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Sustainability and Autodependency Norman W. Garrick Lecture 8 CE 4710/5710 Mobility, Freedom and Sustainability • Low argues that personal mobility is a freedom bestowed by modernity. • But like Good, Low points out that this freedom and flexibility can be illusory if the opportunity cost of providing unending mobility is never considered. ‘We need to protect the real benefits of mobility, and contain and allocate the costs properly’ Benefits From Sustainable Thinking Low implies that the concept of ‘sustainability’ is a framework for clarifying the real benefits of mobility And for developing the mechanism needed to protect these benefits and to appropriately contain and allocate costs. Environment, Social and Economical Sustainability Low introduces the common model of sustainability, made up of a triad of environmental, social, and economic sustainability This triad has gained wide acceptance, although some groups use other terms to describe these three concepts For example, The California DOT uses planet, people and prosperity (This change in language might miss some of the nuances of the original) The Three-Legged Stool Model So what is the relationship between this triad of concerns? In many cases a ‘three-legged stool’model is used This model suggests that for sustainability three simultaneous goals must be achieved: economic profitability, social responsibility and environmental conservation Sustainability Sustainability Low calls this model the ‘triple bottom line’ perspective and states that this model might be a good accounting tool, but is not an effective or realistic way of characterizing sustainability The Paradox of The Three-Legged Stool Model • Fundamentally the three-legged stool model is based on a triangle of forces in balance. • According to Low, to achieve environmental sustainability we need to change both the society and the economy. • We cannot have a stable triangle when we are trying to sustain all three systems in their existing state. The Need to Curb Consumption to Achieve Sustainability According to Low, the paradox we face is that we need to find ways to “Curb consumption while spreading the capacity to consume” The three-legged stool model of sustainability tends to gloss over this important idea Talking the Talk In Jamaica Politicians in developing countries, like Jamaica, are well aware of the need to ‘talk’ sustainability. But the policies don’t add up to changes that support environmental sustainability. Environment and health concerns are often traded off in the interest of economic growth. . Talking the Talk In the USA In the USA, we have some of the same posturing as in Jamaica But an additional factor is that in the USA there is more focus on a technological fix as the solution that will cause us to achieve environmental sustainability The faulty idea is that we can bring about environmental sustainability without ever changing any of the related economic or social issues Can we have Sustainable Growth? As Low pointed out, we cannot trade-off environmentally unsustainable growth against environmental sustainability “Growth is either sustainable or it is not” Starting Place for Thinking About Sustainability From the movie “Chasing Ice” with photographer James Balog Thinking about the Biosphere The starting point in thinking about sustainability is the recognition that the action of humankind is causing catastrophic changes to the environment This fact supports the need for change in both society and the environment The environment in question is the global biosphere with one energy input and no output for waste This biosphere consists of natural ecosystems at different scales Change a Light Bulb, Save the Biosphere Low points out that one of the dilemmas we face in trying to move towards an environmentally sustainable existence is the scale of these ecosystems, which dwarf a single human actor One problem is that a single human cannot directly act to influence the biosphere What is needed is the collective action of society through its institutions and market economy The Role of Society in Affecting the Biosphere The example is of a single driver making a single trip That driver perceives correctly that his individual action has minimal impact. However, when that trip is multiplied by millions we begin to see a noticeable effect on the biosphere. However, this one trip by a given driver and the millions of other trips by her peers are only possible because they are facilitated by society Transportation and Our Patterns of Living Low points out that transportation patterns feed into socially created patterns including land use, distribution of goods, distribution of social opportunities, health and diseases And some of these patterns - including the production of goods and services and the distribution of land use – feed back into transportation pattern. Based on these relationships, billions of trips are made in fossil fuel burning vehicles each day, leading to changes in the biosphere and affecting the fate of all species on the planet The Key to Changing Society Thus the key to understanding sustainability is twofold: • Individuals can only have a significant effect on the biosphere through social institutions and mechanisms • Individuals are capable of changing society and it institutions Rejecting The Three-Legged Stool Sustainability The Problem with the Three-Legged Stool Low argues that the triad model of sustainability is flawed since it does not explicitly recognize that environmental sustainability requires changes to social and economic institutions However, he also points out that the idea of considering sustainability in terms of the three dimensions - environment, social and economic – is a useful and valid way of understanding the concept. But the order in which they are considered is important The Nested Box Model of Sustainability ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY ECONOMY (LOW AND GLEESON 2003, HART 2006) The Limits to Growth The important shift is to recognize that the economy is the creation of society, and not the other way around The economy is framed by the social context in which it occurs. Further, both society and the environment operate within the context of a natural environment of limited capacity The Need for Long Term Economic Thinking Conventional economic analysis does not account for the fact that there are limits to the capacity of the natural environment For example, there is no economic mechanism in place to put a value on the fact that oil is a finite resource Market price reacts to short term scarcity of oil but does not take into account the fact that oil is a finite resource Social Sustainability and Social Equity Low defines ‘social sustainability’ as “progress of a society towards prosperity, freedom and justice for all (and not just the entrenchment of class privilege)” He adds that environmental sustainability should not necessarily be conditional on social sustainability. But the question I would ask is, can we get environmental sustainability without social sustainability? Win-Win-Win Low also notes that an environmentally sustainable solution is often consistent with social improvement and long term economic security From an article by McGranahan and Satterthwaite in Pugh, Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries, Earthscan, pg. 73-87 Ref: Low and Gleeson, Making Urban Transportation Sustainable, Palgrave MacMillan, pg. 25 - 41. Erath, Louisiana after Hurricane Rita Biloxi c2004 Roads Slated for Expansion Biloxi 2025 With Road Expansion 8 lanes 6 lanes 5 lanes 4 lanes Gulfport c2004 Roads Slated for Expansion Gulfport 2025 With Road Expansion 8 lanes 6 lanes 5 lanes 4 lanes 18000 14000 10000 6000 1980 1985 1990 1995 USA Mississippi 2000 2005 2010 24.8 25.7 24.4 23.7 10.6 3.6 1970 1975 1980 1985 Netherland 1990 USA 1995 2000 Mississippi 2005 2010 Level 1 3 Domains Environment Society Level 2 12 Elements (Goals) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 07 Level 3 19 Indicators ** * * ** ** ** ** ** Economy * 09 10 11 12 * * * Level 4 22 Variables Each indicator is measured by one or more variables * 51 52 53 Best Worst Dist. of Columbia 17.4% Mississippi 44.2% Alaska 22.1% Wyoming 38.2% New York 22.6% Alabama 38.1% Connecticut 22.7% Montana 38.0% Massachusetts 22.8% Kentucky 37.7% Best Worst Oregon 6.7 Michigan 0.3 Indiana 4.7 Mississippi 0.4 Dist. of Columbia 3.9 Alaska 0.5 Massachusetts 3.8 Louisiana 0.7 South Dakota 3.4 Hawaii 0.7 Connecticut: Ranked 19th, 23 % Growth in GDP, 12% Growth in VMT Best Worst New York 12.5% Mississippi 45.4% Washington 13.4% Montana 40.8% Massachusetts 14.1% Rhode Island 40.3% Virginia 14.1% North Dakota 37.3% California 15.1% South Carolina 37.1% Connecticut: Ranked 40th, 32.9 % Federal Sources Best Worst Dist. of Columbia 0.2% Alaska 6.0% New York 1.1% Mississippi 4.5% Connecticut 1.4% Montana 4.0% Delaware 1.4% Wyoming 3.9% Rhode Island 1.5% North Dakota 3.8% Percentage spent on transportation petroleum shown Best Worst Dist. of Columbia 90 Mississippi 7 New York 75 Montana 21 Massachusetts 73 Arkansas 28 Oregon 65 Wyoming 29 Washington 65 South Carolina 29 Connecticut: Ranked 16th, Score 55 59