The notion of sustainability is, in actuality, more about its inverse,
unsustainability, and particularly the unsustainability of industrial and post-industrial societies. In essence, humanity is caught in a Faustian dilemma. On the one hand, the harnessing of fossil fuels as an energy source has enabled successive waves of technological innovation that have transformed human society (Landes 1969; Moody and Nogrady 2010). On the other hand, fossil-fuel-driven industrialisation gravely threatens the interconnected biological systems upon which humanity relies: a stable climate, fresh water supplies and the survival and diversity of other species –
including the animal and plant life we depend on for food, clothing and clean air (Vitousek et al. 1997). The scale of the human-made ecological crisis currently underway is evidenced through the empirical data gathered across scientific disciplines including oceanographers, biologists, and earth and climate scientists (Rockström et al 2009). Human impact can be witnessed in the global decline in fish
16 ‘Wicked problems’, as described by Rittel and Webber (1974), are intractable social policy and planning challenges which resist solution, such as drug abuse or poverty. Characteristics include: they have no stopping rule; their solutions are not true or false, but good or bad; every shot is a one-shot operation; every wicked problem is essentially unique; every wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem.
stocks, ocean and air pollution, groundwater depletion (Gleeson et al. 2012), and deforestation (DeFries et al. 2010). With human population predicted to rise to 9.3 billion by 2050 (United Nations Development Programme and Office 2011), the earth’s carrying capacity17 is in doubt, imperilling both present and future generations of humans.
The twentieth century saw efficiencies in production in almost all industries, from agriculture to product manufacture and energy generation. Indeed, the exponential growth of the human population follows a similar trajectory to the exponential growth in fossil fuel usage over the past one hundred years (Ness 2004). The goods and services that can be offered rely chiefly on fossil fuel energy. For example, over 99.9% of plastics come from petrochemical feedstock (Patel and Mutha 2004, 81), with plastics vital in food preservation and packaging, as well as in providing fibre in the form of polyester and other synthetic textiles for the fashion industry. Despite the existence of renewable energy sources, the scale of human reliance on fossil fuels means that they cannot be easily substituted. Continued economic growth under the current model relies on the constant input of raw materials, particularly oil, which is becoming more difficult and costly to extract (Tainter and Patzek 2012, 11).
Thus further questions arise: how long can this exponential growth in population and non-renewable resource use continue, and what are our responsibilities to succeeding generations? Predictions of limits to human population expansion were first voiced by Thomas Malthus in the eighteenth century; however it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that voices of concern became louder, with notable works being Paul Ehlrich’s (1978) The Population Bomb, and the Limits to Growth Report of 1972 (Meadows, Randers, and Meadows 2005). The Limits to Growth report, developed by systems analysts, argued that humanity’s path was unsustainable: the human population was growing too fast, and essential resources – both renewable and non-renewable – were being depleted beyond the earth’s carrying capacity.
The notion of ‘sustainability’, then, is invoked as the desirable response to these problems. As a starting point, the most commonly cited definition of ‘sustainability’
comes from the 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission. Here sustainable development is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without
17 Carrying capacity: the maximum population of a given species that can survive indefinitely in a given environment (Grafton, Nelson and Lambie 2012, 53).
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland and Khalid 1987, 54). This quote has often been used in isolation from its context, and hence misinterpreted and misused.18 The report stresses that economic growth is required to meet essential needs in places where these needs are not being met, and adds that sustainable development “can be consistent with economic growth,
provided the content of growth reflects the broad principles of sustainability and non-exploitation of others” (Brundtland and Khalid 1987, 55). The report acknowledges the double bind in which humanity is snared: economic growth allows for human development and prosperity, but economic growth is also instrumental in the erosion of natural capital, upon which current and future generations rely.
With the discovery of global warming,19 the need for sustainable human development became far more pressing. In the late 1980s, scientist James Hansen testified to the US congress on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the atmosphere. Since then, global warming and resulting climate change has become a key challenge for our era. The current aim of the global community is to keep global warming beneath two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which equates to about 450ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Grafton, Nelson, and Lambie 2012). However, from paleoclimate evidence, Hansen et al (2008) argue that global greenhouse gas emissions will need to be reduced to below 350ppm in order to ensure a stable climate. In 2011, as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 394ppm (Vidal 2011), the International Energy
Association warned that two degrees of warming is now ‘locked-in’ due to the inertia of current energy systems – e.g. the decades-long lifespan of coal-fired power
stations (Harvey 2011). An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (IPCC 2012) maintains that with climate change there is an increased
18 Shell, when taken to court for using the word ‘sustainable’ in its advertising, used the definition from the Brundtland Commission in its defence, arguing that ‘sustainable’ could be interpreted to mean “anything that helps to meet the world’s growing energy needs, including tar sands” (Hamilton 2010, 1283-89). Shell lost the case. Their argument demonstrates, though, how the vague phrasing of the Brundlandt Commission’s words can be wilfully misconstrued.
19 Global warming caused by increased carbon dioxide emissions was first theorised by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896, building on the work of Joseph Fourier and John Tyndall, with widespread scientific consensus by 1979 (Hughes 2009, 257, 259). In the 1980s, NASA scientist James Hansen was instrumental in bringing the issue into public discourse (Hughes 2009, 259).
likelihood of droughts, wildfire, flooding, and other extreme weather events, which in turn will have a profound effect on vital industries such as agriculture. Our use of hydrocarbons, which has enabled unprecedented wealth, well-being, and human development, is eroding the natural capital upon which we rely. This has led Levin et al. (2009) to term climate change a ‘super wicked problem’, in that not only is it a
‘wicked problem’ but it has extra characteristics including: time is running out to address the problem, “the central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent [and] those who cause the problem also seek to create a solution” (Levin et al. 2009, 1). Therefore, the problem of global warming brings an additional urgency and complexity into any discussion of sustainability. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that sustainability has become a much-debated political issue in governments worldwide, and as such it has its detractors who deny anthropogenic global warming.