This is the first in a series of main articles relating to sustainability. A new article on either sustainability, the buddha or theory will be posted fortnightly.
The idea of sustainable development – or sustainability – was first given prominence in the 1987 United Nations report, Our Common Future. Also called the Brundtland Report (named in honour of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was the leading spokesperson for the report) it puts forward the idea that the current level of natural resource consumption by the industrialized world and the growing economies of developing nations (together with a rapidly increasing population) is unsustainable. In pragmatic terms sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
Weak and strong sustainability
Sustainability is sometimes described as either being weak or strong. Weak sustainability does not differentiate between human-made capital and natural capital, while strong sustainability makes that distinction. In weak sustainability, the measure of natural capital as profit loss – or gain – is seen to be sufficient in defining the problems of sustainability. But strong sustainability contends that this is too human-centred – from the perspective of human interests only – and is insufficient in tackling the problem of our unsustainable practices. Furthermore, strong sustainability sees discussion of sustainability from within economic jargon or terminology as problematic. In other words, it keeps the agenda wholly within economic defining boundaries.
In strong sustainability the present value system of human-based structures are seen as working against the values of nature-based mechanism or biosystem. In short, present human discourse ignores and suppresses (oppresses) nature, seeing only a binary opposition between humankind and nature with the former on top.
Case against sustainability
There is also the extreme view that the sustainability discourse is simply untrue – that it is possible to continue our present pattern of consumption indefinitely. The argument goes like this: through our ingenuity and technology we will create new and alternative ways to sustain (or even increase) our present levels of consumption.
But such an argument often ignores the fact that 1) it is the very same science and technology they are putting their faith in that is the cause of current environment environmental problems, and 2) resources are finite. It is with this kind of cultural logic and wishful thinking that Western culture has driven humankind toward ecological collapse “taking with them to their graves” other life forms along the way. There is no doubt the ecological system can and will recover from such a collapse but it is unlikely to include humankind in its picture.
Brundtland report revisited
If one had to say whether the Brundtland Report is of the weak or strong sustainability variety, one would have to say it is of the weak kind. Because human needs are given priority over those of other life forms that we share this planet (…meeting human needs… , etc). This kind of thinking can also be called anthropocentric where little or no consideration is given to the larger picture that is the environment. It ignores the systems that govern life-giving interaction.
The anthropocentric binary (though not really its opposite) is the biocentric view, which takes in account all life forms and resources within the system in which humankind is a part. Thus in the biocentric view we are neither the only life form, nor the better one (due to our uncanny ability to manipulate or alter the environment). In fact, the ability of radical manipulation should be seen as a weakness, not as a strength.
I say this because as intelligent as we are we have lost the ability to adapt to the environment. And by adapting the environment to suit us – instead of adapting to the environment – we may someday lose all ability to survive in the less habitable world of the future that we are creating for ourselves this very moment.