Sustainability: An Introduction
With all this talk about Sustainability, things can get pretty confusing quickly. Here's a little crash course on what Sustainability is, and why you should care. Beware, it's not what you think!
Whenever I mention to people that I am into sustainability, I always anticipate some sort of internal eyeroll on their part. Probably because, well, it's what I would do; "Oh here we go, another kid on a moral high horse."
However, people generally don't mind, in fact they think it's pretty cool. Which I'm fairly happy about - apart from the fact that when I ask them why they think it's cool, they usually say something along the lines of "Well, it's just the right thing to do". I then ask them what they think sustainability actually is - they say, "well its solar panels and stuff right?"
So, we have some people who know that sustainability is good, but don't know why, but we also have people who don't know what sustainability actually is. That seems like a potential problem. So, let me tell you exactly why sustainability is actually important, and it's not for the reasons that you might think.
What is it?
First, I'd like to actually define sustainability. (And it's a lot simpler than you expect). Sustainability means something that can go on indefinitely, or forever - it sustains itself, so to speak. Now believe it or not this definition is largely absent from the conversation even among sustainability professionals - and has evolved into a buzzword that sometimes connotes a green field with solar panels and wind turbines. This is the first mistake many people make when entering the conversation, they never really think about what the word really means. Mind-blowing right?
Well, ok then - but what relevance does that have to us humans? Good question. You probably know about climate change (I sincerely hope you do) - and that it is predicted that the oceans will boil, and the world will end at some point. Pretty scary stuff, right? Well, it just so happens that humans have not really needed to worry about the environment for a long time until the industrial revolution happened. This is because 1. human settlements usually had a small enough population that the amount of environmental destruction was less than the overwhelming regenerative capacity of the environment and 2. human settlements usually were wiped out by other factors unrelated to the environment, for example warring with other villages, famines etc.
Humans never really had the selective pressure to be "sustainable beings", and so the main things that kept human settlements alive were their capacity to efficiently produce and distribute resources in order to effectively defend themselves against predators, including other humans that might want to kill and take their stuff.
So... that was a lot. But the main point is, humans are out of our element when it comes to taking care of our resources and by extension the environment. We've just rarely ever been in a situation where that has been necessary.
Now enter the industrial revolution. We've got combustion engines; we've got fossil fuels, coal and oil. We now have an insane amount of energy at our disposal that we can use. But when humans have energy, we feel we need to use it. Why? Because it's what we are used to doing in order to survive. When I am a prehistoric human and I see a bunch of berries on a bush, I don't eat only the amount I need to survive - I damn near waffle them all down before anything else can. (This is also where time discounting comes from (for another time!)). We are used to incredibly competitive dynamics - and have gotten damn good at it. Evolution can do that to you.
So, we have all this energy, and we use it as it comes. We make stuff. And we use the energy we have to make more stuff to get more energy. And we eventually scale up our energy harvesting and also our energy usage. In general, this process repeats, and our standard of living increases. We get convenient transportation, running water, air-conditioning etc. However, with our exponentially increasing capacity to make stuff, we also exponentially increase our consumption of natural resources. Now here's the catch. The planet only has a certain number of natural resources, and when you keep consuming something which is finite - it eventually runs out. Poof. So, we are in a predicament. We all want to be happy right? - and that requires a certain standard of living, stated better, there are certain base needs that must be met (see Maslow's Hierarchy of needs). Yet for these standards of living to be met we need to use resources, which will eventually run out. A catch 22 ensues. We either stop consuming so much stuff and be unhappy (potentially die), or we keep consuming the stuff, and still be unhappy (also potentially die).
So that's it right? Aren't we pretty much doomed? Well, not exactly. This is what you might call a false dichotomy, the illusion of only two choices when there are many more available.
For example, we could find a way to make consumption circular - that would mean we wouldn't run out of stuff to make! This is what we like to call the "Circular Economy", and it heavily relies on recycling to ensure that the consumption of stuff directly leads to and supports our production of stuff. That's great, isn't it? Well, there are some practical limitations, but that's for another time.
We could also find a way to scale down excessive resource consumption to levels that are acceptable for society, and to match the regenerative capacity of nature. For example, some consumption can be unnecessary or excessive; Ferraris, or mansions etc., which could be argued to be a waste of resources and energy. Instead, we could focus our attention on other things, such as public transport, clean water, sustainable infrastructure etc. which would help everyone. This is called "Degrowth", and involves redirecting resources, and scaling down excessive consumption to a (hopefully) sustainable rate which still ensures high standard of living. Yet there are also some practical issues with this idea, which can be discussed another time.
However, the point is that solutions like the "Circular Economy", and "Degrowth" are exactly what sustainability professionals are interested in. There are fiery debates happening right now between sustainability experts about which solutions are the best.
So, in summary - the goal of sustainability in the modern world is to design systems in human societies that last indefinitely. And a part of that is finding out the conditions that let us have our cake and eat it too - in other words, to have consumption, or high standards of living, but also want to not potentially die at some point down the line. Now, that isn't necessarily a green field and solar panels and wind turbines. It might be! But it might not. If that ideal can practically last indefinitely, then it is sustainable - but otherwise no (can we keep making solar panels and wind turbines forever?).
Why care?
So then, why is sustainability important? "What if I don't care what happens to the planet?" Well, if you care about other people, then you should care about the planet. "But what if I don't care about other people?" If you care about yourself you should care about other people, after all, you rely on others to get the things you want (did you make that fancy Volvo you care so much about yourself?). We are also very social creatures; we largely rely on others to fulfill our needs.
So, why should we care about it? Because we can't help it! So, I want you to take away this - you've probably always cared about sustainability, and you likely always will. The question is what can we do about it?