Sustainability Politics Reading Notes and Literature Summary
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“In the Beginning There was Modernity,” Allan (2011)
- Debate on whether we are modern or have ever been modern has implications for
the kind of person we can be and the kind of society we can have
- Story of modernity is the beginning to organize our thinking
- Starting with the view that modernity and modern knowledge is the ideal; alive
and well in modern democracy
Defining institutions of modernity: nation-states and mass democracy, capitalism,
science, and mass media
Historical movements: Renaissance, Enlightenment, Reformation, the American and
French Revolutions, and the Industrial Revolution
- Modern idea of progress had to be rooted in empiricism and gathering of
observations using senses
- Knowledge only valid if it is empirically tested
- Intent of modern knowledge focused on two main areas: technical (domain of
science) and social (democratic state, belief in human rights)
- Main identity is the citizen, the supreme individual with the power to
determine their truth and make rational discoveries and decisions
Technical project:
Knowledge:
- Empirically grounded
- Universal laws enabling predictions
Progress:
- Through interventions informed by universal
- With predictable effects enabling control of nature and society
,Social project:
- Nation state and state system to promote stability
- Institutions enabling…
- Development of knowledge
- Knowledge-based progress
, “The Politics of Climate Change,” Giddens (2009)
Sustainable Development:
- Club of Rome: argued civilization is exhausting the resources upon which its
continued existence depends
- UN Conference on the “Human Environment” highlighted the importance of
reconciling economic development with more efficient resource use
- World Commission on Environment Development/Brundtland Report (1987)
introduced term “sustainable development”
- Modern industry is using resources at an alarming rate, which cannot be
maintained for much longer
- Economic growth is necessary to bring prosperity for developing world,
but development overall must be sustainable
- Treaty of Amsterdam embraced sustainable development as integral to the aims
of the EU; meeting point of greens and pro-marketers was world poverty
- “Sustainability” implies continuity and balance, while “development” implies
dynamism and change
- Environmentalists drawn to sustainability angle and governments focus on
development (GDP growth)
- Sustainability implies lasting solutions
World Economic Forum defined environmental sustainability in 5 elements:
1. Condition of ecological systems (air, soil, water)
2. Stresses to which those systems are subject, including their levels of pollution
3. Impact of stresses upon human society, as measured in terms of factors, such as
the availability of food and exposure to disease
4. Social and institutional capacity of a society to cope with environmental hazards
5. Capacity to create stewardship of global public goods, especially the atmosphere
, - Development means the accumulation of wealth normally measured in GDP so
that a society becomes progressively richer
- For poorer countries there is a development imperative in which their getting
richer has direct implications for sustainability
- “License to pollute” for developing countries has to be acknowledged
- Contraction and convergence: developed countries must aim to make
large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and developing nations can
increase their emissions for a period in order to permit growth then begin
to reduce them
Over-Development:
- Economic growth should not be pursued irrespective of its wider consequences;
imperative to create more effective measures of welfare than GDP
- GDP makes no distinction between industrial growth that increases
emissions and growth that does not or factor in economic inequality
- Genuine Progress Indicator (1995): adjusts for factors such as income
distribution, household and volunteer work, crime, and pollution
- GPI started declining around 1975 while GDP kept increasing
- Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare: uses national and local data
- US and UK showed ISEW growth until the 1970s
- Sustainable Society Index (2006): uses wider range of environmental measures
and other indices; shows similar conclusions to the ISEW
- Key: from short term fixes to long term solutions, maintain potential for future
generations to ensure welfare
- Condition of ecosystems, stresses on ecosystem and implications of
stresses for humans, social/institutional capacity to cope with hazards and
exercise stewardship
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