ALTERNATIVE FUTURES: SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE *

by Charles Harper

Americans have had a long love affair with their cars, Indeed, the promise of speed, personal freedom, and convenience that magically conveys you wherever the road will lead is powerful cultural icon in america and around the world. Cars in the words, are not just transportation. Particularly in America, they are a powerful symbol of personhood and status. Several years ago, when my wife and I Had three college-aged youths in our household, I was shocked one night to look out the window and count five cars parked around the house.(Some where junkers,but cars nonetheless.) How irrational, I thought ...one for each person in our family! In spite of the oil shocks of the 1970s, Americans drive more now than ever(on average,22% more miles in 1990 than in 1969),and gasguzzling muscle cars are back. Since the 1970s, the sale of pickup trucks, which use 25% more fuel, has tripled (particularly in urban areas where they are rarely needed), and the sale of racy BMWs increasecd 10-fold in japan. Though the 400-million strong auto fleet is not growing as rapidly as it once did (only 3% a year, down from 5% a year in the 1970s), the absolute number of cars continues to grow as 19 million are added to the world fleet each year. But along with the American car culture and the proliferating number of autos come ubiquitous problems. Making autos has a substantial impact on the environment. In 1990, a typical American car contained 1,000 kilograms of iron , steel, and other metals, and 100 kilograms of plastic, making the auto industry the leading consumer of metals and plastic. The manufacture of metals and plastic and turn is a high-impact industry, itself: high in energy intensity and in the production of toxic wastes. Fueling passenger cars accounts for morethan a fourth of world oil consumption, and the refining industry is the worlds highest in energy intensity and the fourth highest in total toxic waste emissions. Motor vehicles are the single largest source of air pollution, creating a haze of smog over the worlds cities. This smog aggrevates bronchial and lung disorders and is often deadly to asthmatic, children , and the elderly. Automobiles emit a substancial proportion (13%) of the carbon dioxide(CO2)produced from fussil fuels. Accommodating autos makes a substantial impact on land use: In the U.S. roads, parking lots, and other areas devoted to cars occupy half of all urban space. Nationwide, pavement covers an area larger than the state of Gergia. Cars have also resshaped community life as cities sprawl, public transit atrophies, and suburban shopping centers multiply. Workplaces have begun to scatter, increasing the average commuting time. Despite auto safety improvements, accidents killed more than a quarter of a million people around the world, and several million more were injured or permanently disabled.

____________________________ *REPRINTED FROM: Charles Harper, Environment and Society (Prentice-Hall:Upper Saddle River, NJ,1996), Chapter 7, pp245-282.

The point is that cars are not only an important means of tansportation or a cultural icon of indutrial civilization: They are also powerful symbols of our social and environmental predicaments. How did we get caught up in automania, particularly when forms of transportation exist that are much less socially disruptive and environmental greener? Furthermore, because autos are so central to our social and environmental predicaments, what are the prospects for an orderly transition to a sustainable society without cooling our passion for cars and, in a sense, regaining control of the auto? The central concern of this chapter is with the relation between the environmental problems I have been discussing and the notion of social and environmental sustainability. What is a sustainable society? Conceptually, and in the abstract, the matter is quite simple: A sustainable society is one that does not exceed its environmental carrying capacity. It can persist over generations without undermining either its physical or its social system of support. Another way of putting it is that a sustainable society is one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commision on Environment and Development, 1987). Few would disagree with this abstract definitions or with the desirability of a sustainable society. But when we get to particulars, there is a lot of disagreement about what sustainable society is or how close we are to attaining it. How many people can the world support? How much consumption? How many cars? How much solid waste and pollution? A common theme running through orevious chapters is that there are different intellectual paradigms for understanding human the notion of sustainability and the kind of transformation, if any, required to produce a sustainable society. The growth in scale in a finite world paradigm, the market failures and resource allocation problems paradigm, and the social distribution paradigm have quite different views of the causes and severity of environmental problems and quite different implications for action and policy. Previous chapters therefore have also been concerned with finding the grounds for action and policy in the face of uncertainly, scientific as well as paradigmatic. In this chapter, I will try to examine both the issue of different paradigms and criteria for action and policy

in a clearer and more holistic way. First, I will draw together some strands of the previous several chapters by looking again at the human causes of environmental change in a more summary fashion. Second,i will address different paradigms of human and environmental futures, particularly in terms of different views of the consequences of continued population and economic growth for sustainability. Third, I will examine the most pertinent existing evidence in relation to these different paradigms and explicate what I believe to be the most prudent criteria for action and change in the face of considerable uncertainly. Fourth, I will attempt to describe in some detail what a sustainable society would look like.

CONCEPTUALIZING THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: /=PAT

In Chapter Two,I discussed the driving forces of environmental change as (1) population size and growth,(2) institutional arrangements, praticularly the political-economy, (3) cultural values and belief systems, and (4) technology. Previous chapters examined in depth two caeses of environmental modification: human population growth and the energy system that underlies all economic activity in the industrial era. The human causes of environmental change have been described in a more summary model that is simple captures interaction of types of factors. Biologist Paul Ehrlich and energy scientist John Holdren created a way of conceptualizing the joint impact of the human causes of environmental change. They argued that the impact (I) of any population or nation on environmental and ecosystem is a product of its population (P), its level of affluence(A), and the damage done by particular technologies(T) that support that influence:

I = P x A x T
This is a simple way of illustrating different but related dimensions of environmental impact: as functions of the number of people, the technologies they employ to produce goods, and the amount of goods they consume. While the relative weights of these are subject to debate, it is methodologically useful for scholars, because it is possible to develop quantitative summary measures for each term of formula. Because each term multiplies impact independently, it follows that the opportunities for changing them are different in different societies. The less develop countries (LDCs)have, for example, the most room for improvement in P; the MDCs have the greatest potential for improvement in A and T. The I = PAT model is simple,robust, and useful as a framework for research. It is usually applied as an accounting or different equation, where values for three of the four terms are used to solve for the fourth (usually T), and in which the relative impact of P, A, and T on I is determined by their changes over time. That assumes the model is linear and the effects of the differents terms are proportional. But

research by Dietz and Rosa reformulates I=PAT as a sthocastic model, in which values of the term of the equation are allowed to vary across observational units (nations).Their reformulation is also sensitive to possible nonproportional threshold effects that identify diminishing or increasing impacts of the terms of the equation of relation to environmental impact (I). Specifically, they used nonlinear regression formulas and other multivariate statistiical techniques to study the contributions of population, affluence, and technology on the production of greenhouse gases in various nations. They used existing data from 111 nations about CO2 emissions (in millions of metric tons of carbon per year), population (population size), and affluence (gross domestic product per capita). Technology was not measured directly but, rather, modeled as a residual term, that is, as a multiplier in the equations to capture all things (physical infrastructure, social and economic organization, culture, etc.) whose effects are not captured by population and affluence. Dietz and Rosas (1994) findings demonstrate the significant utility of the I=PAT model, and I discuss them here in some depth. They found that increasing population among nation increased CO2 production and did so in a linear way without any threshold effects: the more people, the more CO2. Dietz and Rosa argue that these finding embarrass the argument made by some economists and by Julian Simon (1981) in particular that population has little effect or even a beneficial effect on the environment and lend support to ongoing concern with population growth as a driving force of environmental impacts. By contrast, they found that the effects of affluence on CO2 emissions level off and even decline somewhat at the very highest levels of gross domestic product per capita. They suggest that this derives from the shift from manufacturing to service economies and from the ability of more affluent economies to invest in energy efficiency. Unfortunately, they note that this effect occurs at affluence levels above 75% of the 111 nations in the sample and that, for the overwhelming majority of nations, continued economic growth can be expected to produce increasing, rather than declining, CO2 emissions. In other words, reductions in CO2 emissions will not occur in the normal course of development and will have to come from targeted efforts to shift toward less carbon-intensive technologies. Dietz and Rosa use the technology multipliers to identify some nations for particular analysis because they have multipliers different from what one would expect at particular levels of affluence and population size. Of particular interest were nations with unusually large multipliers, indicating that they emit far more CO2 than would be expected from their size and levels of affluence. These include Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, and Poland. In contrast, some nations had relatively small multipliers and small CO2 emissions for their size and levels of affluence. These included France, Spain, and Brazil. The authors hypothesize about particular technology-infrastructure differences that would account for such anomalies. Bulgaria and Poland, as former Soviet bloc nations, consumed a lot of fossil fuels relative to their of levels of affluence. Zimbabwe has a large indutrial sector relative to its level of affluence of CO2 production than would be expected a given levels of size and affluence: Frances extensive reliance on nuclear power, Spains use of nuclear and hydroelectric power and its relatively low level of automobile ownership, and Brazils reliance on hydroelectric and liquid natural gas fuel.

Finally, Dietz and Rosa estimated the coefficients of their statistical model to project global CO2 emissions for the year 2025, using various U.N. projections for populations and economic growth. They concluded that, to achieve a goal of stable emissions at 1991 levels in the face of economic and population growth, average energy efficiency gains of 1.8% per year would be neeede from 1990 to 2025. The researchers believe that these increases are feasible, but will not occur without strenous efforts. I have discussed this research in some depth because the findings themselves are interesting and significant for both science and policy and also because they vividly demonstrate the usefulness of the I=PAT model as a research tool. I=PAT is also important because it incorporates the major human driving forces of change that almost everyone would agree are important and ones that are at the heart of current debate and discourse regarding environmental problems. The I=PAT model also provides a framework for integrating disparate insights and scholarly literatures. Next iattempt to demonstrate this by elaborating one of the models dimensions.

Affluence, Impact

Social

Inequality,

and

Environmental

Not surprisingly, social scientist have been most interested in A of the I=PAT equation. They have suggested that affluence by itself oversimplifies the social dimensions of environmental problems. It does so because it is one kind of consequences of the operation of more basic social system components: Cultural values and institutional arrangements. Just as important, it oversimplifies the human impact because affluence is one end of a broader continuum of social inequality. Social scientists are coming to understand not just affluence and poverty as ends on a continuum of social inequality both within and between nations as causes of environmental disequality. If affluence is an environmental problems, poverty may be as bad. How so?

Increasing Social Inequality

before addressing environmental impacts, you need to recognize that social inequality has been growing slowly but steadily since the 1970s both in the MDCs and the LDCs. And it has been growing both within and between societies. The growth of social inequality means a growth of both affluence and poverty at the same time. In the MDCs, social inequality declined after World War II until about the mid-1970s, after which it has steadily but slowly increased. In America, for example, between 1960 and 1974, real wages of experienced workers increased by about 20% but between 1973 and 1992, average real wages for the bottom 60% of male workers fell by 20% and the overall median male wages fell 12%. According to economist Lester Thurow, the earnings prospects are collapsing for the bottom two-thirds of the work force. At the sametime, 1980 census data show that the proportion of middle-income households in the populations shrank from 71% to 63% while the proportion of low-income households rose by 33% as did the share of affluent households. However it is measured, the overall pattern is clear: (1) more and comparatively richer rich; (2) fewer in the middle with slowly eroding living standards for the middle class; and (3) more and comparatively poorer poor. While growing social inequality was visible in most MDCs, it was more notable in the United States. In

fact, by 1990 the distribution of wealth (not income) in the U.S. more closely resembled that of the Philippines, India, and Venezuela than that of Germany, the United Kingdom, or Canada. The growth of global inequality stands out in even sharper relief between nations. In 1960 the richest 20% of the worlds people absorbed 70% of global income; by 1989 (the latest year for which comparable figures are available) the share of the wealthy had increased to nearly 83%. The poorest 20%, meanwhile, saw their share of global income drop from a meager 2,3% to a more meager 1.4%. The ratio of the richest fifths share to the poorests thus grew from 0 to 1 in 1960 to 59 to 1 in 1989. Both within and between nations, the chasm between the rich and the not so rich is growing. The causes of growing social inequality are complex but in general have todo with (1) the increasing shift of less skilled labor to low-wage LDCs and (2) the technological upgrading of production, which reduces the total demand for less skilled labor. Thus, inequality has been growing even as the world economic output has increased and the world market system has become more integrated. The social consequences of this process are profound. At minimum, it is likely to increase social polarization and political tensions both within and between nations.`

Inequality and Environmental Degradation

Part of the reason that inequality increases social tensions is that environmentaldegration impacts the living standards and life-styles of different social classes and ethnic group in different ways. The affluent can respondto environmental problems with minimal consequences for modifying their life-styles. For instance, they can afford higher prices or energy taxes, or they can purchase more efficient homes, autos, or appliances. The less affluent classes are less able to do so. An enormous body of research demonstrate that both lower socioeconomic classes and racial minorities bear more than their share of the costs of environmental problems and change. They live in zones more threatened by toxic wastes of all kinds, and landfills and waste repositories are more likely to be built in the neighborhoods and communities where they live. Both inter-and intranational trade in garbage to the neighborhoods and nations of the poor. The different effects of environmental degradation on the poor compared with the rich might be obvious. But what might not be obvious is how growing inequality is itself a potent cause of environmental decline. By now ample evidence shows that people at either end of the income spectrum are far more likely than those in the middle to damage the earths ecological health: the rich because their affluent lifestyles are likely to lead them to ensume an over proportionate share of the earths food, energy, raw materials, manufactured goods and the poor, because their poverty drives them to damage and abuse the environment. The poorer classes in MDCs damage the environment not because they consume so much, but because they can afford only older, cheaper, less durable, less efficient, and more environmentally damaging products autos, appliances, homes, and so forth. Im other words, the affluent who can afford the newest and most efficient of everything danage the environment because of the volume of energy and material they consume. The poor do so because whatever they consume is likely to have a greater per unit environmental impact. It is important

to note that it is not the poorest among the poor who have no autos, apartments, or appliances of any kind who are environmentally most damaging. Rather, it is the most marginal segment of unskilledworkers who still have sufficient amenities to have an impact on the environment, not, for instance, the transient or homeless, who have virtually nothing. In LDCs, population pressure and inequitable income distribution pushes many of the poor onot fragile lands, where they overexploit local resource bases, sacrificing the future to salvage the present. Short-term strategies such as slash-and-burn agriculture, abbreviated fallow periods, harvests exceeding regenerations rates, depletion of topsoil, and deforestation permit survival in the present but place enormous burden on future generations. In fact, with uncanny regularity, the worlds most improverished regions also suffer the worst ecological damage; maps of the two are almost interchangeable. In China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, for instance, the improverished live in degraded semiarid and arid regions or in the crowded hill country sorrounding the Himalayas; Chinese poverty is particularly concentrated on the Loess Plateau, where soil is eroding on a legendary scale. Often, the environmentally destructive behavior of the worlds poor has to do with highly skewed land ownership patterns. Rural small landholders whose land tenure is secure rarely overburden their land, even if they are poor. But dispossessed and secure rural households often have no choice but to do so. Neither hired workers, hired managers, nor tenant farmers care for land as well as owners do (which also is evident in the U.S.). Being landless is in fact a common condition among rural households in many LDCs: Among rural households, 40% of Africans, 53% of Indians, 60% of filipinos, 75% of Equadorians, 70% of Brazilians, and 92% of Dominicans are landless or near landless. Although such poverty impacts the environment, the causality here is not one way. Even before it is degraded, a marginal area by nature does not ussually produce enough surplus to lift its inhabitants out of poverty. Poor areas and poor people destroy each other. Furthermore, as in the MDCs, it is not the poorest of the poor, who have no consumer amenities or access to land whatsoever, who are the greatest problem. The poorest of the poor, whether in rural areas or urban shantytowns, are most likely to be widows, divorcees, and single mothers. They consume less and produce less waste per capita than all others. They probably tread lightest of al on the earth and do less damage to the environment than any other groups. They are victims, not prepetrators. A reformed land tenure system that gives secure ownership of land, even in small parcels, to the landless peasants of the world would go some distance toward moderating the high birthrates and staunching the destruction of ecosystems by the worlds poor. The affluents population of the MDCs also threaten the global ecosystem, but obviously not because they are desperate with few alternatives. MDCs have the consumerist culture, the purchasing power, and economic arrangements to support life-styles that consume an overproportionate share of the worlds resources. With about 20% of the worlds population, they consume ten times the energy as their counterparts in LDCs, 10 times the timber, 13 times the iron and steel, 14 times the paper, 18 times the synthetic chemicals, and 19 times the aluminum. They account for a disproportionate share of resurce depletion, environmental pollution, andand habitat degradation than

humans have caused worldwide. A world full of affluent socieites that consume at such levels is an ecological impossibility.

Affluence and Personal Happiness

Because the dominant social paradigm of MDCs, particularly American, leads people to see affluence as a prerequisite for personal happiness, you need to ask an important question: Is there, in fact, a relationship between affluence and happiness? No one would suggest that desperately poor people are as happy as the wealthy. But empirical studies of the relationship between affluence and happiness suggest a far weaker relationship than you might expect. Since the 1950s, Americans have nearly doubled their consumptuon, both in terms of GNP and personal consumption expenses per capita. Yet regular surveys by the National Opinion Research Center reveal that no more Americans report that they are very happy now than in the 1950s. The very happy proportion of the population has hovered around one-third since the 1950s. Nor is there as much variation in reported personal happiness between nation as you might expect. One study in the 1970s found that Nigerians, Filipinos, Panamanians, Yugoslavians, Japanese, Israelis, and West Germans all ranked themselves near the middle on a happiness scale. Studies generally confounded attempts to correlate material consumption and personal hapiness. Summarizing this evidence, psychologist Michael Argyle suggested that there are very small overall differences in the level of reported happiness found in rich and very poor countries. The connection between income and happiness turns out to be relative (mainly to social class) rather than absolute. That is, the upper classes in any society are more satisfied with their lives than the lower classes are, but thye are no more satisfied than the upper classes of much poorer countries, or than upper classes in the much less affluent past. In sum, poverty and affluence are both threats to the environment and are becoming more so as the chasm of social inequality widens around the world. A reduction of social eniquality within and between nations would reduce pressure on the environment, both through reducing the resource consumption of the affluent and by reducing the need to overharvest, overgraze, or overfish to meet the short-run subsistence needs of the poor.

SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURES: TWO VIEWS

Since 1950, population has doubled and will likely double again in the next 20 years. Global economic output has quintipled. The cultural ethods of consumerism that favors high growth and ever-rising consumption is rapidly diffusing around the world. At the same time, the chasm of inequality grows, poverty proliferates, while the prospects for global equity seem increasingly remote. Signs indicate that every environmental and ecological system is becoming degraded and that there is a very real prospects for altering the climate of the planet. What are the implications for our social and environmental future is such trends continue? Can they continue without devastating the carrying capacity and resource base of the planet. Or will we be able to invent and grow our way into a sustainable high-consumption world for every large numbers of people? The traditional finite world

paradigm of most physical scientists and demographers argues for the former, and the market allocation paradigm of neoclassical economists argues for the latter possibility (if we will let markets operate to regulate scarcities and stimulate investment in innovation). These conflicting views of the trajectory of social and environmental futures have, in fact, been quite well articulated. They are scenarios developed first in the 1960s and 1970s, but bith views have contemporary defenders. Although they are very different, both have a posotive visiov. Each provides some hope for a good human future but in very different terms. A Future Without Limits: Cornucopia? Since the 1960s. Herman Kahn (the late director of Hudson Institute) and his collegues have argued that universal affluence and permanent sustainability are possible and, indeed, the most probable outcomes of present trends. They argue that all persons in the world can, in fact, live like contemporary Americans without devastating the planet. Kahn and his collegues argue that barring bad luck or mismanagement the prospects for achieving eventually a high level of broadly worldwide economic affluence and beneficent technology are bright, and that this is a good and logical goal for mankind... How so? Kahn argues that, taking a very long view, we are now still in part of a great transition that began with industrialization in the 1700s. Kahn and his collegues argues, In much the same way that the agricultural revolution spread round the world, the Industrial Revolution has been spreading and causing a permanent change in the quality of human life. However, instead of lasting 10,000 years, this second diffusion process is likely to be largely completed with a total span of about 400 years or roughly by the late 22nd century. The great transition has three phases, encompassing (1) the Indutrial Revolution and industrial societies of the early twentieth century; (2) the superindustrial economy, meaning the emerging global economy of igh technologies, service undustries, and multinational corporations; and (3) the future transition to a true postindutrial society. These phase0s overlap and completementeach other in time in different parts of the world but, according to Kahn, the general pattern of evolution is clear. Kahn expects the general pattern of the great transition to follow an S=shaped curve. That is, from the 1800s, there were exponential increases in world population, the gross world product (GWP) and per capita incomes. In the mid-1970s, world population growth to decline, but affluence continued to spread so that world per capita incomes will continue to increase; these trends will continue. Kahn and his collegues are at pains to stress that the slowing of economic growth will uccur because, with the spread of affluence, there will be a reduced growth of demand rather than supply shortages. Thegrowing inequality that I have noted is what Kahn and his collegues vies as a transional gap between the living standards of the poor and the rich nations, which they argue is inevitable as industrialism spreads and living standards of some parts of the world relative to others are raised. But that is analogous tothe widespread misery and poverty of early industrialism, which eventually spread better living conditions to all classes in indusrial societies. You can see Kahns depiction of the great transition in terms of his estimates

of changes in population growth, the GWP, and per capita incomes in Figure1. Kahn envisions the future from now until about 2025 dominated by what he calls superindustrial societies as a somewhat difficult transition period. It will be a period of slowing down of percentage growth rates for the GWP and a particular period of malaise for the rich countries. The present time represents the spread of problem-prone superindustrial economies that experienced many difficulties: technological crises, pollution and destruction of the environment, the exploitation of labor in the LDCs, and problems of coordination and control of multinational firms. Because many of the projects of superindustrial societies are so large scale, they are problem prone, and we do not (yet) know how to eliminate, control, or alleviate all these effects. During this period, Kahn predicts commercial ventures to colonize and to initiate economic activity in space, particularly regarding energy and minerals, which will exponentially increase the resource base available to human societies. As superindustrialism spreads among the developed countreis, manufacturing industry will spread among the middle-income nations and perhaps eventually to some of the poorer ones. But in Kahns view, the present environmental problems, the growing social inequality and poverty, and consequent geopolitical tensions and conflicts are all transitional problems. Toward the end of the period (probably sometime in the middle of the next century), the problems of superindustrialism will begin to be successfully managed. The first signs of a worldwide maturing economy will be seen. By 2175, Kahn and his collegues expect superindustrial societies to be everywhere, most likely including a vastly expanded space economy, and true postindustrial ones to rapidly emerging in many places. They predict after this date a slowing down of both population and economic growth rates, not only in percentages but in absolute numbers. But the slowdown of economic growth rates does not mean a decline in standards of living because of (1) the economies of scale that accompany large-scale systems and (2) intensive technological progress that will provide energy savings and will sustitute new resources for scarce ones. Kahn expects that in true postindustrial societies, economic tasks will constitute only a small part of human endeavors. Evntually, furnishing the material needs and commercial services of a society will be carried out largely by highly automated equipment and complex computers operated by a small professional group. Thus, in the context of growing economic efficiency, rapid advances in technology, and a stabilizing world population, unparalleled affluence can be sustained on a global basis. They envision a world of large-scale system dominated by high technology and technocrtas, in which the large bulk of humans will be preoccupied with noneconomics pursuits. Although they do not ignore the problems of the present, Kahn and his collegues have little patience with those who view present problems in apocalyptic terms. Reacting to one such report (Global 2000, a Report to the President, 1979) they responded that

Global problems due to physical conditions...are always possible, but are likely to be less pressing in the future than in the past. Environmental, resource, and population stresses are

diminishing, and with the passage of time will have less influence than now upon the quality of human life on our planet. These stresses have in the past always caused many people to suffer from lack of good, shelter, health, and jobs, but the trend is toward less rather than more of such suffering. Especially important and noteworthy is the dramatic trend toward longer and healthier life throughout all the world. Because of increases in knowledge, the earths carrying capacity has by now no use ful meaning. These trends strongly suggest a progressive improvement and enrichment of the earths natural resource base, and of mankinds lot on earth.
In short, Kahn and his collegues believe that continuing the present trends will produce a much brighter tomorrow, in spite of the present difficulties of the transition, and that

it is not very alternative to growth, growing than to try historical trend would disaster.

practical to adopt any and it is probably safer to stop. Attempting to either have little effect

deliberate to keep on change the or lead to

In a nutshell, this optimistic view of the future accepts the presents trends as basically benign. It si a cornucopian view of the future. Kahn and his collegues have taken a clear human exemptionalist view, which holds that human are essentially exempt from the limits of nature. With faith in human goodwill and inventiveness, Kahn and coworkers see no reason to deflect or attempt to change the course of social change that has been in effect since the 1600s. As you may imagine, this very attractive view of the nature which posits the possibility of universal affluence, environmental sustainability, and a leisure-oriented society has many contemporary advocates. (for examples, see Naisbett, 1982, 1994; Simon, 1981; Zey, 1994).

A Future With Limits: Outbreaks-Crash

The counterpoint to the cornucopian scenario argues that present trends are putting us on a collision course with the finite carrying capacity of the planet, which we may shortly overshoot. Some argue that we are already in an overshoot mode. If so, we must dramatically reverse the historic trends of the past 200 years or inevitably suffer a collapse of human civilization because of a collapse of the resource base on which it depends. The most articulate and influential statement of this view was by a 1970s futurist think tank called the Club of Rome, which was originally located in Italy and sponsored by a variety of industrialists and multinational corporations. Rather than rely on the mental and intuitive models of Kahn and his collegues (cited earlier), the methodology of the Club of Rome used an elaborate computer simulation called A World System Dynamics(WSD) model developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists Jay Forrester, Donella Meadows, and their collegues. This model started with what was

known about current patterns and trends in population growth,economic growth, resource consumption, food supply, and pollution effects, each of which has been growing exponentially. The WSD model then developed an elaborate set of coeffecients for how continued growth in each of these areas would impact the others and attempted to project the sum of these interactions into the future of several hundred years. The resulting projection by the WSD model was a classic outbreakcrash model, familiar to biological ecologist. It is what happens when populations of animals (e.g., the reindeer on St. Mattews Island) grow at a such a rate that they strip the environment of available food supplies. After doing so, their populations declines precipitouly. The human outbreak-crash pattern predicated by the WSD model argues that current exponential growth in population, resource consumption, and food production will produce such enormous stress on the carrying capacity of the planet by 2100 that the resource and capitals inputs to support such consumption levels will not be sustainable. So much investment of wealth is required to obtained dwindling supplies of petroleum, natural gas, silver, petroleum, nickel, zinc, and other resources to maintain world industrial development that capital investments can no longer keep up with the growing needs. This prevents increases in fertilizer production, health care, education, and other vital activities. Without food and necessary services, world population and living standards will undergo a steady decline sometime during the twenty-first century. Thus, the Club of Rome research group argued that, on a global basis, the whole of humanity will replicate the more limited ecological crash experience of the Copan Mayans, the Mesopotamians, and many other preindustrial societies. In their degraded environments, they could no longer obtain the investments necessary for social maintenance. The views of the Club of Rome research group have been forcefully stated in a variety of technical and popular publications. The most recent report by the group using more recent data is significantly, entitled Beyond the Limits and argues that we have already overshot the earths carrying capacity and are now living with a dwindling resource base. This is depicted in figure2, in what the MIT analysts called their standards run, reflecting current world conditions. In various publications, the Club of Rome research group produced a large variety of computer runs of the simulation to reflect more optimistic assumptions (e.g., doubling resource asupply estimates, controlling population growth and pollution effects), but the result was the same: At some time shortly after the run of the next century (2100), growth would be unsustainable. The problem was not any single dimension but the cumulative effects of the way that they interact. And the underlying probblem is growth itself. Hence the MIT researchers emphasized the urgency of global efforts to dampen exponential economic growth itself(not just population growth and pollution side effects) and move toward a global equilibrium. The language of the steady state, used in earlier versions of their scenario, has been replaced with the language of sustainability in which they take pains to point out that certain types of growth are possible, so long as there are dramatic reductions in material consumption. In this view, it is not enough to simply wait for markets to adjust to scarcity of food and nonrenewable resources: By that time, irreversible declines in ecological equilibrium and resource availability may have already taken place, and a variety of points of no return of no return may have been passed. Nor can technology save us. All that technological advances can do is delay the inevitable end, bec

cause dominant cultural patterns and institutional arrangements perpetuate conditions of profligate consumption and problem solving by growth that are in the end self-defeating and environmentally destructive. The specter raised by this division is that, if preent trends continue, after 2100, a smaller human population will be eking out a more marginal existence on an exhausted and polluted planet. The Club of Rome research group does not suggestthat the collapse of civilization is inevitable. Their view is rather that there is still time to avoid the widespread but gradual collapse of civilization in the next century, even though time is short and we are further along the trajectory to collapse than when their initial report was issued 20 years ago. But achieving sustainability will entail at minimum(1) the establishments of limits on population and economic growth, particularly as the latter implies material consumption, and (2) an emphasis on development tailored to the resource basis of each nation so that economic advances can be ecologically sustainable. This is indeed a sharp counterpoint to the cornucorpian view of the future presented by Kahn and his collegues. It is a darker and more pessimistic scenario about the future, and as you might imagine, it has provoked a blizzard of commentary and criticism over the years. The most common criticism questioned (1) the assumptions of resources estimates and/or (2) the interactions assumptions. It is the old bane of computers simulations GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. In particular, earlier versions predicted impending depletion and cost increases of several mineral resources that have not occured (many are more abundant and cheaper than they were in 1970). Indeed, the subject of mineral resources is treated in a much more nuanced fashioned in later publications, often emphasizing sink rather than source problems. On the otherhand, the Club of Rome groups projection about the availability of pther types of resources (e.g., water, arable land per capita) seem, in the retrospective of 20 years, on target. Other attacks on the perspectives of the Club of Rome groups have been more political and ideological than empirical. They have been attacked by conservatives and free-market economists for providing the justification of a planned and rationed world socioeconomic order and by those on theleft as providing justification for halting growth and thus betraying the aspirations of the worlds poor. Indeed, though the Club of Rome has recognized the importance of distributional problems in the transition to sustainability, concrete suggestions about how to achieve sustainability or global equilibrium are absent. Voluntary Simplicity, Appropriate Technology, and the Soft Path I said earlier that there is a posotive vision of the future in even this more gloomy scenario, and you may be wondering by now exactly how this is so. Some have argued that learning to live sustainbility in a world with limits is not just a nasty necessity but could be the basis for a better social life, albeit one in which material consumption could not grow indefinitely. One such suggestion urges people in the MDCs to change their life-styles toward voluntary simplicity. By living frugally and simply, individuals could change patterns of consumption

and reduce pollution and environmental disruption. Personal efforts to live more gently on the earth are embodied in voluntary simplicity. Such efforts are not new, and advocate Duane Elgin estimated probably optimistically, in 1981 that 10 million adult Americans, as well as people from other nations, were experimenting with voluntary simplicity. Simple living is less convenient. It values simple rather than fancy habits and appliances (e.g., cooking from scratch rather than convenience foods, clotheslines rather than drying machines, and walking and bycycling more and driving less). It requires more forethought and attention to how life is grounded in the seasons and nature. Lowering consumption need not deprive people of goods and services that they say really matter conversation, family and community gatherings, theater, music, and spiritually. According to a husband and wife who gave up high-paced jobs in journalism and screenwriting to run a rural family orchard, simple living ha scome to mean spending more time attending to our lives and less time attending to our work, and living more deliberately and hurriedly. But they do so in opposition to the powerful consumerist culture. In fact, relatively few have been willing to voluntarily give up more convenience and the prospect of life in the fast lane for the pleasures of a simplified life-syles. Most in the MDCs spend more time and energy figuring out how to maintain and extend consumption rather than practice voluntary simplicity. And it has little to do with the needs of the poor in the MDCs and around the world, who already live in involuntary simplicity of a much more malevolent kind. This is a cultural argument, but there is a related technological one. It urges the increasing adoption of appropriate technoligies (AT), defined as techologies that are best able to match the needs of all people in a society in a sustainable relationship with the environment. ATS differ from the high technologies of the cornucorpian scenario. They are often (1) simpler (and can be understood and repaired by the people who use it), (2) less phrone to failures (as are more complex technological systems, and (3) less likely to cause several ecological side effects. Proponents of AT advocate, for example the subsitution of organic fertilizers for inorganic ones that have deleterious effects on soil and water and the subsitution of solar space heating for usind electricity to heat homes. Heating homes with electricity (perhaps generated by nuclear power plants) when solar space heating is practical, cheaper, and more environmentally benign has been compared to cutting butter with a chain saw! In some senses, AT means reintegrating expert knowledge with traditional ways of doing things, as illustrated by the discussion of traditional, organic, and low-input farming in Chapter Five. Appropriate technologies are proposed for both the MDCs and LDCCs. For the LDCs, AT may provide alternatives to importing inappropriately expensive and complex technologies that have in part been responsible for developmental failures (e.g., Westernstyle power plants and industrialized agriculture). Rural AT energy and agriculture, not requiring lots money, machinery, or large landholdings, could reduce the migration of displaced peasants to already overcrowded cities. It could thus reduce conflict between rural and urban residents. The most articulate spokesperson for the use of AT was the late British economist E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small is Beautiful has been widely influential. Physicist Amory Lovins described two sharply divergent possible paths for energy and social development. One is the hard path, which is capital intensive, large-scale, centralized, bureaucratic, and uses

energy-intensive technologies. The social world of the hard path would be one in which political power is technocratically based and also highly centralized. It would be a world in which structural unemployment is a chronic problem for those displaced by new technologies. It implies specialization and interdependency in massive structures and a culture in which material consumption is in itself a measure of status and self-worth. It would also be, according to Lovins, a culture of alienation for the masses of people who live in systems that are too large and too technically complex for general comprehension. It is the epitome of the path advocated by Kahn and his collegues. The soft path, on the other hand, envisions a world of decentralized or smaller scale organizational structures, less complex and less resource-intensive technologies, and less intensive capitalization required for production. It implies more localism, bartering, and an emphasis on self-efficiency. Lovins broadly views the two paths as basically incompatible, in that a presistent retreat to the prevailing hard path with its supply-expansion strategies will foreclose future options for a soft technology with a high standard of living.

Comparing the Two Scenarios

The cornucorpian and the limits scenarios are two strikingly different visions of future. I hope that their relevance to the different paradigms for understanding human-environment interaction is obvious to you. The cornucopian scenario argues that the good future is to be found in complex technological solutions to resource problems and in economies of scale that come with the coordinated global management of large-scale, bureaucratic systems. Proponents of this scenario tend to gloss over the fact that such systems may increasingly become unmanageable, less amenable to democratic control, and more vulnerable to catastrophic blunders, accidents, and disruptions. They take it as articles of faith that (1) resource limits and environmental decay can and will be overcome by good management, good markets, and technological fixes and that (2) without extraordinary measures, affluence will increasingly diffuse on a global basis. Both of these are plausible but arguable assumptions. By contrast, the world with limits scenario argues that seeking high-tech solutions to sustain growth in a finite world is at best a Fautian bargain that will buy some time but will be ruinous in the end. Proponents of that scenario argue that the good future is to be found in a world of smaller scale and more decentralized social units, AT, and more self-sufficiency. Their vision is of a world where life is more comprehensible to ordinary person, a culture of frugality, and where mistakes and blunders have less serious ecological consequences. If nothing else, this visions entails a reversal of the of the social trends of the last 200 years. It would involve a deliberate dampening of growth and resources consumption before the planet becomes exhausted and polluted. Doing so would required widespread life-style changes and a coordinated effort on a global scale; the political consensus that would be required to achieve such a fundamental redirection of current trends is a daunting prospect. Presently, many powerful organizations and groups in contemporary societies have deeply embedded vested interests in perpetuating growth and the culture of growth. And an antigrowth policy is of limited appeal to the poorest half of humanity, which has not been able to share in the culture of affluence.

The two scenarios have some similarities that you should not overlook. They both envision a global equilibrium emerging after the year 2100, and the possibility of a very good life for much of humanity. Beyond these similarities, they disagree dramatically about how we might get there and exactly what a sustainable society would look like. It is important to emphasize that there are too many unknown and uncontrolled variables and too many complex causal chains for such large-scale, long-range scenarios to be predictions in any concrete, accurate sense. They do capture, abstracly and holistically, divergent long-term implications of the contemporary discourse about environmental problems both the popular view in the media... and the more intellectual paradigm differences that I have been developing. But if they are not useful as predictions, what then is their value? It is precisely, I think, that they help us envision different possible futures. The future is not entirely within intentional human control, but neither is it something that unfolds, willy-nilly, regardless of how humans envision it or act in the present. The value of such abstract scenarios is that they can help us envision more and less desirable futures, and then make choices, behave, and form social policy accordingly. Doing so must involve consideration of the most compelling evidence from present trends, however incomplete, murky, and temporally limited, and also the most rational criteria for making choices in the face of considerable uncertainly. I address these issue in the next section.

Cornucopian or Finite World Futures: Evidence?

I think the most compelling evidence in favor of the cornucopian scenario has to do with the economic use of minerals in the energy and economic process. Their elasticities of substitution are very great... More fossil fuel resources have been discovered since shortages were predicted in the 1970s. Even though ultimately finite, they will last a long time. Very great possible improvements in effiency will stretch out reserves, and there are many possible alternatives technologies for delivering energy for human communities. Furthermore, predicted shortages of nonenergy industrial minerals (e.g., copper, iron ore, chromium, zinc) have not materialized, because of both increasing extractive efficiency and changing consumer demand. The reduction in the demand for metal is illustrated by the typical American car, which now uses about a third less metal by weight as it did in 1960 (a fact that still does not make American automania a wholly rational phenomenon). The price of copper has droped drastically because of technological improvements in the ability to exploit marginal ores and the substitution of fiber optics for copper wire intelecommunications. In fact, the price of many minerals, including petroleum, has declined relative to both wages and the consumer price index. This mineral elasticity has been painfully learned by nations and communities that depended economically on the extraction of particular mineral resources, both in LDCs and in America. If we run out of minerals, it will be because of mismanagement, bad luck, and institutional inertia,factors that are considered possible by the conucorpian scenario.

But wait. this is not a whole story. Substantial externalized costs are not considered in these reserves-demand-price cost-accounting data about energy and industrial minerals. In the production process, industry produces twice as much hazardous wastes and 42 times as much soid wastes as all municipal solid wastes. Mining and utilities produce 30% of all U.S. solid wastes. Mining, in particular, has become more efficient but not less environmentally destructive. It can destroy or degrade farmland and wildife habitats, pollute groundwater, and change groundwater characteristicsand flow patterns. The solid wastes left over from mining are a source of air and water pollution. In all, the cost of environmental damage from fossil fuel use has been estimated at $100 billion per year in the United Sates alone. Put in context, $100 billion was about one-tird of the annual U.S. defense budget in the early 1990s. None of these costs are computed in the resource prices. They are borne by taxpayers, if at all. More likely, such by-products of extractive and manufacturing processes simply accumulate in various environmental sinks. Furthermore, a world 11 billion rather than 5.7 billion peolpe (the U.N. intermediate population projection for sometime in the latter half of the next century) would make enormous demands on the worlds mineral and energy reserves. Consider a scenario: Economic growth booms in the global economy and trade system, and development and rising living standards diffuse around the world to bring most people in the developing nations close to present U.S. or Europeans standards of consumption. The result would be simply catstrophic. Even with anticipated gains in efficiency, the worlds aluminum would be consumed in only 18 years instead of 224 (1988 reserve estimates), copper would disappear in 4 years rather than 41, oil reserves would become very tight in 7 years rather than the projected 50 or so, and even the earths vast coal reserves would be exhausted in 34 rather than 224 years. Such a scenario is impossible. None of the considerable human technological inventiveness or economic market adjustments could cope with consumption on such a vast scale. This nightmarish vision is only a scenario; it could not possibly happen. But it does illustrate that a world of 11 billion people could not continue to consume resources at current Western standards. At some point, scarcity of minerals would limit either population, or economic growth, or both. The result need not be the collpase that the limits scenario suggest but, rather, could be a gradual and oainful series of adapations, subsitutions, and reductions in consumption. But long before such a resources (source) crisis, we would have to deal with a more immediate pollution (sink) crisis. The most compelling evidence for the limits scenario does not have to do with energy systems or the material consumption of an industrial society for which we can imagine many technically feasible substitutes, improvements in efficiency, significant life-style changes, and so forth. Rather, the most compelling evidence concerns the relationship between the worlds growing population and its foodproducing resources. Unlike the resource of energy, manufactured goods, and services, agricultural resources including good cropland, rangeland, fisheries, water, and forests are limited and finite. There are subsitutes for the metal in autos (indeed, for autos themselves), but there is no subsitutes for soil and water to grow wheat rice. The strategies humans have used since the 1950s to increase food production (adding land, new genetic crop varieties, irrrigation, inorganic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and so forth) have reached plateau and are not now increasing food supplies. In fact, the

evidence is accumulating that we are crossing sustainability in the capacity to produce food.

the

tresholds

The worlds major food supply systens are under pressure from growing human demands for food. With fisheries, rising human demand is unsustainable everywhere. After speaking in 1989, the worlds fish catch has declined, producing per capita drop in seafood supplies and a rise in prices. This trend is likeli to continue, because, according to the U.N. agency that monitors fish stocks (the food and agriculture organization [FAO], all 17 major oceanic fisheries are now being fished at or beyond capacity. Nine are in a state of decline. Simply stated, the current level of fishing is ecologically unsustainable. Limits are also beggining to constrain production on the worlds rangeland, which support herds of cattle, sheep, and goats; like fisheries, rangelands are being grazed at or beyond their sustainable yield almost everywhere. Grain is the worlds most important food supply. Pressures on the worlds croplands, two thirds of which produce grain, are becoming unsustainable in many countries, leading to crop erosion. After using steadily between 1950 and 18\984, per capita grain supplies have declined steadily. Agricultural and water resource systems used beyond their sustainable yield are evident in the MDCs, but most noticeable in Africa and Central Asia, where cropland and rangeland degradation deprive many of their livelihood, forcing them into cities or food relief camps. What do these facts mean? Quite simply that because of our growing population, consumptions patterns, and technological choices, we are surpassing the planets agricultural carrying capacity. Environmental assets are now insufficient to sustain our present life support systems. If population grows are projected to 2010 (not that far way), per capita availability of rangeland will drop by 22%, and the fish catch by 10%, thus jeopardizing much of the worlds animal protein. Irregated land per capita, which now yields about a third of the worlds food harvest, will drop by 12%, and cropland per person will drop by 21%. Empirically based assessments of food-enhancing strategies... suggest that we will able to feed the earths population in 2020 but barely and with many qualifications and optimistic assumptions about changes in agrotechnology, dietary patterns, and slobal land and food distribution. Those assessments are also very concerned about the combined effect of climate change and declines in soil fertility as a result of increased foor production. Those assessments do not negate the clear current signs that, in the longer term, the relationship between human population and consumption growth and per capita growth and per capita agricultural and water resources may already be beyond the limits of sustainability. Biotechnology may be of some help, but so far, it has been used to increase the profitability of food producing, rather than to increase the total food supply. In addition, you need to remember that increasing food supply relative to future population growth means appropriating even more of nature for human use and increasing the current 40% of the earths net primary production (NPP) appropiated by humans and our chosen crop creatures. But what then of the way that human survival depends on the environmental services of natural systems? These are possible to quantify like the population and food resources data, but as we detroy, alter, or appropriate more natural systems for ourselves, the environmental servuces are compromised. At some point, the likely

result is a chain reaction of environmental declined: widespread flooding and erosion brought on by deforestation, worsened drought and crop losses from desertification, pervasive aquatic pollution, and fisheries losses from wetlands destruction. Stanford University biologist Peter Vitousek and his collegues argue that those who believes that limits to growth are so distant as to be of no consequence for todays decision makers appear unware of these biological realities. There you have it: I think those are the most compelling bits of contemporary evidence related to the two scenarios. But they are still ambiguous, as would be any empirical evidence, because if the multidimensional, macroscopic, and long-term nature of the two scenarios. As I mentioned earlier, these scenarios can be envisions, not predict. Although I have tried to fairly represent different points of view, paradigms, scenarios, and evidence throughout this book, Im sure you recognize that I take the evidence for a future with both social and environmental limit problem to be more plausible than the cornucopian future. I told you that up front in the introductory chapter, as well as in other places, and now I hope you can see some of the reasons why. In a nutshell, as human popultions and impacts grow in scale in relation to total environmental resources, environments and ecosystems are more likely to be overwhelmed or degraded, and the relative value of human adaptiveness and technological flexibility declines. Historically, in a wolrd with less crowded and lower consuming human populations, there were fewer serious problems with environmental manageablilty. As crowding and consumption increase in scale, there will be many. In spite of the popular media controversy and political conroversy, there is a sustantial and growing consensus within scientific communities about these issues. Theres a lot of disagreement about the details but not much about the broad outlines of our present situation. The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement of warning in 1992, signed by 1,600 scientist around the world (including 102 Novel Prize winners) that destructive human avtivities may so alter the world... [that] a great change in our stewardshipof the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not irretrievably mutilated. You might expect such from an environmental movement organizations, but listen to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the U.S. environmental Protection Agency a body not known for partisan or rash judgements: Ecological system like the atmosphere, oceans, and wetlands have a limited capacity for absorbing the environmental degradation caused by human activities. After that capacity is exceeded, it is only a matter of time before those ecosystem begin deterorate and human health and welfare begin to suffer. Most remarkably, in 1992, the U.S. National Academy of Science and the Royal Society of London, two of the worlds most scientific organizations, neither known for taking extreme stands, issued an unprecedented joint statement that advances in sciences and technology no longer could be counted on to avoid either irreversible environmental degradation or continued poverty for much of humanity.

Choices in the Context of Uncertainty

Such statements and expert assessments are usually ignored or challenged in the heat of political debates where real tax money and

organizational interests are on the table. Even with a growing abstract scientific consensus, great uncertainty remians about the magnitude of particular effects (some of which can be quantified), and more uncertainty and disagreement cintinue about the social consequences of pursing a particular vision of the future. This is particularly true when any policy to promote change creates categories of winners and losers relative to those who benefit from the current scheme of things. But it is also true that not to decide to persue am positive vision of the future is a decision by default to let things unfold us they may. Even if the evidence is murky and inadequate, it is still important to think about the most rational and prudent basis for action and policy in an uncertain future(including doing nothing). What is the most prudent and conservative best bet or gamble? Which ffuture scenario has the least costs if it fails? If we bet on the cornucopian scenario and it comes to pass, then all is well(universal mass consumption and affluence are , indeed, appealing prospects). But if the cornocopian vision is unworkable and there really are limits, then the cost of failure - a dergraded planet and social deterioration- are quite high. In the longer term, they are perhaps devastayting to any dignified human future. On the other hand, what if the finite world scenario is indeed the actual future, and we act on this assumption? What we gain is a much better likelihood of a sustainable relationship between humans and the earth. What if we act on the assumption of a world with limits when in fact it is largely false? What are the cost of this mistake? They are the substaintial but manageable investment in social and technical change and global cooperation. For the affluent classes of the MDCs, it would mean a comfortable but certain ty more frugal and less affluent life than would be theoretically possible. It would also mean cooperation in addressing growing material destitution in both the MDCs and the LDCs. For myself , I think that assuming a future with real limits is the best bet, if only because the cost of failure are not nearly so great. If we wait until we find out that the cornucopian future is unworkable, critical points of no return will have been passed. I develop this way of thinking about uncertainty and risk in Chapter Four (about responses to the prospect of global warming) and in Chapters Five and Six (about population and energy issues). It is not unique to me but is based on an strategy for making the most prudent best bet in the face of uncertainty. It was emboided in the rational for believing God by French mathematician- philosopher Blaise Pascal (1632-1662). He argued that if one believed in God and was faithfull, and God really existed, then all awas well. If one was faithfull to God and he did not exist, not much was lost, perhaps some foregone pleasures and vices. But if one didnt believe in God and he did exist, one was in danger of being damnation. Pascals defence of faith was not a proof of what is true, but rather has to do with the risks and cost of different kinds of errors(for which he was condemned by religious authorities at the time!). Not accidentally, Pascal worked out a number of theorems dealing with probability, and became a founder of modern probability theory. Dressed up in fancy languge of modern statistic, Pascals defense of faith has become the difference between the costs associated with the making two different kinds of errors: A type I error, Which falsely rejects a true hypothesis, and a Type II error, which fails to reject to as one.

Both individuals choices and social policy are in fact typically guided by such reasoning: We assume major risks where ther are low or uncertain probability events with catastrophic consequences. We purchase health, food, and fire insurance. I pay such premiums with no regrets, even though my house is unlikely to burn down to any given time. We ban pesticides when their long term consequences are still uncertain but potentially lethal. We build dams, levees, and flood control systems. We invets in early warning systems for tornadoes and hurricanes. And for over 40 years. We have maintained an enormously expensive defence capability as a hedge againts the low probability but catastrophic consequence of a nuclear holocaust. Heres the argument I making: Both the most compelling evidence and criterua for dealing with the contingencies of an certain future lead me to think that the most prudent and most reasonable choice is to think and act as if growing human impacts will indeed at some point push us beyond the limits of ecological and environmental sustainability, and that will produce in consequence a degraded capacity for the social life of humans (as well as the viability and diversity of other species). The decline in human well-being could be a slow decline barely noticeable from one year to the next, or as changes accumulate, in different dimensions of environmental disruption, they could occur with stunning swiftness. Our most prudent, responsible, and conservative choices should be to promote transformation to sustainability. WHAT WOULD A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY LOOK LIKE? Earlier, I defined a sustainablesociety as one that meets our needs without compromissing those of future generations. I need to speel out more concretely some of the requirements of sustainable societies, even though it is impossible to say exactly in what particular ways they might be met. I think there are seven kinds of requirements for sustainability, having to do with (1) populations (2) the biological base, (3) energy, (4) economic efficient, (5) social forms, (6) culture, and (7)word order. 1.A sustainable society would dampen population growth and stabilize its size. This is particularly important in LDCs. There, dence populations and the momentum of growth, even with a slowly falling growth rate, underlie the poverty and desperstion that impel inviromental disruption, political conflict, and destabilizing waves of refugees and migrants. Achieving a stable population implies that people have access to contraception and family heath care, control the resources necessary to alleviate the worst material insecurity, and significantly reduce gender inequality. 2.A sustainable society would converse and restore its biological base, including fertile soil, grassland,fisheries,forest,and freshwater and water tables. Insofar possible, a sustainable society would design agriculture to mimic nature in its diversity and natural organic recycling, rather than overwhelming and degrading agroecosystem with monocultures and industrial chemicals. It would respect and preserve significant wild ecosystems for ethical reasons, aesthetic values, and utility for human uses. 3.A sustainable society would gradually minimize or phase out the use of fossils fuel. It would restrict the use of coal and petroleum,

shift to natural gas as an interim(but less polluting) carbon fuel, and eventually depend more on energy from a wide variety of renewable energy sources as determiined by local conditions( including hydrogen fuels,solar, wind, geothermal, biomass,and hydroelectric). In the long term, sustainable societies would be powered more by sunlight and hydrogen than carbon. Cogeneration, the combined production of heat and power, would be widespread, and many factories would generate their own power, using the waste heat for industrial processes. 4.A sustainable society would work to become economically efficient in all sences. It would invest in the technology and production of efficient vehicles, transfortation systems, machinery, offices, and appliances. It would maximize the recycling of the material and waste. More fundamentally, it would reduce the waste in processes of production, packaging, and distribution of goods services. It would reduce waste by reducing the material component of goods and services. Such dematerialization would create a permanent net drop in waste created and resources consumed. Thus, in a truly sustainable economy, the pricipal source of material would be recycled goods. Both producers and consumers would create an economy that functions more like an ecosystem (cyclically), rather than one that only withdraws from sources and throws away junk in environmental sinks. 5.A sustainable society would have social forms compatible with these natural, technical, and economic characteristics. A mix of coordinated decentralization and flexible centralization would exist. Thus enterpreneurialism and small-scalenetwoks would flourish along with the large organizations and urban life. The latter can produce many economies and efficiecies,and people would come to uderstand that small is not always beautiful and large is not always ugly. Transportation system would become an effiecient mix of different modes, including autos, ride-sharing programs,mass transit, and bicycles. High-density settlement would be encouraged, and urban sprawl would contract. Multiple-family rather than single-family dwelling units would be encouraged, and informal community netqwoks would evolve to regulate social life, and for trade, bartering, and cooperative sharing of goods and services that supplement mass markets, Social inequality would persist ina reasonably free sustainable society, but social policy would be establish toinhibit both grinding poverty and redundant material wealth. Economic profits and productivity would be measured more by servise related to the quality of life than the volume of stuff consumed. Recycling and environmental services themeselves would become important industries. New forms of crime would emerge(exploiting the commons), and ecological problems would become as politically important as economic ones. 6.A sustainable society would require a culture of beliefs, values, and social paradigms that define the legitimize thse natural, economic, and social characteristics. The natural environments of human life would be recognized more as ecological systems to be nourished and maitained than as open environments to be used and exploited at will. Dominant social paradigms that underlie belief and actions would changes appropriately. The virtues of material sufficiency and frugallity will replace the culture and consumerism; materialism simply cannot survive the transition to sustainable societies. Neither selfworth nor social status would be measured primarily in terms of possessioms; much of the energy now devoted to accumulating and consuming goods could be directed at forming richer human relationships, stronger human communities, and greater outlets for

artistic and cultural expressions. Western-style freewheeling individualism would be tempered with a communitarianism that balances individual human rights with obligations to community. There would be social restraints, but truly sustainable society would not bo authoritarian. Tolerance of diversity, social justice, and democratic politics would be valued as necessary to elicit the required responsiveness, cooperation, and coordination of people-both within and between societies. 7.In a world where socities are connected with each other and to a shared environment, a sustainable society would be required to cooperate in the negotiation of sustainability in other societies-in terms of their different circumtances. In doing so, it would participate in regional and international political regimes,treaties, regulatory 0agencies, and multinational govermental and nongovermental organizations. It would work to transform the system of global investment and world trade to promote a world of sustainable societies, rather than one of growing environmental disruption and inequity. It would promote the development of the LDCs in a sustainable way. In a finite world, it would work to balance the requirements for some sort of global regulatory system with desires of national autonomy. As you can see, I have described the charateristics of sustainable societies in pure(utopian?)form. But true sustainability may require smething close to them. Are todays societies anywhere close to being truly sustainable ones? Of course not.Surely, sustainability i\s relative, and change in that directions may evolve in small, incremental stages. But enough change to be effective eventually requires a dramatic social transformation on a large scaleeventually on a global scale. Given the difficulties of such social transformations is it reasonable to think that they have even a change of happening. CONCLUSION: A TRANSFORMATION TO SUSTAINABILITY? Is a major transformation on this scale possible? Quite simple, yes. Is it probable? Who knows.Educated guesses vary widely. Can the purposive actions of humans shape that process? Yes. Can the outcome be mainly as envisioned by any particular human actor or organization? No. Outcomes of change are no more likely to be positive than negative, but niether are we really trapped in a particular set social structures, institutional arrangements, structures of power and denimination, consumptio dynamics, and so forth. In fact, history has examples of such massive and purp[osive social tarnsformations. In the nineteenth century, feudalism was abandoned in Japan, as was slavery around the world. The twentieth century has seen the retreat of imperialism and the creation of a united Europe. War provides obvious examples. Given the belief that the national survival was at stake during World War II, the U.S. population mobilized and transformed itself in remarkable ways, Equally impressive was the Marshall Plan for reconstructing Europe after the war; in 1947, America spent nearly 3% of its gross national product on this huge set of projects. In our time, the Soviet system collapsed, largely through the action of agents within the system. Most remakably, by 1993 the Union os South Africa had transformed itself peacefully and democratically from an outrageous brutal and authoritarian racial caste system to a multiparty and multiethnic society with a black man as the popularly elected prime minister. None of these changes tured out exactly as

intended or brought a problem-free social world into being. They only demonstrate the transformations on the scale required are possible. ********