International sustainable development (734303212Y)
Class notes
College aantekeningen environment & international sustainable development (human geography)
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Course
International sustainable development (734303212Y)
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
Notes from all eight lectures in the environment & international sustainable development course at the UvA. Taught by Karen Paiva Henrique, Crelis Rammelt, Ethemcan Turhan, Fabio de Castro and Joeri Scholtens. Notes are in English and the additional information from the powerpoint slides is also in...
International sustainable development (734303212Y)
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Lectures environment and international sustainable development
Lecture 1 introduction and framing environmental problems
With development of destruction; destruction of environment and specific human-
environment relations.
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
1. traditional society with limited technology, static society. Transition triggered by
external influence, interests or markets
2. precondition for take-off with commercial exploitation of agriculture and extractive
industry. Installation of physical infrastructure and emergence of social/political elite
3. take off with development of a manufacturing sector. Investment of manufacturing
exceeds 10% of national income, development of modern institutions
4. drive to maturity with development of wider industrial and commercial base.
Exploitation of comparative advantages in international trade
5. high mass consumption
This idea is very linear. Is this really what development is or should be?
Development as (economic) growth.
The ones who do not fit are rationalized as the impact on a few to justify the benefit for
many/all.
How do these “old” ideas of exploitation and extraction relate to the main idea of this course:
sustainable development?
History starts in 1850: decline in wildlife, losses of development are becoming visible.
1900: colonial domination. We need to rationalize how we are expanding.
1950: post-war was a time of optimism. Technological improvements and population rise,
discovery of DDT against pests and mosquitos.
1960: limits to growth, Malthusian thinking. Management of “under-developed” territories in
global South.
1970: 1972 UN Conference, environment and development should come hand in hand.
1980: “our common future” from Brundtland commission. Gives definition of sustainable
development for the first time (development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs). Links poverty to
environmental degradation: economic growth. Cause and solution become the same.
2000: millennium development goals (MDGs)
2015: Paris agreement with sustainable development goals (SDGs)
Do not use First and Third World, use global North and South instead. Some of the terms in
readings are a bit old.
Rachel Carson’s silent spring: critique to Brundtland commission proposed solution of
economic growth (1962).
New research on local development being both ecologically and economically good.
World systems theory: developing one region is very closely related to underdeveloping
another region (Wallerstein).
,Political ecology: a field of study that examines the relationship between humans and their
environments – and who has access and control over resources – as politically mediated.
Human influence on environment cannot be investigated without considering political and
economic environments.
What is it to be developed and what is nature? Who benefits and who loses? Always losers.
How are narratives about the environment constructed?
How do narratives become practice/policies?
How do the policies impact livelihoods? What is justice?
Thomas Malthus: graph with population growth and food growth. When both meet in
quantity, there is war, disease and famine. Solution to population growth:
-famine and disease
-less social incentives
-population control, not for everyone (China)
Problem is overpopulation and solution is population control.
Garret Hardin: tragedy of the commons. The commons are complex environmental systems
that are hard to divide and protect (oceans for example). Problem: unlimited access to
resources. Solution: privatizing the commons (enclosing them), dividing the pastures.
Thus, the way that environmental problems are framed directly impacts how they are
managed.
Narrative: framework that articulates ideas, concepts, etc. Heroes, victims, causes,
consequences are all identified in the narrative and are dependent on its construction.
Paul Robbins: looks at population growth together with other factors such as energy use.
With everything you read, ask yourself how the story is framed.
Case study part 1: flood adaptation narratives
How is flood adaptation conceived as a problem? And to what solutions does this lead?
Adaptation is necessary, we already know this. But we need to make sure that adaptations
help the ones that need it the most.
Linear park: park among the river to buffer for floods. Big plan in Sao Paolo families need
to move.
People living close to river were framed as victims as well as villains, so proposed solution is
to move these people.
The park is framed as an innovative, ‘natural’ alternative to protect the city of São Paulo
against flood events. But, it emerges as a large infrastructural project that does not challenge
but rather fits within an existing flood management and control repertoire, perpetuating
institutional and political legacies that fail to account for the rights and needs of the urban
poor.
Theoretical lenses are:
- highly contingent upon the context within which they emerge
- largely defined by actors in positions of power
- always based on an existing repertoire
- resulting in highly uneven spatial outcomes
, - limiting poor populations’ access to and control over resources
- exacerbating their exposure to environmental harms.
The ensuing uneven landscapes of development are supported and legitimized by partial
environmental narratives which are pervasive, and define our knowledge of nature for
particular economic and political purposes and informal and constrain our imagination of
possible alternative futures.
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