Sustainability

Just what is sustainability, and whatever it is, is it achievable?  We use the term in every day speech, as in sustainable growth, sustainable forestry, but what do we mean?

From one point of view, sustainable growth is an oxymoron:  Growth in a continuous economic sense is just not sustainable.  In an everyday sense, we do not see this.  We do today, exactly what we did yesterday, with every expectation of doing so tomorrow.  Change in infinitesimal, so that we are not aware of it, though we do curse it:  nothing is constant but change!

Yet, over the years, change is cumulative.  What I do today is not what my parents did when they were my age.  What I do today is not what I did when I was a youth.  Much of that of course is a reflection of my own aging process.  I no longer need to do what I did when I was younger, or I no longer have any interest in doing so.

We live in a society in which growth is inescapable.  It is the driver of everything that impacts us in our daily lives.  There are new products to engage our attention. There are new TV shows to watch.  There are new industrial and residential subdivisions covering our land.  Overall, we measure the impact of these things through what we call our Gross Domestic Product or GDP.  Year in and year out, we have been led to expect a growth in the total GDP of our society.  Without it, we are told, and led to understand that our economy will falter, and that our own livelihood will be affected.

But continuous growth in a finite system is impossible.  Our world is finite, no matter how apparent it is to many that it is not.

Professor Bartlett has made a remarkably succinct presentation of exponential growth.  If we expect any increase on a regular basis, then we are looking at exponential growth.  Exponential growth is subtle.  At 1 percent a year it is hard to see, but at 1% a year, whatever we are looking at will double in overall size in 70 years.  About one human lifetime.  At 2% it will double in 35 years, and at 3% in under 25 years, one human generation.

Our politicians at all levels are desperate to convince us that they can produce growth in the 5-6% range, and thus convince us that we should vote them into power.  Our local politicians are just so happy to endorse plans that call for the growth of their communities of 6% and more a year, for the next 25 years, without once recognizing that 6% over 25 years means a quadrupling of the size of the community.  (6% annual growth means a doubling in about 12 years.)

That's not just a quadrupling of the tax base, on which their salaries are based, but a quadrupling of the amount of garbage that will be produced, a quadrupling of the road systems needed, a quadrupling of the land needed to support the community, as well as a quadrupling of the number of citizens.

Where on earth are the resources going to come from to fuel this growth.  Because without a quadrupling of the resources, without a quadrupling of the farm produce to feed the citizens, without a quadrupling of the fuel systems, the growth cannot be sustained.

So you see, growth is not a sustainable model for the future of our society.  We have to reach a no growth situation in order be sustainable.