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Chapter 9
The Sustainability Project
Chapter Summary:
This chapter details the environmental challenges facing the world and responses to it. The world faces an
“environmentalist’s paradox:” even though there has been an increase in living standards across countries and
standards have converged over time, there is a risk of these trends being reversed on account of environmental
deterioration and intensification of social inequalities. The least developed countries especially run the risk of
diverging downwards from global patterns of progress by 2050.
It stresses that mainstream development thinking is inadequate to deal with the threat of environmental
deterioration, primarily because it undervalues natural resources. Alternative strategies have unfolded to deal with
the environmental challenges. They are not mutually exclusive of each other and can be put into three broad
categories: (1) attempts to consolidate material gains of the globalization project, in the name of sustainability, (2)
attempts to recapture the social contract associated with Keynesian political-economy and reinvigorate public
initiative with a democratic, green agenda and finally, (3) attempts to build social and ecological resilience within
and across locales. Sustainability project, which is an emergent project, is yet to unfold itself.
While development has assumed a global dimension, policies and responsibilities regarding climate change
still devolve to individual states. Key responses reveal a reflexive nationalism born of security concerns.
The development industry is attempting to recalibrate its modus operandi. The first step is acknowledging
the problem, as in the 2007/2008 UN Human Development Report declaration: “Climate change is the defining
human development issue of our generation.” Within the development policy and practitioner community the
response is to incorporate “climate proofing” into development programs, as key to adaptation measures. This
includes the National Adaptation Programme of Action/ NAPAs for the less developed countries and the Clean
Development Mechanisms for the developed countries. But adaptation measures run the risk of undermining
resilience and emphasizing maximum yields at the cost of the multi- functional role of biodiversity.
Also, the landmark 2005 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) notes that development strategies,
for instance the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategies, have not incorporated the importance of environmental
significance into their policy framework. Furthermore, the interdependence of common pool resources (ecosystems)
are understood and managed by precisely those populations often deemed “poor” by development agencies, thereby
discounting forms of local resilience.
Environmentalist’s paradox has not gone unnoticed in the business community. But businesses because
they focus on profit margins and owe their first loyalty to the shareholders are not equipped to manage ecological
crisis adequately.
International agreements are, therefore, indispensable for addressing ecosystem-related concerns that span
national boundaries. But coordination is essential between the multilateral environmental agreements and more
politically powerful international institutions, such as economic and trade agreements, to ensure that they are not
acting at cross-purposes.
Agriculture is central to the narrative of sustainable ecological management. Modern development narrative
tends to view agriculture as a method and source of resource extraction to power urban-industrial complexes;
agriculture labor is also deemed replaceable. The outcome is that agriculture is now a heavy energy consumer
instead of an energy converter. Instead International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development, 2008 envisages a multifunctional role for agriculture in reducing poverty and social/gender inequality,
stabilizing rural cultures, reversing environmental degradation, and global warming. Small scale farming, which
have greater overall productivity and are environmental friendly than large scale commercialized farming, also need
to be strengthened. Organic agriculture too offers a sustainable alternative to conventional farming.
Attempts by the World Bank and other international agencies (like FAO) to develop export agriculture as a
means to accomplish food security run the risks of reducing availability of local food for local markets and/ or for
self- consumption.
`
A key technology proposed for “feeding the world” is genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). But this
interest by corporates on GMOs suggests that it is a profitable fix to the nutrient deficiency problem. A more
effective way to address micro-nutrient deficiency is, for example, through a smaller scale “revolution of greens”
that focuses on rediscovering of traditional diets by farmers via improving indigenous vegetables. The latter, grass
roots strategy have distinct advantages of empowering farming communities and boosting their ecological resilience
over the top-down market-driven strategy organized by global interests associated with dependency and
displacement of farmers. GMOs also focus on feed crops and traits suited to chemical rather than local agriculture.
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In the twenty-first century, “land grabbing” is driven by a combination of the food/energy/climate crisis
and the financial crisis. With rising energy and food prices land has become the object of speculative investment and
as a hedge against food and fuel supply shortfalls. Cost of land may be low for investors, but not to the locals.
Governments are typically classifying lands, whether common lands or privately used, as “idle” or “unproductive.”
But maybe these lands are used for grazing or deliberately left fallow to prevent nutrient depletion and erosion. Also
the idea that that subsistence or near-subsistence farmers are necessarily poor, and would benefit from jobs in the
cash economy is problematic. Questions that are particularly relevant here: While farmers may “choose” to become
laborers in the modern economy, what are the conditions under which they do so? And what are they giving up in
the long term?
When producing biofuels, not only are farmers surrendering possibility of a renewable livelihood, but also
the community loses sovereignty over its food system, since most land grabbed is for export agriculture, if not
speculative purposes. Also, the biofuel initiative parallels the land grab plans to incorporate southern peasants into
the Bank’s “agriculture for development.”- a “green fuel” for northerners (who pay in cash and taxes) premised on
the “export of sustainability” from southerners (who pay in loss of long-term livelihood and habitat).
A number of green technology initiatives are currently underway including market based ones such as the
practice of marketing emissions established in the European Union. There has been a de-coupling of economic
growth and energy growth in the North since the 1970s. But the CDM has slowed green technologies in the North
since firms offset their pollution by investing in conservation (reforestation) or pollution-abatement (coal scrubbing,
carbon capture) initiatives in the South, while China is likely to emerge as the largest investor in green technology.
To conclude, the Sustainability Project is multi-faceted and a social tendency rather than a coordinated
and/or coherent political-economic reality. Nevertheless, despite our best efforts we are past the point where we will
be able to reverse climate change. Proposed solution for a sustainable future is one in which future generations are
given their just considerations. This is best done in a society where all members are treated fairly by law, great
inequalities in wealth are eliminated and care is manifested in day to day life. Yet another possible response is using
the market to raise the price of fossil fuel to radically change ingrained habits of high mass consumption. But this
would be radical, therefore energetically contested.
Chapter Outline
I.
Introduction
a. The world faces an “environmentalist’s paradox”
i. Refers to increases in living standards and their convergence across countries.
ii. Yet, these trends run the risk of being reversed if environmental deterioration and social
inequalities continue to intensify, with the least developed countries diverging
downwards from global patterns of progress by 2050
b. Three alternative development paradigms depending on the social interests at stake:
i. Consolidate material gains of the globalization project, in the name of sustainability
ii. Recapture the social contract associated with Keynesian political-economy and
reinvigorate public initiative with a democratic, green agenda
iii. Build social and ecological resilience within and across locales
iv. These alternatives are not strictly mutually exclusive
1. Represents three development paradigms that have ordered social change since
the mid-twentieth century
v. Sustainability project, which is an emergent project, is yet to unfold itself
1. Governed by ideological and material tensions like the former two (development
and globalization projects)
c. The ecological threshold we face today is a stark challenge to development thinking and its
promise of expanding prosperity from an unbridled world market
i. Conventional development thinking and practices undervalues natural resources
ii. Gaia hypothesis states that the Earth is a “physiological system” that continuously
regenerates itself so as to sustain life.
1. Hence, disrupting and reducing natural cycles to market metrics reduces their
value, enabling risky substitutions
iii. International protocols, driven by principles of sufficiency rather than the profit- oriented
market mechanism are essential to the survival of the world’s dwindling resources
d. The practice of pricing environmental services continues, yet there are a multitude of social
experiments to reduce human impact on the environment
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II.
The Problem of Climate Change
a. “Development” has always taken the climate (and environment) for granted but adverse climatic
impact is forcing us all to recognize that the game is changing
i. Global warming is no longer a threat, it is a reality
ii. The politics of relentless pursuit of national interests by rich and poor states alike is a
recipe for a disaster for the interdependent biosphere
b. The Pentagon
i. Even if development has assumed a global dimension, policies and responsibilities
regarding climate change still devolve to individual states
1. Key response of nation states to threat of climate change reveal security
concerns
2. Climate change security concerns by individual states and as part of geopolitical
power relations will be woven into development policy
c. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
i. The first step by the development establishment to meet the challenge of climate change
is in its acknowledgement that climate change is a risk to poverty reduction efforts
ii. Response within the development policy and practitioner community is to incorporate
“climate proofing” into development programs as key to adaptation measures
iii. National Adaptation Program of Action/NAPAs
1. Established by COP7 in 2001
2. Sets the goal for LDCs to prepare priority adaptation measures guided by a set
of locally-driven criteria, including: degree of climate change impact, etc.
3. Adaptation measures focus on human and environmental concerns, such as
health, food security, water availability, etc.
iv. Clean Development Mechanism/ CDM
1. Also set up by northern states in COP7, 2001
2. Allows “countries who cannot meet their promised carbon emissions reductions
under Kyoto [1997] to buy carbon from developing countries by paying for
projects like reforestation, power plant energy efficiency, and capturing methane
from landfills”
3. 2007: Adaptation fund established to be financed through taxation of CDM
transactions
4. First example of the use of market mechanism to address climate change
5. Narrowly targets emissions in big countries like China and Brazil that have a
strong enabling environment for the private sector
6. Routinely abused by companies to claim emission reduction credits for projects
that fail to qualify
d. UN-HABITAT: Cities and Climate Change
i. The Challenge of Slums (2003) predicts 2 billion slum-dwellers by 2030 in the absence of
concrete action
ii. World's cities occupy just 2 percent of the planet’s land cover, but are responsible for
about 70 percent of emissions
iii. Some urban areas will have difficulty providing basic services, aside from the physical
risks of climate change – such as droughts, landslides, cyclones and flooding
iv. Advocates re-visioning of urban development by local planners, combining adaptation
with mitigation measures, and including local community input in addition to national
and international policies to support urban areas and reduce emissions
e. Stern Review and Grassroots Initiatives
i. Stern Review (2006) stated that “adaptation is so broad and cross-cutting – affecting
economic, social and environmental conditions and vice versa – that it is difficult to
attribute costs clearly”
ii. Adaptive initiatives and investment in disaster preparedness are important because they
produce high returns—an estimated $7 for every dollar invested
iii. Adaptation measures run the risk of undermining resilience and emphasizing maximum
yields at the cost of the multi-functional role of biodiversity
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1.
Biodiversity allows communities to manage climatic conditions in tenuous
environments. Example: In the drylands of India’s Deccan Plateau, uncultivated
crops outnumber cultivated ones, which are a source of food, fodder and
medicine for the poor because they come at no monetary cost at all.
iv. Policy community has an inertial bias for recycling conventional wisdom, where the
poor, rather than the rich, remain the objects of development initiatives
v. Multilateral-driven climate proofing also run the risk of overriding local knowledge and
solutions
1. Example: Desertification and land degradation do not necessarily result from
local mismanagement and land misuse. Farmers in many parts of Africa have
reversed desertification and have even increased food production ahead of
population growth.
vi. Overall, the emphasis is on adapting adaptation to development conventions rather than
reconfiguring development itself
1. Climate proofing has become a new profit frontier
a. Example: Big agricultural and biotechnology firms have filed patents that
threaten to undermine local farmer based strategies for climate change
survival and adaptation, mostly by women
2. Premium on security by the state might play out in the form of governments
requiring farmers to adopt prescribed bio- tech traits that are deemed essential
adaptation measures. Local adaptive practices are dismissed.
III.
Stabilizing Ecosystems
a. The 2005 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)
i. Non-monetized resources such as wild plants and exchange networks do not appear
through a conventional development lens, and are thereby easily marginalized.
1. Yet, these environmental and social resources are central to human resilience
b. Two important lessons from the report
i. Development planning frameworks have not incorporated the social and environmental
significance of the ecological base, e.g., World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategies
ii. Interdependence of common pool resources (ecosystems) are understood and managed by
populations often deemed “poor” by development agencies, thereby discounting forms of
local resilience.
c. “Environmentalist’s Paradox”
i. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively to meet their increased
needs for food, fresh water, etc.
ii. Caused irreversible damage to diversity of life on Earth, which unless reversed will
diminish what future generations obtain from ecosystems
d. Environmentalist’s Paradox not gone unnoticed in the business community
i. But businesses, because they focus on profit margins and owe their first loyalty to the
shareholders, are not equipped to manage ecological crisis adequately
e. International agreements are indispensable for addressing ecosystem-related concerns that span
national boundaries
i. Coordination is essential between the multilateral environmental agreements and more
politically powerful international institutions, such as economic and trade agreements, to
ensure that they are not acting at cross-purposes
ii. Intent is to champion new development policy frameworks geared to acknowledging and
reintegrating human activity with its ecological foundations
1. Ecological accounting by economists is inadequate
2. Broader goal is to incorporate values other than price into the development
equation.
3. This includes taking into account human activity that is local, non- monetized
and diverse
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II.
The Centrality of Agriculture
a. Millennium Ecological Assessment underlines centrality of agriculture to ecosystem management
i. Agriculture: One of the major drivers of diversity loss in the twenty- first century.
ii. Modern development narrative views agriculture as a method and source of resource
extraction to power urban-industrial complexes; agriculture labor is also deemed
replaceable.
1. Outcome: agriculture is now a heavy energy consumer instead of an energy
converter; the industrial food system expends 10 or more energy calories to
produce 1 calorie of food
iii. Sustainable farming means expanding carbon sinks via agro-forestry, based on the
biodiversity principle, or agro-ecology, as a method of rebuilding soil carbon.
b. International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, 2008
i. UN and World Bank sponsored report
ii. Advocates a multifunctional role for agriculture in reducing poverty and social/gender
inequality, stabilizing rural cultures, reversing environmental degradation, and global
warming
iii. “Business as usual is not an option” to address multiple crises
1. Industrial agriculture and transgenic food are not solutions since markets fail to
adequately value environmental and social harm
iv. Current food regime is unfavorable to farmers. Recommendations include:
1. End of subsidies for Northern surpluses
2. Developing subsidies for environmental stewardship, and
3. National policy flexibility to balance the needs of poor consumers and small
farmers (vs. WTO liberalization)
v. Recommends an integrative view of food, resource and nutritional security
1. Reinventing agriculture as farming requires scientists (natural, social and health)
to work with local farmers, governments and civil society organizations
vi. Notes greater overall productivity of small scale farming. Recommends
1. Agricultural multi-functionality,
2. A “shift to nonhierarchical development models,” building trust and valuing
farmer knowledge and natural and agricultural biodiversity, as well as seed
exchange and common resource management systems to strengthen and secure it
vii. Maps out a two-pronged strategy to strengthen food system resilience in the face of
environmental crises:
1. Promoting agro- ecological practices with “triple-bottom-line” goals: full-cost
accounting to incorporate energy, health and environmental costs,
2. A rights based framework instead of market centric organization of the agrifood system
viii. Report largely ignored by the development establishment, relying on bio- technology
III.
Feeding the World
a. Recent studies have concluded that relative yields of organic/agroecological versus non-organic
farming are sufficient to provision the current daily average consumption of calories
i. Since most inputs are on farm and replenish soil and watersheds, organic/agroecological
farming uses much less energy than industrial agriculture
ii. Agro-ecological organics too are less expensive than conventional farming forests, if
huge energy and farm subsidies as well as environmental costs are taken into account.
b. Case Study: The Real Cuban Revolution in a Peak-oil Age
i. Cuba was forced to transform its energy and food system due to a US trade embargo,
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, and end of imports of oil, agrochemicals and farm
machinery from the Soviet bloc
ii. Cuban agriculture developed around organic farming, urban gardens, animal traction and
biological pest control
1. 383,000 urban farms, producing more than 1.5 million tons of vegetables with
no synthetic chemicals
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c.
d.
e.
f.
iii. No other country in the world has achieved such success with a form of agriculture that
reduces food miles, energy and input use, and integrates production and consumption
cycles so effectively.
iv. Given the extraordinary conditions driving this agro-ecological revolution, is it possible
to imagine a similar conversion in other countries under future (possibly catastrophic)
pressure of climate, food and energy crises?
The modernist assumption that rural exodus is an inevitable and sustainable process and devalues
farm labor argues that organic agriculture has a greater labor requirement
Instead there is a need to reevaluate farming and farm labor from the paradigm of human and
environmental sustainability
The Agroecology project
i. Agroecology is a science and set of place-specific practices requiring diversification of
farms to promote biological interactions to regenerate soil fertility, maintain productivity
and protect crops
ii. Core principles:
1. Recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, rather than introducing external
inputs
2. Enhancing soil organic matter and soil biological activity
3. Diversifying plant species and genetic resources in agro-ecosystems over time
and space
4. Integrating crops and livestock
5. Optimizing interactions and productivity of the total farming system, rather than
the yields of individual species
iii. “Re-peasantization” in Europe and Latin America over the last quarter century despite the
conventional theorization of disappearance of peasantry
1. Has occurred where farmers are regrouping under neoliberal pressures of rising
input costs, and delinking from input suppliers to refocus on building their
farms’ “ecological capital”
iv. State of the World, 2011 notes that agroecological methods are important in regions
facing high food insecurity and high pressure for agricultural intensification
The World Bank World Development Report, 2008
i. High food insecurity became a focus of concern for the Bank during the first phase of the
food crisis in 2007, when food prices hit their highest level since 1845
ii. After ignoring agriculture for a quarter of a century the Bank recognized its centrality
iii. Rural development goals at Rome Food Summit, 2008 linked with new export
agricultural initiatives. They raise two issues:
1. Can “feeding the world” (saving the global economy) be accomplished via agroexporting?
2. How to develop export agriculture?
a. Dilemma: foreign investors would be interested in improving African
farming and its links to urban areas/local markets only if there are new
markets for inputs and/or new opportunities for transnational value
chain
iv. Bank recognized the failure of its SAPs of the 1980s; its new approach is now governed
by market intensification via agribusiness in partnership with the state
1. Limits of this approach: Reduce availability of local food for local markets and/
or for self- consumption
v. Case Study: The “Meatification” Controversy
1. Bank modeling for “feeding the world” extrapolates present trends, which
include unsustainable and inequitable impacts of dietary “meatification”
a. World Development Report: “To meet projected demand, cereal
production will have to increase by nearly 50 per cent and meat
production 85% from 2000 to 2030.”
2. Weis: meat production creates a substantial “ecological hoofprint”
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a.
Agriculture produces 22–30% of global greenhouse gas emissions
(GHG), of which livestock (including its feed and transport) accounts
for nearly 80%
b. Methane and N2O contribute more than CO² to agriculture’s warming
effect
c. Intensive-livestock complex links specialized feed crop regions with
proliferating factory farms, with feed crops using 70% of agricultural
land.
3. What is it about meat that represents modernity? And why does modernity
eschew mixed farming?
vi. Key technology proposed for feeding world: Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs)
1. Sponsored by the Gates Foundation in alliance with Monsanto, a global biotech
corporation and AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), which is
committed to introducing imported fertilizers and purchased seeds
2. Growing interest of the biotech industry in the fortification of food represents a
profitable (“nutritionalization”) fix to the problem created by the elimination of
dietary diversity (e.g., green leafy vegetables) by green revolution monocultures.
a. GMOs have focused on feed crops and traits suited to the extension of
chemical agriculture
3. A more ecologically effective way to address micronutrient deficiency is, e.g.,
through a smaller scale “revolution of greens” that focuses on rediscovering of
traditional diets by farmers via improving indigenous vegetables. These:
a. Have greater tolerance to drought and resistance to pests
b. Have shorter growing cycles than cereal crops and use less space
c. Strengthen resilience to price shocks and enable farmers to protect
biodiversity and mitigate climate change impacts
4. Difference between these approaches exemplifies the distinct interests and
outcomes of a grass-roots strategy to empower farming communities and boost
their ecological resilience over top-down market-driven strategy organized by
global interests associated with dependency and displacement of farmers
5. Raising claims for a rethinking of the current development paradigm,
particularly given the evidence regarding organic/agroecological farming
6. Case Study: Seeding the World?
a. Pionetti documents value of women’s seed work, in forming a
“localized seed economy” through seed exchanges with ecological,
economic, and socio-cultural significance
b. “The dynamic management of genetic resources enhances the stability
of traditional agrosystems, increases the adaptation potential of local
crops to evolving environmental conditions and limits the risk of
genetic erosion”
c. “Seed transactions also help ensure that land is not left fallow for lack
of seeds, thus avoiding soil erosion and increasing the soil’s organic
matter content and water retention capacity”
d. Seed saving minimizes risk, increases crop diversity and nutrition,
provides “self-reliance and bargaining power within the household” for
women, allows women to select seeds to meet specific individual,
environmental and climatic needs, allows planting at appropriate times
and provides assets (seeds constitute a currency, particularly among
women with few resources)
e. It constitutes the security of a “knowledge commons”
7. Can we imagine low-input farming (ecosystem reproduction), rather than highinput agriculture (plant production), as the more modern way to manage our
future?
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IV.
The Global Land Grab
i. “Land grabbing” driven by a combination of the food/energy/climate crisis and the
financial crisis. With rising energy and food prices land has become the object of
speculative investment and as a hedge against food and fuel supply shortfalls
ii. Facts:
1. Global investors acquired 111 million hectares of agricultural lands over four
years, 75 percent of which were in Africa (WB, 2009)
2. In 2011, a 12-fold reported increase in the amount of agricultural land acquired
by foreign investors
3. Land grabbers include China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Gulf countries,
Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, UAE, India, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
4. Other investors include agribusiness firms, investment houses, private equity
funds, and fund managers
a. Work either through local private partners, host governments, or via
their own governments in joint ventures with target countries
5. Bulk of investment is to produce food, while bio- fuels come in second place
6. Investment in land also a frontier for speculative versus real investment
iii. Cost of land may be low for investors, but not to the locals.
1. Governments are typically classifying lands, whether common lands or privately
used, as “idle” or “unproductive”
a. Example: in Ethiopia, over seven million acres of “virgin land,” to be
leased at an annual rate of about 50 cents per acre. People, thus,
dislocated have to work for wages in the cash economy.
2. But unplanted land in Africa isn’t really “idle” or “unproductive”
a. Maybe it’s used to graze livestock or deliberately left fallow to prevent
nutrient depletion and erosion
3. Also the idea that that subsistence or near-subsistence farmers are necessarily
poor, and would benefit from jobs is problematic. Questions that are particularly
relevant are:
a. While farmers may “choose” to become laborers in the modern
economy, what are the conditions under which they do so?
b. What are they giving up in the long term?
iv. Bio fuels
1. When producing biofuels, not only are farmers surrendering possibility of a
renewable livelihood, but also the community loses sovereignty over its food
system, since most land grabbed is for export agriculture, if not speculative
purposes
a. World Bank claims of large scale land acquisition as a vehicle to
reduce poverty is contestable
b. Fuel crops such as oil palm deplete soil and compromise local food
availability by displacing farmers and food crops
c. Land grab in general is both a food and water grab insofar as the
products are exported to feed the rich, or their vehicles
d. It destroys the physical mix of crops essential to maintain ecological
integrity
c. Bio- fuels contribute to greenhouse gas emissions
2. Overall, the biofuel initiative parallels the land grab plans to incorporate
southern peasants into the Bank’s “agriculture for development
a. A “’green fuel’ for northerners (who pay in cash and taxes) premised
on the “export of sustainability” from southerners (who pay in loss of
long-term livelihood and habitat).
V.
Green Technology
a. The sustainability project includes a double movement of posing market solutions to modern
problems, responding to ethical/environmental movements with “green capitalism.”
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b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
VI.
i. The practice of marketing emissions has been institutionalized in the EU’s Emissions
Trading Scheme (2005), whereby carbon emission permits have been assigned, free of
charge, to European corporations.
1. This has been critiqued because the system gives the right to emissions to
corporations, when it belongs to all of us.
2. A public management of the problem, including a carbon rationing system based
on principles of fairness, recognizing existing (global) inequalities of
responsibility for emissions is an alternative.
“De- coupling” between economic growth and energy growth
i. Began in the global North following the energy crisis of the 1970s
ii. EU has achieved a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption since then.
South will account for 80 percent of industrial emissions.
The Clean Development Mechanism has slowed green technologies in the North since firms offset
their pollution by investing in conservation (reforestation) or pollution-abatement (coal scrubbing,
carbon capture) initiatives in the South
Greening initiatives include:
i. A new emphasis on mass transit, redesigning of cities to reduce travel and promote
bicycle and pedestrian traffic
ii. Alternative power sources: off- shore wind projects and renewable power “supergrid” in
Europe
iii. Solar thermal energy has enormous potential in the South
iv. The center of gravity of global energy demand growth now lies in the developing world,
especially in China and India
China emerging as the leader in the global initiatives in clean energy, including compact
fluorescent light bulbs, solar water heaters, solar photovoltaic cells, and wind turbines
What are the Ingredients of the Sustainability Project?
i. A growing consensus among global policy-makers for mitigation and adaptation
procedures to stem climate change and ecosystem deterioration
ii. A global groundswell of communities and movements working for ecological
sustainability and social justice
iii. Institutional forms of green environmentalism and green capitalism
iv. Green technologies to save energy, produce renewable energy, sequester carbon, recycle
v. Rising recognition of the greater equity, productivity and sustainability of agroecology
vi. Political and economic offset mechanisms in the global North to shift pollution
southwards (the “export of sustainability”)
vii. Methods of “greenwash,” as corporate complexes rebrand and invest in sustainability
claims
viii. An emerging institutional complex including the UN Global Compact
Summary
a. The Sustainability Project is multi-faceted and a social tendency rather than a coordinated and/or
coherent political-economic reality
b. Nevertheless, despite our best efforts we are past the point where we will be able to reverse
climate change.
i. Proposed solution for a sustainable future is one in which future generations are given
their just considerations.
ii. This is best done in a society where all members are treated fairly by law, great
inequalities in wealth are eliminated and care is manifested in day to day life.
c. Yet another possible response is using the market to raise the price of fossil fuel to radically
change ingrained habits of high mass consumption
i. But this would be radical, therefore energetically contested
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