (2005), Sayer & Campbell (2004), Schellnhuber et al. (2004), Schellnhuber & Wenzel (1998), and Turner et al. (2003a).

         Note too that the National Academies have established a Science and Technology for Sustainability Program (STS) "to encourage the use of science and technology to achieve long term sustainable development," and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences now includes sustainability as a topic among more traditional academic themes (see PNAS). Numerous peer-reviewed academic journals with a sustainability focus also have emerged including:

     - Ecology and Society: A Journal of Integrative Science for Resilience & Sustainability,

     - Environment, Development, and Sustainability,

     - International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education,

     - International Journal of Sustainable Development,

     - Journal of Cleaner Production,

     - Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy,

     - Virtual Journal of Environmental Sustainability. <<return to text

 ⁷  Where development may be defined as a process of expanding people's choices, the most critical of which afford them greater opportunities for living long, healthy lives, becoming educated, and gaining access to the resources necessary for realizing a decent standard of living, and where development efforts at a minimum create conditions conducive for individuals and communities to develop their full potentials and to have reasonable chances of leading long, creative, productive, and fulfilling lives in accordance with their aspirations and abilities (adapted from UNDP 1990:10). <<return to text

 ⁸ The literature presents ample evidence dating back several decades and numerous credible warnings to the world have been sounded including:

• The Club of Rome's prediction in the early 1970s that a global population overshoot would take place during the 21^st century with serious repercussions for humans, if the trends of the period were to continue (Meadows et al. 1972, 2004).

• In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987) warned that we must begin living sustainably to avoid future resource shortages.

• Also in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed to legislate a phase out of a group of halogenated hydrocarbons that contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion "in a manner that is likely to result in adverse effects on human health and the environment."

• In 1992 about 1,700 renowned scientists signed the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, which cautions that we are pushing the planet's ability to support "life in the manner that we know" and in 1997 some 1,500 scientists signed the World Scientists' Call for Action (Union of Concerned Scientists 1992, 1997).

• Also in 1992, the Royal Society of London and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a joint declaration entitled "Population Growth, Resource Consumption, and a Sustainable World," which stated that "The future of our planet is in the balance. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time. The next 30 years may be crucial."

• In 1993, 58 science academies from around the world jointly declared that we are approaching a crisis with respect to the interconnected issues of population, natural resources, and sustainability at the Population Summit of the World's Scientific Academies (NAS 1993:13).

• The Ecological Society of America (ESA 1994) at its 1994 annual meeting, stated that "Attempting to provide an ever increasing number of people with a reasonable standard of living is certain to fail and to result in degradation of the Earth's renewable and nonrenewable resources."

• In 1997 a majority of the leaders of the world's countries met in Kyoto, Japan and adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which acknowledges that human induced global warming is real and countries must act to reverse the trend of climate change through the anthropogenic enrichment of atmospheric greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (C0₂) from the burning of fossil fuels.

• In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) published its finding on climate change: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policy Makers.

         For compelling accounts on our plight and the reasons for it see Adam (1998), Allen (1980), Bazzaz (1998), Brown (2005, 2006), Cracraft & Grifo (1999), CEC (2001), Commoner (1990), Diamond (2005), Ehrlich & Ehrlich (1981, 1996, 2004), Fowler & Mooney (1990), Gleick (2004), Hall et al. (2003), IPCC (2007), Isbister (1998), Kennedy (2004), Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board (2005a), Monbiot (2006a), Orr (1992, 1994), Princen (2005), Schnaiberg & Gould (1994), Speth (2004), Terborgh (1999), Turner et al. (1990), UNDP et al. (2000), Watson (2002), and Woodwell (1990).

         A recent wave of publications on the rapid depletion of quality petroleum resources has emerged arguing that world petroleum production has peaked or will do so soon and that the downside of the peak will see rising prices and a host of related problems associated with increasing demand and diminishing supplies, lower quality and harder to extract oil, intense competition, and heightened international tensions and security issues (e.g., Campbell 2004; Deffeyes 2001, 2005; Flannery 2006; Hall et al. 2003; Heinberg 2004; Kunstler 2005; Lovins et al. 2005; Motavalli 2006a; Roberts 2004; Rosenbush 2006; Simmons 2005; Strathy and Leeb 2006; and Tertzakian 2006).

         See the following websites on the peak oil phenomenon: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPOG), Life after the Oil Crash, Peak Oil Info Strategies, Peak Oil Portal, & Peak Oil Primer.

         For scenarios that acknowledge the petroleum crisis, but point to more optimistic solutions that combine conservation and alternative energy resources see Brown (2004, 2006-Chapter 2 on "peak oil"), Lovins et al. (2005), WorldWatch Institute (2006). Some commentators suggest that new, clean technology will allow the United States and other high energy consumers to use their abundant coal reserves to replace oil and natural gas; it should be pointed out, however, that if coal were used to replace oil and natural gas, it would run out much faster than it would as it is presently used — its reserve would be reduced by a significant factor from perhaps 200 or more years (EIA 2004) to not much more than perhaps 50 years. Lower quality petroleum reserves, like oil shale and tar sands could also be used, but at a much higher price than crude oil. The idea here is that fossil fuels other than crude oil and natural gas could buy some time, though not much, and at a much higher price and with all fossil fuels associated with exorbitant negative environmental externalities.  

         For explanations of how ambitious conservation efforts get compromised see the following: National Park Trust; NRDC List of the 12 Most Threatened Wildlands in the Americas; National Parks Conservation Association's "State of the Parks" web page; Dombeck et al. 2003 (in U.S.); and Foresta 1991 (in Brazil). <<return to text

  ⁹ See Walker & Salt (2006) on resiliency and Princen (2005) on sufficiency.

¹⁰ See Hau & Bakshi (2004), Odum (1996), Treloar (1997), and Treloar et al. (2001).

¹¹ See Piper (1996).

¹² See Bandy (1996), Daly (1973, 1997), Korten (2000) Meadows et al. (1972, 2004), Newman (2006), and O'Connor (1994).

¹³ See Allen & Guthman (2006) and Brenner & Theodore (2002).

¹⁴ See for example Doane (2005), Kyer (2002), MacDonald & Norman (2004), Monbiot (2006b), Murphy (1995), Najam (1999), and Norman & MacDonald (2004).

¹⁵ See Aragonés et al. (2003).

¹⁶ See Loyn (2006), Raffaele (2005), and Stephens et al. (2005) on the poor status of indigenous cultures and see Krech (1999) and Redford & Stearman (1991, 1993) on the idea of the "ecologically responsible native."

¹⁷ On the problems associated with sunk costs see Barham et al. (1998), Clark et al. (1979), Diamond (2005), Gill (2000), Hughes (1996, 2002), Janssen et al. (2003), Janssen & Scheffer (2004), Ponting (1992), Redman (1999), Redman & Kinzig (2003), Scheffer et al. (2003), Tainter (1988), Weis & Bradley (2001), Wright (2004), and Yoffee & Cowgill (1988).

¹⁸ See Andelman (2006), Desoto (1989), Morse (2006), and Theobold (1990) on corruption.

¹⁹ See Saith (2006).

²⁰ See Brockner (1992), Brockner & Rubin (1985), Costanza (1987), Cross & Guyer (1980), Dawson (2005), and Platt (1973).

²¹ See Clark (1991), Myers & Kent (2001), and Pollan (2007b).

²² See for example Nordhaus & Kokkelenberg (1999) and Peskin (1991) on alternative accounting and Princen (2005) for a broad view of alternative politics.

²³ Although alternatives to modern medicine exist, the vast majority of people especially in the developed world turn to modern medicine when faced with health concerns. Because it is easy to understand the trust that people have in modern medicine, it is puzzling that so many people react skeptically to the credible scientists who report "scary" or "bad" news about the environment and humanity's future wellbeing; after all, the same academies that train our medical doctors train other scientists and scholars as well. To be sure, politics and antagonists often muddle the "environmental" picture, and not all academics get it right or present information impartially, but the objective scientific evidence exists in abundance for critical thinkers (see Endnote number 8).

         Some scientists have risen to great heights of distinction for their contributions and many of their statements have become famous quotations. But do they say what they say merely to pen eloquent prose worthy of quotation for posterity's sake, or do they really mean what they say?  Perhaps more importantly, is there substance in their words worthy of social action and is society really reacting to them or merely paying them lip service?  One quote that is particularly relevant in the present context comes from Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson — one of the most important contemporary scientists and indeed one of the most important life scientists ever (see Palmer 2001; Wright 2005). In his acclaimed book Biophilia, Wilson (1984:145) stated:

    ... as biological knowledge grows the ethic will shift fundamentally so that everywhere, for reasons that have to do with the very fiber of the brain, the fauna and flora of a country will be thought part of the national heritage as important as its art, its language, and that astonishing blend of achievement and farce that has always defined our species.

         These words speak volumes about society's relationship with nature, especially to the biodiversity crisis. An extension of this idea suggests that if natural heritage does not become more intricately weaved into our cultural fabric, then we will not likely succeed in our attempts to safeguard Earth's natural bounty for future generations. It seems then, that we must begin cultivating a much more deeply ecological sense-of-place. One way to do this may be through the sustainable management of the landscapes where people spend most of their time, which in the developed world and increasingly so in the developing world is in urban areas where people live, work, study, and recreate. I have suggested previously that to cultivate an ecologically based sense-of-place, we should encourage the use of "working" or "functional" landscapes where we live and work — where, for example, edible plants including domesticated heirloom crops, local cultivated landraces, and wild edible plants are grown — and "conservation positive" landscapes that prioritize the use of native flora, which helps guard against introducing exotic species that may become naturalized in the regional biota and potentially protecting threatened and endangered taxa. I stated previously (Kermath 1999) that:

    When biodiversity and natural heritage matter more deeply to us, we will see our urban landscapes with more ecologically complex assemblages of native plants that are more wildlife friendly and reliant on natural processes than the ecologically simple, capital intensive, and environmentally toxic industrial landscapes we consume everywhere today. The landscape aesthetic too will shift, so that it is no longer determined by the physical end-product alone, but also by weighing in the environmental costs of production and management. When this happens, a truer sense-of-place that is deeply rooted in a genuine respect and appreciation for Earth's life-giving processes will sprout literally from our yards. The "garden of the month" award will no longer go to the mere prettiest garden in the community, but rather to the prettiest garden that best maintains ecological integrity.

         I am reminded here of the popular expression, "beauty is more than skin deep." While physical beauty may be seen at a glance, one must look beneath the surface with an intimate knowledge to see the inner beauty we are all taught is most important. Seeing the inner beauty of a human landscape requires that we look beneath its surface beauty deeper into the inputs used to establish and maintain it, and to factor in all of the hidden costs — the sequence factor and emergy. <<return to text

²⁴ See Ausubel (1996) on technology and Prance and Elias (1977) on species extinctions.

²⁵ This statement should give us pause when thinking about our collective footprint on the ecosphere. We are undeniably for the first time in our time on the planet capable of and already pushing global biogeochemical thresholds to their breaking points. The implication here is straightforward: ecosystem crashes of the future may potentially be global in scale and perhaps catastrophic, if we maintain our current course. We should, therefore, be mindful of this prognosis, more now than ever, when engaging in any and all activities because of the ecosphere's complex connections and interdependencies.

         For presentations on chaos and complexity see Acheson & Wilson (1996), Bradbury et al. (1996), Crutchfield et al. (1986), Gleick (1987), Goerner (1995), Holland (1998), Levin (2000), Lewin (2000), Lorentz (1996), Nicolis and Prigogine (1989), Prigogine and Stengers (1984), Waldrop (1992), and Williams (1997).

         For articles on social and ecological systems see Holling (1987, 2001) and Walker et al. (2006).

         See Kohler and Gumerman (2000) for a good discussion on complexity in social systems.

         See Roe (1998) on complexity and policy.

         See Scheffer & Carpenter (2003), Scheffer et al. (2001), Walker et al. (2006-Chapter 3, "Crossing the Threshold"), and Walliser (1995) on ecological thresholds. <<return to text

²⁶ See Cairns (2004c), Forest et al. (2007), Frankel & Soulé (1981), Myers & Knoll (2001), Palumbi (2001), Purvis et al. (2000), Rosenzweig (2001), Sechrest et al. (2002), Soulé (1980), and Woodruff (2001).

²⁷ See Raven (2002).

²⁸ On the precautionary principle see Cairns (1999), Cameron & Abouchar (1991), Costanza & Cornwell (1992), O'Riordan & Cameron (1994), Perrings (1991), SEHN (2000), and Welsh & Ervin (2006). Note too that proceeding with caution runs counter to the message sounded by the so-called cornucopians who maintain that modern science and technology will come to the rescue, to the extent that a rescue is needed and argue that unrestrained human ingenuity, responding to foresight and need under free market and democratic conditions, will produce the technology to avert serious human-induced environmental misfortunes and repair less serious ones. They assert too that more people mean more minds to tackle the issues of human concern and improve the human condition. My response to this thesis appears elsewhere (Kermath 2007), but in brief I state:

    Although there is a seductive logic to the cornucopian thesis that stems from the adage “necessity is the mother of invention,” a healthy skepticism is warranted for a couple of reasons. First, while we will continue to produce problem solving technologies, we cannot be certain that we will produce the ones needed in time to fix future disasters. As noted above, past human-induced ecosystem crashes were only local or regional in scale, and yet many of them were not fixed by their makers, but were rather abandoned and left to nature. The problems we are just beginning to glimpse, on the other hand, present as global maladies, and we are without precedent for mending such wounds. Moreover, to move aside while Earth heals is not an option, as the planet’s once vast frontiers are largely gone. <<return to text

²⁹ For views on participation and social capital see Agrawal (2001), Berkes & Folke (1994), Coleman (1988), Fine (2001), Ostrom (1990), Portes (1998), Pretty (2003), and Winter (2006). See Mendes (1990) and Shanley (2006) on the influence of individuals.

³⁰ See for example Domask (2007) on experiential learning and O'Sullivan (1999) on transformative learning.

³¹ See Bowers (1997), Cairns (2004b), Catton (1994), and Ehrlich et al. (1971) on problem denial and Brockner (1992), Brockner & Rubin (1985), Costanza (1987), Cross & Guyer (1980), Dawson (2005), Orr (1992), and  Platt (1973) on social traps.

³² See for example Ehrlich & Ehrlich (1996).

³³ See for example Wendell Berry (1982, 1986), Gallagher (1993), Hayden (1995), Jackson (1994), Jackson (1996), Jackson et al. (1984), Kermath (2007), Leopold (1949), Vitek & Jackson (1996), Wilson (1984).

³⁴ See Clarke (2003) and Shin (1980).

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Brian Kermath is responsible for these views, which do not necessarily represent the views of other associated individuals or institutions.

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