Within the framework of modern thoughts, the concept of sustainability is quite recent. Introduced around mid twentieth century[1]; emerging out of the fashionable environmental cause that “hippies” took up from the fall-out of laws addressing industrial pollution. Even without the ‘word’ sustainable used by major world rural population, they practiced a living in the most ‘so called’ sustainable way. That sustainable life style still prevails in many parts of the world that is not yet touched by the industrialization wave. It encompassed individual, family and community lifestyles to maintain a natural balance with their immediate surrounding.
As many worldly concepts, the sustainability experts are looking at sustainability from a directorial perspective, that is top down – meaning they start at the top by institutionalizing policies, laws, treaties, agreements, charters etc. – and hope that people will follow that – if not, they would be punished. This way of handling worldly matters sounds dictatorial but is common.
For the developed world the sustainable way of life can never happen out of individual freedom and choices, it has to be forced on people through state and power. Quoting from an expert, sustainability means – a system where the capacity to continue on through time is maintained without depleting the energy or material it needs to go into that system. Here it seems that the expert is quoting a rural sustainable lifestyle, but emphasizing its use on ‘how to be sustainable’ in the developed industrialized world. In developed world the need is not to build people’s capacity – but remove already over-built capacity that is making this world un-sustainable.
For developed and rich community, sustainability would and should mean – a system where the people are incapacitated to continue on through time to use excessive energy and / or materials.
Foremost, the intellectual experts induce the causes of un-sustainability to population growth that use (and according to them deplete) limited world resources. The solution they provide is - reduce population growth. The fact of the matter is that it is not the population (in general) but the exploitative rich economies that are to blame for depleting worldly resources – not only from their own hinterlands, but from far off regions, through their misuse of economic arm twisting power and carrot and stick approach.
Secondly, environmental scientist blame the use of technology that produces various forms of energy escalating global warming as a cause leading to un-sustainability. Similar to population, here the scapegoat are fuels – mainly fossil, bio and / or nuclear. Projected alternatives are solar, hydro and wind power, because they are non-pollutants to the environment - far better solutions than the one implying reducing population growth.
But these solutions too have major downsize, especially in technology, build-up costs, social cost-benefit analysis, implementation, and maintenance to name a few.
Third, recycling is another solution most experts propose. It is something most world rural communities have done through centuries, so it is not something new one needs to tell the whole world – but probably the rich world. The modernization of past century – industrialization, urbanization and commercialization have made last three - four generations for modern society ignorant of the basics of good natural being and living. Especially with the existing consumption levels, recycling though good looks cosmetic and laughable.
The following map shows the world energy production and consumption rates:
Source: http://atlas.aaas.org/natres/energy_popups.php?p=prodcon
With the pressures of globalization to increase economic wealth - it does not require any qualified scientist to tell us that in coming decades, people’s needs are not going to decrease but will increase and so will their increase use of energy i.e. rate of consumption would ever increase the rate of production for each country.
With the current energy consumption rate, all these (hydro, solar and wind) energy producing solutions look unsustainable to plan and implement in the context of the mad-pace of consumeristic marathon of world today. This is a similar fate like ever growing road traffic suffocating widened road capacity.
The real cause of un-sustainability can be understood well by per-capita consumption index. The map below shows evidence:
Source: http://atlas.aaas.org/natres/intro_popups.php?p=percap
The euphemism of ‘development’ causes un-sustainability. Until and unless – human won’t start consuming according to their basic needs, looking outside for solutions would complexify problems many folds, instead of solving them.
Another solution advocated is - Followed by a few US cities embarking on building sustainable cities[2], UN proposes a ‘Sustainable City Program’[3] marked by sustainable city student competition. Common sense tells us, only a rich - economy and organisation like US and UN respectively - have the luxury, wealth, time and flexibility for such ludicrous proposals, especially with the fact we know that more than fifty per cent of the world population is suffering from hunger – food and water. Regrettably, the process of urbanization is itself a massive energy depleting unsustainable life-style approach, in its per capita use of energy and demands on consuming economy that leaches on (exploiting) world-wide natural resources.
Rather than pumping more money into cities to make them sustainable, the same money could be used for giving better quality of life to people in poor areas. The real challenge should be to make living in cities an unsustainable option and move towards a more balanced economic life style.
When we are talking of cities, let us briefly dwell upon other discussion urban planners engage in. Not to deny the aspects of cleanliness – but many urban planners confuse – dirty cities as unsustainable way of living, and put resources to make cities clean and market them as sustainable solutions. Conceptually, they have got it all jumbled up and wrong. Undeniably cleanliness plays a part in maintaining the eco-system’s appropriate balance, and one should keep the cities clean. It can be defined as Cleaner solutions and not sustainable solutions.
Many experts also believe on such a negative attitude of even imagining – self sustaining modern societies is not going to be possible. Here lies world’s failure in their intellectual pessimism of not even trying to look into putting an effort to change things in a positive direction.
Look at the map below:
Source: http://pthbb.org/natural/footprint/
Here ‘red’ shows bigger footprint, for a region - which is not a good sign and ‘green’ shows smaller footprints – which is good. Not to confuse that the ‘red’ colored regions exploit the ‘green’ regions to fulfill their consumption patterns. The assumption used is that consumption has direct co-relation with ecological footprints.
The map shows the enormity of problem we are facing. In near future, the things are not going to be better. The red will become darker and green will become pink, and pink will become red. Time has come to squeeze the regional footprints. Balanced and need based use of resources – is the solution.
Let the pace of science and technology advancements match human’s psychological aptitude to comprehend the best use of modernism to suit ecology and not that of personal greed.
(Total Words: 1160)
[1] OECD created convention signed in Paris 14/12/1960 designed policies where sustainable was mentioned for the first time internationally by an recognized organisation
[2] San Francisco - http://www.sustainable-city.org/welcome/index.htm
[3] http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=467&id=3055
[i] Raj Doctor is an architect, urban and regional planner and MBA and currently lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The views presented here are of the author and do not represent the organisation or culture he works with or comes from. The maps and references are taken from the internet, solely to better understand the concepts of sustainability (and not for any commercial benefit or purposes). Sources and reference quoted therewith.
As many worldly concepts, the sustainability experts are looking at sustainability from a directorial perspective, that is top down – meaning they start at the top by institutionalizing policies, laws, treaties, agreements, charters etc. – and hope that people will follow that – if not, they would be punished. This way of handling worldly matters sounds dictatorial but is common.
For the developed world the sustainable way of life can never happen out of individual freedom and choices, it has to be forced on people through state and power. Quoting from an expert, sustainability means – a system where the capacity to continue on through time is maintained without depleting the energy or material it needs to go into that system. Here it seems that the expert is quoting a rural sustainable lifestyle, but emphasizing its use on ‘how to be sustainable’ in the developed industrialized world. In developed world the need is not to build people’s capacity – but remove already over-built capacity that is making this world un-sustainable.
For developed and rich community, sustainability would and should mean – a system where the people are incapacitated to continue on through time to use excessive energy and / or materials.
Foremost, the intellectual experts induce the causes of un-sustainability to population growth that use (and according to them deplete) limited world resources. The solution they provide is - reduce population growth. The fact of the matter is that it is not the population (in general) but the exploitative rich economies that are to blame for depleting worldly resources – not only from their own hinterlands, but from far off regions, through their misuse of economic arm twisting power and carrot and stick approach.
Secondly, environmental scientist blame the use of technology that produces various forms of energy escalating global warming as a cause leading to un-sustainability. Similar to population, here the scapegoat are fuels – mainly fossil, bio and / or nuclear. Projected alternatives are solar, hydro and wind power, because they are non-pollutants to the environment - far better solutions than the one implying reducing population growth.
But these solutions too have major downsize, especially in technology, build-up costs, social cost-benefit analysis, implementation, and maintenance to name a few.
Third, recycling is another solution most experts propose. It is something most world rural communities have done through centuries, so it is not something new one needs to tell the whole world – but probably the rich world. The modernization of past century – industrialization, urbanization and commercialization have made last three - four generations for modern society ignorant of the basics of good natural being and living. Especially with the existing consumption levels, recycling though good looks cosmetic and laughable.
The following map shows the world energy production and consumption rates:
Source: http://atlas.aaas.org/natres/energy_popups.php?p=prodcon
With the pressures of globalization to increase economic wealth - it does not require any qualified scientist to tell us that in coming decades, people’s needs are not going to decrease but will increase and so will their increase use of energy i.e. rate of consumption would ever increase the rate of production for each country.
With the current energy consumption rate, all these (hydro, solar and wind) energy producing solutions look unsustainable to plan and implement in the context of the mad-pace of consumeristic marathon of world today. This is a similar fate like ever growing road traffic suffocating widened road capacity.
The real cause of un-sustainability can be understood well by per-capita consumption index. The map below shows evidence:
Source: http://atlas.aaas.org/natres/intro_popups.php?p=percap
The euphemism of ‘development’ causes un-sustainability. Until and unless – human won’t start consuming according to their basic needs, looking outside for solutions would complexify problems many folds, instead of solving them.
Another solution advocated is - Followed by a few US cities embarking on building sustainable cities[2], UN proposes a ‘Sustainable City Program’[3] marked by sustainable city student competition. Common sense tells us, only a rich - economy and organisation like US and UN respectively - have the luxury, wealth, time and flexibility for such ludicrous proposals, especially with the fact we know that more than fifty per cent of the world population is suffering from hunger – food and water. Regrettably, the process of urbanization is itself a massive energy depleting unsustainable life-style approach, in its per capita use of energy and demands on consuming economy that leaches on (exploiting) world-wide natural resources.
Rather than pumping more money into cities to make them sustainable, the same money could be used for giving better quality of life to people in poor areas. The real challenge should be to make living in cities an unsustainable option and move towards a more balanced economic life style.
When we are talking of cities, let us briefly dwell upon other discussion urban planners engage in. Not to deny the aspects of cleanliness – but many urban planners confuse – dirty cities as unsustainable way of living, and put resources to make cities clean and market them as sustainable solutions. Conceptually, they have got it all jumbled up and wrong. Undeniably cleanliness plays a part in maintaining the eco-system’s appropriate balance, and one should keep the cities clean. It can be defined as Cleaner solutions and not sustainable solutions.
Many experts also believe on such a negative attitude of even imagining – self sustaining modern societies is not going to be possible. Here lies world’s failure in their intellectual pessimism of not even trying to look into putting an effort to change things in a positive direction.
Look at the map below:
Source: http://pthbb.org/natural/footprint/
Here ‘red’ shows bigger footprint, for a region - which is not a good sign and ‘green’ shows smaller footprints – which is good. Not to confuse that the ‘red’ colored regions exploit the ‘green’ regions to fulfill their consumption patterns. The assumption used is that consumption has direct co-relation with ecological footprints.
The map shows the enormity of problem we are facing. In near future, the things are not going to be better. The red will become darker and green will become pink, and pink will become red. Time has come to squeeze the regional footprints. Balanced and need based use of resources – is the solution.
Let the pace of science and technology advancements match human’s psychological aptitude to comprehend the best use of modernism to suit ecology and not that of personal greed.
(Total Words: 1160)
[1] OECD created convention signed in Paris 14/12/1960 designed policies where sustainable was mentioned for the first time internationally by an recognized organisation
[2] San Francisco - http://www.sustainable-city.org/welcome/index.htm
[3] http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=467&id=3055
[i] Raj Doctor is an architect, urban and regional planner and MBA and currently lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The views presented here are of the author and do not represent the organisation or culture he works with or comes from. The maps and references are taken from the internet, solely to better understand the concepts of sustainability (and not for any commercial benefit or purposes). Sources and reference quoted therewith.
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