Scripting Foundations of Sustainability

Summary: The Scripting Sustainability page outlines an approach to communicating themes in sustainability as a two week (six class hour) contribution to the Foundations course in Master of Arts in Sustainability Studies.

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Outline

October 26: Introduce Brundtland

  1. Browse the Brundtland Report and sample its findings and logic. This is a seminal historical document. I will explain this in class.
  2. Read the important Overview, noting the way that sustainable development was framed and the language used to define sustainable development, quoted below. Read the Brundtland section on sustainable development carefully. Note the Report's succinct working definition of sustainability: "Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
  3. See Professor Hayes's overview of Brundtland and the origins of Sustainable Development, which lays out important concepts for the course.
  4. Wiki presentation on Brundtland by Professor Hayes
  5. Lecture notes, part one and part two.
  6. Wiki on Intergenerational Concerns
  7. Wiki on Triple Bottom Line

See: Professor Edelstein will conclude the Evolution of the Concept of Sustainability.

November 2:

  1. Aristotle, Bookchin, social ecology;
  2. ESS;
  3. Statement of Concern

Introduction and Concept Development

The outline of the Lexia that are foundational to sustainability are laid out succinctly here. They will expand in linked pages, forming a web that frames and develops the Foundations of Sustainability. Here are the main topics:

  1. The SUDS principles must guide our action and thought:
    1. Sustainability is substantive, meaning that it contains form and content.
    2. Urgengy must be foremost, since the human condition may become dire. The inhabitation of Earth by humans is called into question, urgently.
    3. Depth must replace the haze of cloudy thinking that permeates sustainability. Depth come from philosophy of critical realism first articulated by Aristotle.
    4. Strategy must be brought to bear as soon as possible. The steady but fruitful state of sustainability is an unlikely outcome. See my Statement of Concern.
  2. The Brundtland report (1987) is the founding document of sustainable development, but sustainability has advanced since then. Brundtland emanates from the U.N. process, which culminated in the breakdown over climate change negotiations at Copenhagen in December, 2010. The high point was the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Another Earth Summit will be held in 2012.
  3. Aristotle provides foundational thinking, ontology, and ethics. Martin Heidegger expanded aspects of Aristotle's rich legacy. Hegel added dynamism through his dialectic. Much of this is reflected in the thought of Murray Bookchin on social ecology.
  4. The human condition is captured by the concept of the Anthropocene.
  5. Reinhabitation of Earth by a flourishing humanity is the goal of sustainability. The largely forgotten thinking in social ecology should be reclaimed as the engine of social organization and social change that enlivens reinhabitation of the Earth by humanity. We approach this through Social Ecology.
  6. The Foundations of Sustainability requires dynamism in thought and action, its own praxis.
  7. The basic stress of overshoot of the Earth's carrying capacity by the demands of human population and economic activity erodes our collective future as inhabitants of a limited planet. Overshoot transcends the basic I = PAT model. I will explain (W' > E'). Malthus was the original thinker of overshoot.
  8. Economics is basic to sustainability but must be inverted. Growth in particular must be reframed into sustainable development, the actualization of potential which is an innate qualitative concept. Fairness, not equality per se, must be built into the distribution of economic production and services. The Commons must be protected and nurtured through civil discourse. A useful heuristic is that sustainable development implies that real value per unit of energy and matter (VA/(E+M)) must be enhanced but not rendered exclusively through pecuniary metrics.
  9. The political foundtion of sustainability harkens back to the ancient Greek polis and is updated by Habermas. A vital agent of sustainability is civil society.
  10. Thinking in systems, ala Meadows, can be used as a tool of analysis that can provide workable simulation. However, such systems thinking must concentrate on essentials, not details, and must be holistic, not partial, to support sustainability. They must be transparent and comprehensive.
  11. The Noosphere provides the end state of human evolution, which fulfills the goal of sustainability and actualizes human potential.

Philosophical Origins

Aristotle is presented as the foundational thinker for sustainability. If modernism went astray with Machiavelli and with Descartes, Aristotle presents a classical path that should be examined for recovery of a prior and rich tradition. Here are some key ponts to consider:

  1. In the classic and foundational Physics, meaning Nature, Aristotle depicts Nature as dynamic and full of potential. That dynamism and realization of that potential is essential to sustainability. The transformtion of potential through actualization is basic to Aristotle's Physics.
  2. A profound and enduring ethical system is founded by Aristotle, his Nichomachean Ethics. The grounding principle, the Golden Mean that resonates harmony, describes sustainability well. Beyond this, his notions of virtue and practical wisdom, phronesis, are fundamental.
  3. Aristotle draws a sharp distinction between means and ends, which I regard as essential to avoiding confusion when pondering or doing sustainability. For example, consider engineering, economics, technology, and politics. These are all means. They are not ends. The ends must be reckoned in terms of the restoration and conservation of Nature and the flourishing of the apex of evolution on Earth, humanity.
  4. The Aristotelian doctrine of the four causes, or explanations, offers an analytical path that surpasses instrumentalism. Aristotle laid out his classical argument in Physics and then in Metaphysics, a foundational work in Western thought.
  5. Aristotle clearly regards the basic concept of human nature as residing in the human Soul in his classic essay De Anime. His doctrine of hylomorphism synthesizes form and matter in the Soul. Debased premises about selfishness (foundational to economic thinking) must therefor be rejected.

Martin Heidegger, a controversial figure in modern philosophy, continues much of the Aristotelian tradition and founds the existential school of philosophy. Some key points contributed by Heidegger include:

  1. The extension of the Aristotle notion of phusis, or nature, as "the emerging sway," an underlying but constant substratum of nature that grounds human existence. Phusis is out of sight but constant. Heidegger developed that in his Metaphysics, founded on the work of Aristotle.
  2. The articulation of human artifacts, techne. The fulfillment of the potential of techne, roughly equivalent to technology, is through poesis, artistry. Thus, human design must be rendered as sensiitive and artistic. And almost everything on Earth in the contemporary period needs such design artistry. Heidegger developed this thought in his classic essay, The Question Concerning Technology.
  3. The standing reserve transforms nature into human resources, a utilitarian turn that denies the authentic nature of Nature.
  4. Dasein seeks human potential through authenticity and through Sorge, care.

Conclusion

©Wayne Hayes, Ph.D. | Initialized: 8/18/2011 | Last Update: 09/18/2011 | V. 0.4 Build #5