All posts by Rob Koch

Books, Reviews

REVIEW: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Brandi Hope Johnson
University of North Alabama

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.

“How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death event to their own kind?”

Rachel Carson’s question, asked in her 1962 text Silent Spring, requires the reader to take stock in the conditions under which Americans at the time were dealing with pest control.  This title, Silent Spring, comes from the silence in many forests and meadows due to the poisoning of songbirds, insects and other invertebrates, and even plants.  This now historical account of the use of pesticides has raised America’s awareness of the dangers of agricultural chemicals that had become commonly accepted during this time.  People from all generations may benefit from this book because it raises awareness of practices that are unsustainable and offers critical knowledge of effective alternative methods for pest control.

The book describes the chemical warfare in the United States and other countries that have killed so many organisms.  It begins by explaining the varieties of chemicals that have been used along with the documented affects they exert on specific life forms.  It explains different techniques that have been used to apply these chemicals and how they move from the point of source through virtually every piece of the food web.  The last chapter points out that the solution to the problem must be two processes happening simultaneously: first, experts must work towards a cure for those already affected, and second, they must isolate and remove as much of the contaminant as possible from the environment to prevent further damage.  The argument is not to avoid pest control altogether, but to find techniques that have been developed in a more natural way as an alternative to artificially-made chemicals.

Carson touches on several controversial topics that are accepted by environmentalists yet harshly rejected by others, especially those who profit from pesticide sales.  Because chemical companies profited so much from these pesticides, many companies denied Carson’s claims and attempted to discredit her research.  However, once she began tracking the effects of these chemicals, she found a trail of devastation.  For those organisms that did not succumb immediately, the chemical was stored and amplified in the fat cells.  She explains how exposure to chemicals everyday creates an accumulation of poison in the body that affects the liver and can inhibit some of life’s essential functions and even cause cancer in her research subjects.

Carson writes exquisitely about biology in a way the can be easily understood; she uses a direct voice, limited footnotes, and simple language with strong meanings to create a text that is easily accessible to lay readers who lack a deep science background.  This approach played, and continues to play, a critical part in relaying information from science labs to the general public.  One quote reads, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will ensure as long as life lasts.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”  These words create strong imagery in the reader’s mind.  The book was written during a time in which industrial factory production and agricultural use of pesticides were growing exponentially and many people had forgotten humanity’s connection to nature.  The exposure from this publication helped spread awareness during the beginnings of the environmental revolution.  Rachel Carson conveyed the historical, cultural, and environmental value of Silent Spring to anyone interested in more sustainable practices.

This book is suggested for anyone who has any love whatsoever for the planet they inhabit and anyone interested in sustainability.  The chemical warfare at that time was an extremely real threat to all life, yet pesticides were rained down from airplanes onto all vegetation, into the soil, into the water, into the worms, the birds, the livestock, and ultimately into the people.  The tone of Carson’s text is somewhat dark, but human degradation of planet earth is never a light topic.  The topic is difficult to discuss, and certain selections of this book can bring about feelings of guilt and remorse while reading.  However, this is sometimes necessary to help society realize the necessity of sustainability. Carson writes, “We must change our philosophy, abandon our attitude of human superiority and admit that in many cases in natural environments we find ways and means of limiting populations of organisms in a more economical way than we can do it ourselves.”  This message, which she wanted to convey to both her generation and future generations, is that humanity must look to nature for the answers if we want our forests and meadows filled anew with the sound of the songbirds.

Arts

Featured Art: Gaia with Dog and Inside Out

Image
Gaia with Dog
Gaia with Dog
Inside Out by Carty Bledsoe
Inside Out

Artist’s Statement

The pressing need to take account of the wounded state of all living systems is pivotal in my work, plus a focus on the interior life of people living in a fractured world, disconnected from Earth’s cycles. I like to push space around by juxtaposing colors, playing the second dimension off the third. George Tooker, Max Beckman, and Giotto were early influences. I graduated from the Boston Museum School in 1990 with a focus on Drawing.

—Carty Bledsoe

Policy Issues

Rethinking Our Role on Earth

Simon Bevis
University of North Alabama

We humans depend on the Earth. Our only home provides the means, the context, and the inspiration for our existence. We have become masters of using the raw resources and creatures present on this planet, and our imprint dominates the landscape over more and more of the world. People are living at the highest standards in history, despite our persistent struggles with war, poverty, and disease. If we want to maintain our high standards of living and solve the problems of struggling communities, we must reconcile our basic and critical relationships with the Earth. The ability to sustain ourselves globally will grow only when we act in ways that preserve the health of the planet at multiple scales: systemic sustainability is necessary for humanity to thrive. In this essay, I articulate my personal perspective on sustainability as a farmer and a student of history and geography.

The threats to global sustainability are clear. Clean air, fresh water, abundant and nutritious food, and safe shelter are all at risk, not only for families, communities, and cultures, but also for the plants and animals with which we share the planet. Currently there are major and accelerating changes in the climate, oceans, and ecosystems around the world.1 Volatile and extreme weather patterns, acidification of the oceans, sea levels, and extinctions are all sharply on the rise, and linked through the rapid increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere that parallels the advent of the industrial revolution and worldwide combustion of fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas.2 That is not to say the Earth is not capable of these kinds of changes itself; we know the planet has been through many ice ages, sea level changes, volcanic winters and meteor impacts, mass extinctions, and changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

When those of us in temperate, generally balanced, continental weather systems are experiencing climate change as a slight rise in average temperatures, a subtle shift in length of growing season, or a few more abnormally wet or dry years, it is understandable that we would associate these patterns with the natural history of the Earth, and feel confident that what is changing is cyclical, or beyond our influence. We may even simply appreciate warmer, sunnier weather and distrust scientific proof that places the cause of these very disturbing threats squarely on an energy paradigm from which we have enjoyed so much prosperity. However, to reject that which science so clearly shows is to reject the same process that made possible the car that you drive, the computer you use, and the food on your plate every day. Quite simply, we are putting way too much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which is causing the planet to heat up. The rate of change is accelerating, and 2016 is already breaking records, just like last year and the year before.3 At this critical juncture, it seems to me that we should address the source of the problem and start asking tough questions about our relationship to the Earth and the sustainability of our home.

What are ways that we might reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses? The first and most obvious response is efficiency. With more efficient fuel systems and engines we derive an immediate economic benefit as well as a local environmental benefit through reduced pollution. If our electricity is powered by fossil fuels, then we must adopt more efficient heating and cooling systems, appliances, and fixtures. Large, institutional buildings use large quantities of energy and thus are prime candidates for energy audits, upgrades, and energy efficient management plans. Our cities can become more efficient through smart urban planning that provides viable alternatives to driving and reduces congestion. Recycling saves energy in production chains, and reduces litter and landfill waste; it would save even more energy if consumers chose to purchase recycled products and more durable items in general.4

What about choosing not to burn fossil fuels? This issue is bound up with entrenched energy systems and complex economics, since in many contexts there appears to be no such choice. While there are proven forms of clean and renewable energy like solar, wind, and geothermal, it is understandably difficult for a system that is designed to burn coal and gas for electricity and petroleum for transport to shift away from those fuels and ensure a smooth economic transition for the energy producers. Therefore, the political process must actively de-incentivize fossil fuels and incentivize renewables. For example, between Alabama Power and Georgia Power, the latter is racing ahead with solar farms and net metering for homeowners5 while the former is defending coal plants and resisting efforts to develop renewable energy.6 Furthermore, the two states get the same amount of sun yet both lag way behind cloudy, high-latitude Germany in solar electricity generation.7 We can finally choose from a few electric vehicles, but most individuals have little choice but to participate in the energy system provided by their governments and economies.

Can we remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? The biosphere is the main stage of the carbon cycle, and we can play a positive role on that stage by growing the biosphere. Plants perform photosynthesis on carbon dioxide and eventually decompose into carbon rich humus that a plethora of soil microorganisms store in the base layer of life. Vegetation itself banks carbon in forests and prairies, and protects soil from erosion. Our civilization has a long history of deforestation and decimating soils through poor agriculture, which continues in many countries. While some climates allow for quick reforestation through succession or arboriculture, desertification is devastating not only to ecologies, but also to nature’s ability to store carbon from the atmosphere.8 I think that one of the keys to sustainability is learning how to adapt our land use to favor the capacity-building property of healthy ecosystems to mediate the carbon cycle.

The exciting part of this approach is that it can be applied at multiple scales and in multiple contexts, with generally positive externalities. Nations can adopt policies to promote forest conservation and reserve land for wildlife corridors like Bhutan, where half the land is protected as such.9 Agencies can facilitate and incentivize sustainable agricultural practices such as cover cropping, conservation tillage, and long-term rotations with orchards and woodlots. Specifically, the integration of rotational livestock grazing and cropping systems in polycultures holds promise as a model for resilient, profitable farming and strengthening biodiversity, while addressing pollution problems and questionable practices of animal factory farms.10

At the local level, I always notice the disused parking lots and numerous expanses of grass that are maintained essentially as lawns, mowed down to a couple inches several times per year. Of course we all like a nice lawn and need clear space along the roadsides, but so many of these areas are never visited, provide no worthwhile vista or habitat, and cost time, money, and fuel to maintain. Where they are not posing a risk, permitting plants to grow removes carbon from the atmosphere, builds soil, promotes biodiversity, provides habitat, and moderates microclimates. A proactive approach to sustainability at the regional and municipal levels recognizes that natural vegetation and soils have intrinsic value, therefore development codes should require that building projects plant at least as many trees as they remove, and neglected empty lots are allowed to grow and contribute to the ecosystem.

At home and in the neighborhood, we can identify the plants and animals with whom we share space and strive to understand how they live and interact with other species. By giving up mowing that corner of the yard where the grass doesn’t grow well anyway, we might be pleasantly surprised by what takes root over time. Gardens are a fine example of a place where we can witness the interconnectivity of nature and beautify the landscape at the same time. Growing a diversity of fruits, vegetables and flowers in a garden with a fertile organic soil enriches the immediate environment, and results in our most efficient personal connection to the carbon cycle: eating fresh food. When we do need to rake the leaves and trim the shrubs, composting is the most direct way to conserve and stabilize the carbon and return it to the soil. Even simply piling up plant residues in an out of the way place if possible will enrich the plants and soils nearby over time, and is certainly preferable to burning or transportation to a landfill from a sustainability perspective.

By striving for an economy that drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions and builds resilience into our energy and food systems, we can have hope for a future without runaway global warming and rising seas. Imagining ways to go about this task that satisfy the other two columns of the triple bottom line of sustainability for governments, companies, and institutions will plant the seeds of workable solutions to these problems. How can we create jobs that have a minimal carbon footprint, provide a basic standard of living, and make sense economically? For me, potential answers include investment in local food systems, decentralized and community energy generation, recycling and repurposing operations, and environmental education. As technological innovation brings about both efficiencies in our current energy systems and a glimpse of a future without dependence on fossil fuels, we ought not neglect the importance of fulfilling our role as supporting actors in this story—as responsible stewards of our home.

End Notes

  1. ^Meehl, G. A., et. al, “Global Climate Projections,” Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  2. ^Thomas J. Crowley, “Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years,” Science 289, no. 5477 (2000): 270–277.
  3. ^Eric Holthouse, “Our Planet’s Temperature Just Reached a Terrifying Milestone,” Slate: Future Tense, last modified March 12, 2016, http://www.slate.com/blogs /future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html
  4. ^Vernon L. Smith, “Dynamics of Waste Accumulation: Disposal Versus Recycling,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 86, no. 4 (Nov. 1972), 600–616.
  5. ^Leon Kaye, “Georgia Legislature Passes Landmark Solar Bill,” Clean Technica, last modifed April 1, 2015, http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/01/georgia-legislature-passes-landmark-solar-bill/
  6. ^Daniel Cusick, “Alabama Power Plans To Supply More Solar And Wind Power, But Not To All Customers,” Governors’ Wind and Solar Energy Coalition, last modified July 17, 2015, https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/07/19/alabama-power-plans-to-supply-more-solar-and-wind-power-but-not-to-all-customers/
  7. ^Sara Thompson, “How Germany Became a Solar Superpower,” Triple Pundit, last modified August 13, 2015, http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/08/germany-became-solar-superpower/#.
  8. ^Jagadish Shukla, Carlos Nobre, and Piers Sellers. “Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change.” Science(Washington) 247, no. 4948 (1990): 1322–1325.
  9. ^Tshering Tobgay, “This Country Isn’t Just Carbon Neutral, It’s Carbon Negative,” TED, February, 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/tshering_tobgay_this_country_isn_t_just_carbon _neutral_it_s_carbon_negative.
  10. ^Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. 187–191.

Bibliography

Crowley, Thomas J. “Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years.” Science 289, no. 5477 (2000): 270–277.

Cusick, Daniel. “Alabama Power Plans To Supply More Solar And Wind Power, But Not To All Customers.” Governors’ Wind and Solar Energy Coalition, last modified July 17, 2015. https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/07/19/alabama-power-plans-to-supply-more-solar-and-wind-power-but-not-to-all-customers/

Holthouse, Eric. “Our Planet’s Temperature Just Reached a Terrifying Milestone.” Slate: Future Tense, last modified March 12, 2016. http://www.slate.com/blogs /future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html

Kaye, Leon. “Georgia Legislature Passes Landmark Solar Bill.” Clean Technica, last modified April 1, 2015. http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/01/georgia-legislature-passes-landmark-solar-bill/

Meehl, G.A., T. F. Stocker, W. D. Collins, P. Friedlingstein, A. T. Gaye, J. M. Gregory, A. Kitoh, R. Knutti, J. M. Murphy, A. Noda, S. C. B. Raper, I. G. Watterson, A. J. Weaver, and Z.-C. Zhao. “Global Climate Projections.” Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.

Shukla, Jagadish, Carlos Nobre, and Piers Sellers. “Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change.” Science (Washington) 247, no. 4948 (1990): 1322–1325.

Smith, Vernon L., “Dynamics of Waste Accumulation: Disposal Versus Recycling.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 86, no. 4 (Nov. 1972), 600–616.

Thompson, Sara. “How Germany Became a Solar Superpower.” Triple Pundit, last modified August 13, 2015. http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/08/germany-became-solar-superpower

Tobgay, Tshering. “This Country Isn’t Just Carbon Neutral, It’s Carbon Negative,” TED, February 2016. https://www.ted.com/talks/tshering_tobgay_this_country_isn_t_just_carbon _neutral_it_s_carbon_negative

Policy Issues

Life and Global Climate Change on Earth

Mark Puckett, Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

Introduction

The history of life on Planet Earth, fueled by the solar radiation in which it has bathed throughout the eons of geologic time, records great periods of richness and the evolutionary appearance of an incredible diversity of life forms, punctuated by short intervals of wholesale destruction and partial collapses of the biosphere. Many of these destructive events are related to carbon and its exchange between reservoirs in the ground, (magmatic sources and from the shallow burial of organic matter that is life’s debris) and in the atmosphere and oceans. This scenario is happening today as the combined effects of the human burning of fossil fuels is transferring bulk amounts of carbon from the earth into the atmosphere. The exchange (that is, the flux of carbon between the earth and the atmosphere and its effects on life) can be readily determined by observing the ratio of two types of carbon, carbon-12 and carbon-131. Plants preferentially uptake the lighter carbon during photosynthesis and the formation of their sugars and large organic molecules (Fig. 1). During times of abundant burial of plants such as the Pennsylvanian Period, the remains of great ancient forests were buried in the ground where we get most of our coal from today, the relative amount of carbon-12 in the atmosphere decreases, shifting the carbon-12/13 ratio toward the heavier side. The removal of carbon-12 from the atmosphere indicates that there was less carbon in the form of greenhouses gases, which cooled the planet. Shifts of other isotopes, such as oxygen2, show that the reduction in the relative amount of carbon-12 is associated with a decrease in temperature. The opposite situation is also true, with an increase in carbon-12 indicating the influx of more carbon into the atmosphere and strengthening of the greenhouse effect and resulting in warmer temperatures.

v1n1-puckett-fig1

Figure 1. Carbon stable isotope ratios of various carbon-based substances. 3 All plants are enriched in d12C, so burial of plant material causes a reduction in the relative amount of d12C and consequent increase in the relative amount of d13C in the rock record. Reduction of the amount of d12C indicates a reduction in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, weakening of the greenhouse effect (GE) and global cooling. The reverse is also the case: spikes in the amount of d12C in the rock record indicate the release of CO2, strengthening of the GE and global warming. The light values of methane products on the left are used to define intervals of the release of methane, which is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

In his classic 1981 paper, Jack Sepkoski4 published data demonstrating that there were five major extinction events during the Phanerozoic (Fig. 2), which is the time since the appearance of hard parts in the record of life about 540 million years ago. His analysis did not include our current human-induced mass extinction, which was not well understood at the time. We are now in the sixth mass extinction that is unprecedented in the history of our planet, one that is more severe than any of the others up to this point and is entirely caused by one species—humans. Our activities have such a global effect that it has ushered in a new epoch of geologic time, the Anthropocene. This paper presents data indicating that five of the six mass extinctions are related to shifts in the carbon isotope ratios of the planet and that there are direct analogues of our current extinction event in the geologic past. The exception is the extinction event that resulted in the demise of the dinosaurs, which appears to have been mainly caused by the effects associated with a meteorite impact. Throughout this essay, please refer to Figure 2 for the timing of the mass extinctions and to Figure 3 for the paleogeographic configurations at the time of the mass extinctions.

v1n1-puckett-fig2

Figure 2. Sepkoski’s (1990) evolutionary faunas, showing the diversity of families of marine fossils, the three evolutionary faunas (plus the taxa not included in those faunas), and the five major extinction events in Earth’s history. Symbols along the bottom of the chart represent geologic time intervals and include, from left to right, the Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene.

v1n1-puckett-fig3

Figure 3. Global paleogeographic configurations of the continents during the times of mass extinction. Maps redrafted after Blakey5.

Mass Extinctions as Random Events

Throughout the history of life on Earth, there have been many extinction events that have altered the structure of life, most of which were small. However, a few resulted in near-total rearrangement of the types of life that existed; these are termed mass extinctions. Generally, these mass extinctions resulted in the demise of at least 50% of the kinds of life forms on the planet, while one (the end-Permian extinction 251 million years ago) was considerably more devastating than that, causing more than 95% of the species becoming extinct6 and requiring nearly five million years to recover from. There are parallels between that extinction event and our current one, which is a main theme of this paper.

As devastating as the end-Permian extinction event was, humans would not be on Earth without it to remove ancient life forms and replace them with new ones. There are vast intervals of time during which little changes occurred. In north Alabama where I live, for example, the Mississippian rocks (roughly 320 million years old) are richly fossiliferous, with a world-class, distinctive fauna including extremely abundant crinoids, fenestrate bryozoans, productid brachiopods, and others. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and was surprised to see some of the same fossils as in Alabama, although those Permian rocks are about 50 million years younger. This is not to say that there was no extinction or evolution during this time, but there were no whole-scale changes in the types of life forms on the planet. Essentially all of those life forms would become extinct very abruptly a few million years later. The devastating event 65 million years ago that brought to a close the age of dinosaurs (and many other highly-evolved animals) allowed for the evolution of mammals, which had been around for more than 140 million years, to rapidly diversify. Thus, the role of extinction in the evolution of life today cannot be overestimated, but in our anthropocentricity, we do not wish for this to happen to humans.

How can we assess the impact of humans on planet Earth? One of the best clues is to look at the carbon cycle, as each of the mass extinctions is associated with changes in the ratios of carbon. Indeed, carbon is a very sensitive indicator of the health of inhabitants on our planet. The arrival of Europeans to North America in 1492 and subsequent population collapse due to diseases, war, enslavement, and famine (which reduced the population from approximately 61 million in 1492 to 6 million people by 1650) and the near-cessation of farming and reduction in fire use lowered the atmospheric level of CO2 by 7-10 ppm7.

Understanding the Evidence for Global Climatic Changes

Isotopes

Many of the clues to the global extinction events may be related to changes in the composition of the atmosphere, although the precise cause-and-effect relations are far from completely understood. Circulation of the oceans and atmosphere is coupled, so it acts as a system, with fluxes of huge volumes of common compounds such as carbon dioxide and water. Exchange of these compounds takes place not only near the surface of the oceans, but is driven to great heights and depths as one giant circulating machine. Thus rocks deposited on the land or in the sea can reflect the chemical composition of the planet.

Global climatic patterns are directly linked to deep ocean circulation. In our present world, frigid waters near the surface at high latitudes drive deep ocean circulation, with a constant flow of dense, frigid, well-oxygenated water descending into the ocean basins. In the polar regions, warm, deep ocean circulation can weaken or shut down, leading to widespread anoxic conditions, even in shallow areas. Such anoxia can be devastating to life.

Estimates of the condition of the atmosphere in times past are based largely on the relative percentages of two isotopes: carbon and oxygen. In this essay, we will consider only the carbon isotope signal. Isotopes are different forms of the same element, differing only in the numbers of neutrons in the nucleus. Generally, isotopes of the same element have similar chemical properties because they have the same numbers of reactive electrons, but the difference in the number of neutrons makes them of different masses, and this affects the rates of certain important chemical reactions. The amount of each isotope in rocks is compared to the ratio in a globally-agreed standard. The lower-case Greek letter delta, d, symbolizes the atomic mass of a particular substance in reference to this standard, which happens to be, randomly enough, a Late Cretaceous fossil known as Belemnitella americana from the Pee Dee Formation of South Carolina. Oxygen isotopes are extremely useful for certain types of studies, particularly as paleo-thermometers, but the ratios of the two stable (non-radioactive) isotopes (d16O and d18O) can be affected by several factors, including glaciation and salinity, and generally are not used to determine the state of the atmosphere in toto.

Carbon is extremely useful in studying the condition of past atmospheres (Figure 4). The two carbon isotopes used are carbon-12 (d12C) and carbon-13 (d13C), which are measured in ratio. Nearly all of the carbon on Earth is d12C, so only trace amounts of d13C must be measured. High values of d13C are generally considered to be the result of the removal of significant amounts of the lighter isotope (d12C) from the atmosphere, inferring the lowering of the amount of carbon dioxide and cooling of the planet due to the weakening of the greenhouse effect. Elevated levels of the lighter isotope d12C generally indicate raised levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and a warming interval. Four of the five mass extinction events in geologic time are strongly correlated to changes in the carbon isotope ratio, as is our current mass extinction.

For this essay, the carbon isotope signals have been compiled from a variety of sources and calibrated to the most current global geologic time scale8. All references to dates of geologic phenomena are in reference to this time scale (Fig. 4).

v1n1-puckett-fig4

Figure 4. The relationship between carbon isotopes and global temperatures.

What Are these Catastrophic Events and What Caused Them?

Late Ordovician Catastrophe

The beginnings of the kinds of life forms we are familiar with emerged slightly over 540 million years ago, and thus began the Phanerozoic Eon, the age of abundant life. The first period of the Phanerozoic was the Cambrian, during which many bizarre kinds of animals appeared then disappeared in the sea, never to be seen again. When the Ordovician began, about 488 million years ago, marine life began the greatest climb in diversity in Earth’s history. Within a few million years, the seas came alive with great reefs, swimming animals and predators, and ancestors of stocks that would last for hundreds of millions of years.

After the initial burst in diversification, a stasis was reached (Fig. 2). Life had reached a plateau in diversity and changed little for millions of years. Then, quite abruptly at the end of the Ordovician about 445 million years ago, there were major perturbations in the Earth system that brought much cooler waters to the low latitudes, formed glaciers, lowered sea level, and killed many of the kinds of life adapted to the warm climates that had prevailed. The specific cause of both the rapid cooling event and the equally rapid return to warm conditions is not well understood, although it is clear that there were major shifts in atmospheric carbon isotope ratios (Fig. 5) that seem to indicate a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (note the increase in d13C, which indicates a reduction in d12C, which in turn indicates a reduction in atmospheric CO2). Many workers consider that glaciation was caused by the southern continents (Gondwana) moving over the South Pole9, resulting in global cooling and a drop in sea level. Whatever the cause, the planetary shocks lasted perhaps half a million years and not only eliminated 60 percent of the invertebrate fauna, but cleared the way for new forms to evolve. These changes were significant enough to mark the end of a major period in Earth’s history. The end-Ordovician event is the second most severe mass extinction in geologic time.

v1n1-puckett-fig5

Figure 5. These carbon isotope data, collected from strata exposed in Nevada, indicate a major reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide and weakening of the greenhouse effect10.

Late Devonian Catastrophe

The Late Devonian extinction event (around 374 million years ago) is unusual in that the Devonian-Mississippian boundary is not placed at the event itself but at the end of the epoch after the event. All of the other extinction events, quite logically, define boundaries between major geologic time periods. It was hardly an “event,” as life declined over some three million years. Many life forms, including giant reef builders, were hit so hard they never recovered, although many squeaked by for another 200 million years before succumbing to the end-Paleozoic extinctions.

The record of carbon and oxygen isotopes reveals the most fascinating part of the Late Devonian catastrophe: the close coupling of the atmospheric, oceanic, geologic, and biologic systems on Earth. Major perturbations occur almost synchronously in carbon (Fig. 6) and oxygen isotopes in the stratigraphic record. A heavier d13C ratio indicates burial of substantial amounts of carbon (and presumably lowering of atmospheric carbon dioxide) and an abrupt shift to shallower water conditions, all occurring at the same time. Viewed as a system, it seems clear that the lowering of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide is linked to colder water conditions and the drop of sea level, because of the growth of glaciers associated with the colder conditions. (Note: Although glaciers are not generally shown on paleogeographic maps, Late Devonian glacial deposits are known to exist in many parts of the world, particularly in South America, which was over the South Pole during the Late Devonian.)

v1n1-puckett-fig6

Figure 6. Shifts in carbon isotope values during the end-Ordovician extinction event collected from samples in Germany11.

Many Earth scientists think it is no coincidence that these global perturbations are related to the emergence of land plants. For more than four billion years, the land surfaces of Earth were barren until the evolution of plants that appeared in the Silurian that were capable of piping nutrients and water through a vascular system from the ground. By the Late Devonian, these earliest vascular plants had grown to the size of trees, and giant forests spread out over the land surface unrestrained. It is thought that the spread of land plants increased the rates of weathering of rocks on the continents, which requires copious use of atmospheric carbon dioxide. So, in this scenario, the evolution of land plants caused greatly increased rates of erosion of continental rocks, that caused the lowering of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that caused colder water conditions in the oceans, that caused the buildup of glaciers, that caused the lowering of sea level, that caused the mass extinctions. The precise cause-and-effect triggers are, however, far from understood, as they are even for the relatively recent Pleistocene glaciations.

Permian-Triassic Catastrophe

Now we come to the greatest catastrophe in Earth’s geologic history, the end-Permian extinction, also known as “The Great Dying.” This event is also the most closely allied to the changes being brought about by human activity. The most disturbing part is that human-caused changes to the planet are occurring at a faster rate than that which occurred at the end of the Permian. Further, it appears that the initial loading of the atmosphere by CO2 lasted a relatively short time interval, but was followed by a cascading series of events that lasted for millions of years. In a geological blink of an eye, 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species disappeared.

It has long been known that the end-Permian extinction was accompanied by major shifts in both carbon and oxygen isotopes, with carbon ratios becoming very enriched in d12C (indicating the release of massive amounts of CO2 and probably methane) into the atmosphere and oxygen ratios becoming enriched in the lighter isotope d16O (indicating global warming)12,13,14,15 (Figure 7). The tough part was to refine the time resolution of the sequence of events in both the marine and non-marine realms, which is not an easy task given that the events occurred about a quarter of a billion years ago. Recent information, particularly from researchers at MIT working in geologic sections in China, has clarified what happened.

v1n1-puckett-fig7

Figure 7. Carbon isotope shifts associated with the end-Permian extinction events16. Ma is mega-annum (millions of years), PTB is Permian-Triassic Boundary, Ccarb is inorganic carbon and Corg is organic carbon. Note that the spike in organic carbon occurred after the negative spike in d12C, demonstrating that the release of massive amounts of d12C later trigger mass death.

Slightly more than 252 million years ago and about 300,000 years before the main extinction event, gigantic, explosive volcanic eruptions occurred in Siberia. The total volume of eruptions and intrusions is almost unimaginable, it being enough to cover the United States in kilometer-deep magma17. These volcanic rocks are known as the Siberia Traps. Most unfortunately for life on Earth, this magmatic activity erupted through massive carboniferous coal deposits (the same ones we burn today in our coal-fired power plants) and ignited them. This combustion loaded the atmosphere and oceans with isotopically light CO2 from the burning of the plant debris and heavy metals from the fly ash. Estimates of this event indicate that it spanned only 20,000 years18, but led to a catastrophic sequence of events.

The first effect was a dramatic and sudden warming of the atmosphere by at least 10°C19 due to the greenhouse effect associated with the injection of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. The world’s ocean (there was one main ocean at that time due to almost all of the continents being together in the supercontinent Pangea) became acidified due to absorption of CO2. The increased atmospheric temperature caused the ocean in the polar regions to warm considerably, which eliminated the downwelling of cold, oxygen-rich water, shutting down global oceanic circulation and causing stagnation. As the vast amount of dead organisms rotted, aerobic microbes consumed the organic debris, but during this respiration process, oxygen quickly became depleted in the ocean and it became anoxic, leading to the proliferation of sulfate-reducing bacteria and the release of massive amounts of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere20. During the oxidation process, oxygen was used up and the level of oxygen in the atmosphere also plummeted21. The increased atmospheric temperatures caused increased rainfall due to high levels of oceanic evaporation, but this rain was more acidic than before because it combined with the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This acidic rain caused increased weathering of rocks at the surface, which sent more nutrients into the ocean, that fed explosions of life such as algal blooms, the decay of which accelerated the depletion of oxygen22. Evidence from Canada, which was downwind from the Siberian eruptions, indicate loading of the world’s ocean by heavy metals from the fly ash created during combustion of the coal23, which further poisoned the already stinking marine environment. In summary, it appears that an initial rapid and massive loading of the atmosphere CO2 caused a poisoning of the ocean and atmosphere that killed most of the living organisms on both the land and in the sea, which led to further deteriorating conditions that lasted for millions of years.

If all of these factors were the result of an initial, powerful injection of CO2 into the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels, then we can expect a similar Earth response to occur by continued burning of fossil fuels by humans.

Triassic-Jurassic Catastrophe

The Triassic-Jurassic extinction event is perhaps the most difficult one for most people to get their heads around, for several of the groups that were wiped out are not familiar to most of us and it’s difficult to assess the significance. One of these groups is the conodonts, which are one of the most important fossils for dating the Paleozoic extinctions. In almost all cases, these remains consist only of a set of tiny teeth that belonged to small, wormy-looking predators that had existed for hundreds of millions of years. Another group that became extinct is called therapsids, which were generally dog-sized animals that are thought to be the ancestors of all modern mammals. The relation between the therapsids and modern mammals is as enigmatic as the corals described earlier. Although mammals are known to have existed throughout the age of dinosaurs, the bulk of their fossil record consists of small teeth and jaws of tiny animals that lived in the shadows of the dinosaurs and remained an insignificant part of the fossil record.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the Triassic-Jurassic extinction was to the dinosaurs. After the disappearance of the therapsids, dinosaurs evolved and diversified to become one of Earth’s most spectacular groups of animals, dominating the land biotas for more than 140 million years. The immensity of this length of time is almost incomprehensible, and would have continued if not for the event 65 million years ago.

So what happened? The record of the carbon isotopes (Fig. 8) indicates that there was a major environmental shift very close to 200 million years ago during which massive amounts of light carbon (d12C) were released into the atmosphere, causing major disruptions in both the marine and terrestrial realms. The source of this carbon appears to be associated with one of the major events in Earth’s history: the breakup of the supercontinent of Pangaea and the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, in this case the South Atlantic. This extinction event is relatively short, lasting less than 600,000 years24. If it had not been for this event, there would never have been a T. rex, a velociraptor, or any of the great long-necked dinosaurs—or any of us.

v1n1-puckett-fig8

Figure 8. Carbon isotope shift near the Triassic-Jurassic boundary22.

Cretaceous-Paleogene Catastrophe

Perhaps the best known of the extinctions is the one that killed off the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The cause of this extinction is now well-established and was the result of a meteorite impact in northwest Yucatán. I have seen the deposits of this event in western Cuba, where hundreds of meters of debris, including building-sized boulders, rained down from the skies. The effects of this event on life are vexing: whereas some groups of organisms that had been around for hundreds of millions of years (dinosaurs and ammonoids, for example) were wiped out forever, other groups were completely unaffected. In any case, if this extinction event had not occurred, if that meteorite had not crossed Earth’s orbit at that exact moment, dinosaurs might still reign supreme.

The Anthropocene

One of the most exciting fields in the geosciences today is the study of the Anthropocene, which is a proposed new epoch of geologic time in which human activity is of global significance. Humans have clearly had a global influence and generally not in a positive way. We have caused massive changes in the distribution of sediment, such as clearing away entire mountains in our search for coal; cleared forests for shipbuilding, farming, pastures, fuel, and many other reasons, all of which has resulted in a change in the stratigraphic distribution of spores and pollen; caused widespread deposition of human-manufactured products such as plastics; nearly completely rearranged the biogeographic distribution of plants and animals; caused mass extinction due to the destruction of habitats, hunting, and many other causes; and transferred massive amounts of carbon and metals from the ground to the atmosphere and oceans, among other global changes. Human activities have released 555 petagrams of carbon25 (where one Pg = 1 billion metric tons, so 555 Pg = 555 billion metric tons), which can clearly be seen in figure 9. (Aside: If 555 billion metric tons of anything were pumped into the atmosphere, we should expect some sort of side effect, much less it being a greenhouse gas.) In figure 9, notice that the values of d13C are decreasing to the right, starting at around 1850 and accelerating until today, which is a reflection of the accelerating influx of d12C from the burning of fossil fuels.

v1n1-puckett-fig9

Figure 9. The amounts of d13C in rocks and reefs deposited during the last 650 years in Jamaica. VPDB refers to Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite, which is a standard for carbon ratios that has been adopted since the exhaustion of the original Pee Dee Belemnite from North Carolina. This figure demonstrates that the increase in CO2 content in the atmosphere is due to human-caused emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

Another way to look at the influence humans have had on Earth is to look at the natural cycles of glaciation and CO2 through time. Figure 10 shows data collected from the Dome C ice core in Antarctica, with CO2 level peaking at about 280 ppm over the course of the last 800,000 years. The level of CO2 in March 2016 was 404.83 ppm and peaked at 409.34 ppm on April 10, 201626, a level not seen on the planet for millions of years. Projections for future levels, based on a series of scenarios and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is presented in comparison. At this point, it seems unlikely that the concentration of CO2 will be less than 600 ppm by the end of the century and very well may be 800 ppm, with catastrophic consequences that may last millions of years. Recent calculations show that the greenhouse gas emissions have delayed the next Ice Age by at least 100,000 years27. Certainly, with the extinction of so many species (as many as 100,000 per year28), Earth will never be the same. As the increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the rock record is gradual, where exactly do we place the “golden spike?” The questionable placement for the beginning of the Anthropocene based on emissions of greenhouse gases makes it an unlikely criterion.

v1n1-puckett-fig10

Figure 10. Concentration of CO2 during the past 800,000 years based on ice core data. The cycles are driven by orbital cycles called Milankovitch cycles, and include the precession (Earth’s wobble that cycles every 20,000 years), obliquity (which is the amount of wobble and cycles every 41,000 years) and the eccentricity of Earth orbit (cycling from more circular to more elliptical shape every 100,000 years). Note that the concentration of CO2 has not peaked above about 280 parts per million in the past 800,000 years. Data from the top graph taken from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page 4.php, and lower graph taken from https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html.

In fact, there are two main contenders for the beginning of the Anthropocene: a significant decrease in the amount of CO2 in the rock record in the year 1610 and a spike in d14C that occurred in 1964 due to the cumulative effects of the testing of atomic bombs, both effects of human activities. The cause of the decrease in atmospheric carbon was noted earlier in this essay, that is, the collision of the Old World and the New World. Europeans had been living in crowded conditions for millennia, catching diseases, passing them to others and building resistance. The Native Americans were generally much more spread out and isolated from the European diseases, foremost of which was smallpox, although there were other diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, and influenza. From 1492 until 1650, disease, famine, war and enslavement caused the Native American population to collapse, dropping from 61 million to 6 million people6. This resulted in less farming and fewer fires, both of which tended to transfer CO2 from the air to be buried in the ground. The greatest drop occurred in the year 1610, when the level dropped from what had been a steady average of about 282 ppm to about 272 ppm; the data are primarily derived from two ice cores in Antarctica23. It was during this time interval that the global distribution of plants and animals started to shift, which was also due to human activity, in the Columbian Exchange, which includes almost all of the plants and animals that we eat or use for labor29. The dip in atmospheric carbon is the most prominent feature in pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 records over the past 2000 years30 and is therefore a precise target for the beginning of the Anthropocene.

The other contender is a spike in d14C that occurred as a result of the detonation of atomic devices. In fact, this bellicose activity doubled the amount of d14C in the air31. There are other secondary correlated markers of radioactive elements associated with the bomb testing. These chemical changes are part of The Great Acceleration that began about 1950, in which many socio-economic and Earth systems parameters show a dramatic increase. These parameters include population, fertilizer consumption, water use, CO2, N2O, CH4, marine fish capture, nitrogen to coastal zones, and many others. Although it is clear that the environmental degradation that is causing the current mass extinction began to accelerate in 1950, we are left with the precise placement of the “golden spike,” and the d14C is a good candidate.

Summary and Conclusions

Life on planet Earth has enjoyed times of great fecundity extending for millions of years that were punctuated by relatively brief catastrophic events that closed the door on the old forms and opened up new pathways for life to evolve. For most of geologic time, these extinction events are very poorly understood, as the main types of life were relatively simple bacteria that left a poor fossil record. More complex life forms that were capable of secreting hard parts that left a good fossil record emerged about 542 million years ago at the beginning of the Cambrian. Since that time, there have been five catastrophic intervals during which most of the kinds of life were eliminated forever. These were the end of the Ordovician (about 445 million years ago), the near-end Devonian (about 372 million years ago), the end-Permian (about 252 million years ago), the end-Triassic (about 201 million years ago) and the end-Cretaceous event (about 65 million years ago). The end-Permian event was the worst—until now.

The end-Permian extinction event has strong parallels to the current human-caused mass extinction. The triggering event for the end-Permian event was the eruption of great quantities of magma in Siberia and the burning of the vast coal fields in the region that loaded the atmosphere with CO2 and other greenhouse gases, dramatically warmed the planet, shut down oceanic circulation, poisoned the atmosphere and ocean, and lead to the collapse of life on the planet. It took millions of years to recover from this event. Today, humans are burning those same fossil fuels, loading the environment with greenhouse gases, cutting down forests, and poisoning the oceans and freshwater, which not only degrades our planet but attenuates her ability to renew herself. Our effects will last millions of years, and in fact forever in the case of the hundreds of thousands of species that have already become extinct directly because of human activity. At this point, the best we can hope for is to minimize the damage by turning to a sustainable lifestyle. We make choices every day that can help or hinder our effects, including our diet, transportation, and the manufactured products we purchase.

Choose wisely.

v1n1-puckett-photo

Dr. Mark Puckett in Cuba, December, 2010

End Notes

  1. ^Almost all elements have two types of particles in their nucleus: protons and neutrons. The exception is the protium form of hydrogen, which only has a proton.  The neutrons act to hold the nucleus together as it wobbles and vibrates, but too many or too few neutrons make a nucleus unstable, which results in radioactive decay. All carbon has 6 protons, but can have different numbers of neutrons, which determine its different isotopes. The number of protons plus the number of neutrons is the atomic mass number. There are two stable forms of carbon that presumably were formed billions of years ago by some star during nuclear fusion, carbon-12 and carbon-13. Other forms of carbon, such as carbon-14, are radioactive and must be continually created in the atmosphere.
  2. ^Two of the stable isotopes of oxygen that are very useful as a thermometer of ancient temperatures are oxygen-16 and oxygen-18. This ratio has long been known to be directly related to temperature, with an increase in the amount of oxygen-18 indicating cooler conditions during the formation of rocks and fossils. Many studies have used this information to infer the past conditions on the surface of the planet, particularly during times of mass extinctions.
  3. ^A. Vieth and H. Wilkes, “Stable Isotopes in Understanding Origin and Degradation Processes of Petroleum,” in Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology, ed. K.N. Timmis (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2010), 97–111.
  4. ^J.J. Sepkoski, “A Factor Analytic Description of the Phanerozoic Marine Record,” Paleobiology 7, no. 1 (1981): 36–53.
  5. ^“Colorado Plateau Geosystems,” Colorado Plateau Geosystems, Last modified May 2015, http://cpgeosystems.com/index.html.
  6. ^D. Erwin, Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 320.
  7. ^J.O. Kaplan et al., “Holocene Carbon Emissions as a Result of Anthropogenic Land Cover Change,” Holocene 21, no. 5 (2010): 775–791.
  8. ^F.M. Gradstein et al., 2012, The Geologic Time Scale (Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2012): 1176.
  9. ^S.M. Stanley and J.A. Luczaj, Earth System History, 4th ed., (New York: W.H. Freeman, 2014) 608.
  10. ^W.B.N. Berry, R.L. Ripperdam, and S.C. Finney, “Late Ordovician Extinction: A Laurentian View,” Geological Society of America Special Paper 356 (2002) 463–471.
  11. ^M.M. Joachimski and W. Buggisch, “Conodont Apatite δ18Signatures Indicate Climatic Cooling as a Trigger of the Late Devonian Mass Extinction,” Geology 30, no. 8 (2002): 711–714.
  12. ^R.J. Twitchett et al., “Rapid and Synchronous Collapse of Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems During the End-Permian Biotic Crisis,” Geology 29, no. 4 (2001): 351–354.
  13. ^J.L. Payne et al., “Large Perturbations of the Carbon Cycle During the Recovery from the End-Permian Extinction,” Science 305 (2004): 506–509.
  14. ^P. Gorjan, K. Kaiho, and Z.Q. Chen, “A Carbon-isotope Study of an End-Permian Mass-Extinction Horizon, Bulla, Northern Italy: A Negative d13C Shift Prior to the Marine Extinction,” Terra Nova 20 (2008): 253–258.
  15. ^G. Luo et al., “Stepwise and Large-Magnitude Negative Shift in d13Ccarb Preceded the Main Marine Mass Extinction of the Permian-Triassic Crisis Interva,” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 299 (2011): 70–82.
  16. ^S.Z. Shen et al., “Calibrating the End-Permian Mass Extinction,” Science 334 (2011): 1367–1372.
  17. ^Chu, J., “Siberian Traps Likely Culprit for End-Permian Extinction,” MIT News on Campus and Around the World, Last modified November 24, 2015, http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/11/the-great-dying-new-insights-into-the-most-severe-mass-extinction-in-earths-history.html.
  18. ^S.Z. Shen et al., “Calibrating the End-Permian Mass Extinction,” Science 334 (2011): 1367–1372.
  19. ^M.M. Joachimski et al., “Climate Warming in the Latest Permian and the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction,” Geology 40, no. 3 (2012): 195–198.
  20. ^L.R. Kump, A. Pavlov, and M.A. Arthur, “Massive Release of Hydrogen Sulfide to the Surface Ocean and Atmosphere During Intervals of Oceanic Anoxia,” Geology 33, no. 5 (2005): 397–400.
  21. ^P. Ward, Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth’s History (New York, Viking Press, 2005), 288.
  22. ^K.M. Meyer, “d13C Evidence that High Primary Productivity Delayed Recovery from End-Permian Mass Extinction,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 302, no. 3-4 (2011): 378–384.
  23. ^S.E. Grasby, H. Sanei, and B. Beauchamp, “Catastrophic Dispersion of Coal Fly Ash into the Oceans During the Latest Permian Extinction,” Nature Geoscience 4 (2011): 104–107.
  24. ^S.P. Hesselbo et al., “Terrestrial and Marine Extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary Synchronized with Major Carbon-cycle Perturbation: A Link to Initiation of Massive Volcanism?” Geology 30, no. 3 (2002): 251–254.
  25. ^S.L. Lewis and M.A. Maslin, “Defining the Anthropocene,” Nature 519 (2015): 171–180.
  26. ^Michael McGee, “CO2-Earth,” ProOxygen, last modified 2016, https://www.co2.earth.
  27. ^A. Ganopolski, R. Winkelmann, and H.J. Schellnhuber, “Critical Insolation-CO2 Relation for Diagnosing Past and Future Glacial Inception,” Nature 529 (2016): 200–205.
  28. ^WWF, “How Many Species Are We Losing?” World Wide Fund for Nature, last modified 2016, http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/
  29. ^A.W. Crosby, “Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between Old and New World,” The Encyclopedia of Earth, 2009, last modified May 5, 2015, http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/151313/.
  30. ^C. MacFarling Meure et al. “Law Dome CO2, CH4 and N2 Ice Core Records Extended to 2000 years BP,” Geophysical Research Letters 33, no. 14 (2006).
  31. ^R. Eveleth, “Nuclear bombs made it possible to carbon date human tissue,” SmartNews, 2013, Last modified February 19, 2013, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nuclear-bombs-made-it-possible-to-carbon-date-human-tissue-20074710/?no-ist.

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Gorjan, P., Kaiho, K., and Chen, Z.Q. “A Carbon-Isotope Study of an End-Permian Mass-Extinction Horizon, Bulla, Northern Italy: A Negative d13C Shift Prior to the Marine Extinction.” Terra Nova 20 (2008): 253–258, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3121.2008.00813.x.

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Business & Economics

Operationalizing Sustainability

Robert Sroufe, Ph. D.
Duquesne University

Abstract

Within this “how to” practices-based study is a generalizable framework of engagement and collaborative learning to operationalize sustainability for any organization. Purposefully cultivating the application of cross-disciplinary engagement, a phased approach is proposed to understanding complex, real-world sustainability challenges while making them material to an organization. Practical value for managers and future change agents includes a systematic approach, creative solutions, and feasible recommendations for new value propositions. Contributions of operationalizing sustainability include, but are not limited to: a structured approach to building a shared understanding of the sustainability paradigm; benchmarking; brainstorming; and prioritizing best-practice options. Pedagogical value for business students (and faculty) includes improved skills for framing complex problems, first-hand insight, research to emerging business challenges, and increased cross-discipline integration. Based on several years of applied insight with practitioners and graduate business students, operationalizing sustainability provides new integration opportunities for strategic planning and day-to-day activities. Information within this study will help readers understand the why, what, and how of operationalizing organizational practices aligned with strategy and a shared vision of a sustainable future.

Introduction

Too often, management researchers and practitioners claim that recycling, waste reduction, green purchasing, and energy conservation programs are “sustainable,” yet in reality they may only address environmental or efficiency practices. These claims, and multiple definitions of sustainability (see for example the UN’s Brundtland Report,1 or Erhenfeld’s abandonment of the word to instead use “flourishing,”2 or search using Google and you will get over 114 million results), create confusion across disciplines and inaction for many. Unfortunately, none of the definitions provide sufficient direction to translate sustainability into practical action. Due to confusion surrounding a single definition of “sustainability,” the information presented in this study puts forth the idea that sustainability, as a paradigm for business management, is a shared vision aligned with strategy that provides an integration opportunity within and across firms. To this end, it is important to note that decision makers for any organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit, should develop their own individual approach to operationalizing this dynamic paradigm.

What stakeholders really want to know when they ask how you define sustainability is, “Is your company working towards sustainable development or against it?”3 Despite prior efforts to bring about an understanding of sustainability, there has been continued confusion regarding how it should be defined.4 There has been a large amount of work done in consolidating research in the management literature5reviews involving supply chains6 and manufacturing;7 yet confusion remains regarding why and how successful corporations engage in and signal important operations.

Prior research has also shown that the existing definitions of corporate social responsibility, a predecessor to more current research involving sustainability, are to a large degree congruent.8 Others suggest that the confusion is not so much about how sustainability is defined, as much as it is about how sustainability is operationalized in a specific context.9 This confusion presents an opportunity for clarity in providing a customized approach to operationalizing sustainability.

Despite the thousands of pages and papers written by academic scholars, defining the sustainability paradigm in one sentence is not meaningful for practitioners. For over four decades, the messages from environmentalists have been basically the same: human activities impact the earth in negative ways and we have to make tradeoffs. These tradeoffs influence conventional approaches to efficiency and waste reduction. They are a good starting point, yet a “conservation and tradeoff” mentality can discourage practitioners and students from developing more innovative approaches to solving complex problems. To this end, and for the focus of this study, we need to build a better shared understanding and vision of our common future that is accessible to practitioners and academics. To start, we can properly position sustainability while operationalizing activities to support it.

Sustainability should be the end goal and a broad term that, when understood as an integration opportunity for organizations, reveals interrelated value-creating activities. This value creation involves how resources are managed and the actual processes of acquiring, measuring, and reporting those resources. Individuals, businesses, and government entities are all involved in these integration practices to some extent. This evolving field of inquiry and practice is often separated into 3 interrelated categories of resources—financial, social, and environmental—while providing new opportunities to operationalize activities and measure performance.

A primary assumption within this study is that sustainability provides a new integration opportunity to organizations, and an integrated approach to thinking and decision analysis will lead to better understanding of the value creation process. It is easy to say that value creation is important, yet not so easy to make it influence strategy and the decisions that are made every day, e.g. where to spend time and resources, how best to get things done, and, ultimately, how to win in the marketplace. Thus, the information within this study is designed to accelerate the integration between management actions, value creation, and the goal of a sustainable future.

The drivers of innovation and the connections between sustainability and organizations have become focal points for research and for the development of management practices and performance measurement. Sustainable development, “the transition from the current, unsustainable society to a sustainable society[,]…can also refer to society’s further development once it has become sustainable.”10 This understanding of sustainable development helps draw attention to the idea that sustainability is the overarching goal. This also places practical importance on what organizations do to move toward the sustainability goal.

This study aims to enable integration efforts in the context of a systematic approach to operationalizing a vision, shared understanding, baseline assessment, and an action-oriented approach to prioritizing next steps. When operationalizing sustainability in this way, managers within organizations can better enable short-term and long-term activities to integrate sustainability into value-creating processes and management planning. In doing so, the outcomes of this applied, problem-based learning approach facilitate a shared understanding of what sustainability means to an organization and how to work collaboratively across disciplines to prioritize what needs to be done. Thus, the primary questions addressed by this study are 1) “How do we translate sustainability into practical action?” and 2) “What aspects of operationalizing this paradigm will be material to stakeholders?”

In what follows, there is a review of problem-based and action-learning focused approaches for operationalizing sustainability. A primer on facilitation sets the stage for the ABCD planning approach as part of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development.11 Then, example outcomes are provided for context before discussing conclusions.

A Problem-Based Action Learning Approach

For the purpose of this planning process, “material” topics for an organization should include those “topics that have a direct or indirect impact on an organization’s ability to create, preserve, or erode economic, environmental and social value for itself, its stakeholders and society at large.”12 Materiality is an important context for engaging people across disciplines and functions. It provides a virtual place and space in which everyone can contribute their abilities and expertise to solve a common problem while understanding what is material to the organization. In this case, the problem is how to get to a shared understanding of what a sustainable future will look like, and what actions will take us from our current “as is” reality to that sustainable “to be” future.

Here problem-based action learning provides a foundation to collaboration and complex problem-solving. Torp and Sage13 described a problem-based approach as focused, action learning organized around the investigation and resolution of messy, real-world problems. When operationalizing sustainability, participants are engaged problem-solvers who seek to identify root problems and the conditions needed for solutions; in the process, they become self-directed learners. Further, Hmelo-Silver14 described the problem-solving approach to collaborative inquiry where participants learn through facilitated problem-solving that centers on a complex problem that does not have a single correct answer. The author goes on to suggest that participants work in collaborative groups to identify what they need to learn (i.e., what a vision of sustainability will look like) to be able to solve a problem (identify and prioritize what actions to take). To this end, participants engage in self-directed learning, apply their new knowledge to the problem, and reflect on what they learned and the effectiveness of the strategies employed. The characteristics of a problem-based approach, as summarized by Savery in a review of prior works including Barrow and Tamblyn’s essential characteristics, include but are not limited to:15

  • The problem is to be ill-structured and allow for free inquiry.
  • Participants must have responsibility for their own contributions and learning.
  • Contributions and learning should be from a wide range of disciplines or subjects.
  • Collaboration across disciplines is essential.
  • Participants’ self-directed learning must be reapplied to the problem’s reanalysis/resolution.
  • Essential components of the process are a closing analysis of what has been learned from work with the problem and a discussion of what has been learned.
  • The activities carried out must be those valued in the real world.
  • Participant assessment must measure progress towards the problem-based goals.
  • Self and peer assessment should be carried out at the completion of an activity and at the end of curricular units.
  • This type of learning must be the pedagogical base in curriculum and not part of a didactic curriculum.

Of these characteristics, the last two are more explicitly focused on curriculum opportunities. The proposed approach to engaging an organization or the inclusion of this type of planning exercise in business management pedagogy closely parallels Savery’s essential characteristics of problem-based learning and is supported by DeFillippi and Milter’s work.16 Figure 1 presents a generalizable, problem-based learning approach to operationalizing sustainability.

Figure 1. Organizational Integration Towards Sustainability

v1n1-sroufe-fig1

The conceptual framework in Figure 1 is a hybrid approach with an action learning foundation enabled by the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development’s ABCD planning process as a platform for collaboration. As Senge, Lichtenstein, et al.,17 observed when investigating collaborative opportunities among corporations, “Meeting the sustainability challenge will require the kind of cross-sector collaboration for which there is still no real precedent.” With a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving around sustainability, the focus is on developing understanding and applying the skills to create a vision of the future and then back-cast to today to see what actions can be taken.

Success in any collaboration rests on the quality of the relationships that shape cooperation, trust, and joint learning.18 The topic of sustainability is well-positioned for purposefully cultivating opportunities for framing complex issues, promoting relational collaborative inquiry, and designing actionable change initiatives. When doing so, sustainability is a lens by which we can see into the future while keeping the focus on forward-looking challenges and capabilities.

Sustainability can be a new and daunting challenge for organizations, especially considering that “in the reality of contemporary work organizations, managerial capabilities have typically been acquired through work experiences. For example, studies show that 70-90% of workplace learning occurs through on-the-job experiences, informal training, and mentoring.”19 Organizations not wanting a large up-front investment in external consultants can utilize the approach in this study to work up to larger investments in time, effort, and capital resources after first getting a shared understanding of what to do next. Here, it is important to note that the exercise of operationalizing sustainability provides practitioners with a practical opportunity to better understand their organization. For business students given the opportunity to go through this approach with an organization, there is a promising action learning opportunity. This learning is based on contemporary management challenges, will be remembered long after graduation, and can be replicated in any organization they may join.

Collaborative Action

For some time now, I have been involved with organizations and graduate students trying to define sustainability within an organizational context. Knowing that no one definition will fit everyone’s needs, we needed a customized approach. The aim was not to define sustainability, but instead to understand how to relate this trending topic into action. Based on years of application within courses and while working with corporate, small and medium enterprise, and NGO clients, the proposed approach is one way for an organization to develop and define the goals, scope, and actions strategically aligned with a vision of a sustainable society. As we know all too well, business schools can be dominated by stand-alone functional areas, and sustainability topics are rarely integrated with essential management content in these fields. However, combining sustainability with action learning to address emerging business challenges offers exceptional opportunities to cut across disciplines and to propose new courses. Here sustainability can be a catalyst for a new era in multidisciplinary collaboration that offers promise for addressing the complex, ambiguous challenges (e.g. poverty alleviation, education for girls, water scarcity, etc.) in a dynamic, global market.

In the proposed approach, participants’ understanding from their own functional perspective is applied to meet the evolving needs of their organization. This process should be repeated as organizations progress toward sustainability and integrate this into regular planning cycles. To this end, teams should work across an organization to deliver innovative recommendations and better understand the sustainability integration opportunities within the organization. This action learning approach enables senior and middle managers from an organization to better identify and understand the hidden challenges of capitalizing on emerging opportunities for competitive advantage through responsible management of shared resources.

With the idea of acting on emerging opportunities, Senge, et al.20 posed an interesting question: How can we get beyond benchmarking to build learning communities? The answer for organizations ready to take on a sustainability challenge is through integration and collaboration—where participants work together to solve real problems, offering analysis and recommendations that have financial, social, and environmental value aligned with a strategic vision of the future.

The process of operationalizing sustainability can provide insight as to how an organization implements sustainability on a day-to-day and strategic planning level. This approach can be used by stakeholders internally (for employees, managers, executives) or externally (for the media, stockholders, NGOs, or financial institutions that invest in the company’s operations). Operationalizing sustainability aligns stakeholder interests with guidance for how to address issues that arise from a company’s economic, environmental and social activities.

Building on prior work, Blackburn’s model of sustainability policy provides a foundation to organize thinking around material organizational activities.21 This, coupled with Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line, provides a generalizable framework for the proposed approach that explicitly challenges participants to review and include actions that are material to the organization. Knowing there are competing approaches to understanding and integrating sustainability—systems innovation,22 value mapping,23 systems thinking for policy makers,24 and even specific templates for new product development,25 to name a few—we have continually opted for a more general approach. A successful approach to this exercise provides a compass that stakeholders can use to navigate everyday issues and decision-making. To better understand how to operationalize sustainability, participants need to assess what organizational practices are expected within the industry. The practical importance of this process is recognizing what is material for the firm, i.e. what stakeholders deem important and what is within the control of the organization. This materiality needs further assessment in order to compare and contrast the competing material needs of the organization with short-term and long-term goals, resources, and the changing competitive landscape.

To better understand any organization, it is critical to think about actions within the context of an Integrated Bottom Line (IBL) where financial, social, and environmental resources can be valued and used in planning, decision-making, and reporting. To kick-start this integrated approach, start by proposing the following questions and scenario to the team of participants. Imagine a sustainable world 50 or 100 years from now:

  1. Describe the ways in which you hope the world will be more sustainable—how will it be different from today?
  2. If the population levels off at 12 to 15 billion people, what systems and technologies will be necessary to provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter?
  3. What kinds of sustainable business practices will be part of this future?

This first set of questions gets participants thinking about a vision of a sustainable world and the systems that will support it. Then, the following questions can help bring this future vision back to a more grounded current reality by asking if the organization contributes to or negatively impacts this future vision in the following ways:

  1. Why is sustainability important to our industry and this organization?
  2. How do our activities impact economic viability of the organization and global community?
  3. How do our activities impact social well-being of employees and community?
  4. Do our activities impact the environment in a way that replenishes or diminishes natural resources?

As Peter Drucker once said, “every single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise”.26 By contemplating and answering these questions, a participant can specify the responsibilities and actions of an organization that align with the needs of a sustainable society. Something to keep in mind for this exercise is that the long-term success of the organization is dependent upon and aligned with the long-term success of society and the communities in which the organization operates. Decisions made today and tomorrow will have both short-term and long-term impacts. Without aligning those decisions to a vison of a sustainable future, the organization and people connected to it will not generate value in ways that contribute to this future reality. The range of kick-off questions implies that sustainability is already part of organizations and society, yet this level of understanding may not be fully grasped by many within an organization. For some, the ambiguity in understanding this opportunity may be overwhelming and difficult to commit to. For others, the input to a brainstorming session and visualization of the future is a welcome opportunity for reflection and thinking about how to find new business value within an organization. The process of facilitation as applied to brainstorming is therefore reviewed. This approach to collaboration aims to get individuals to look beyond their functional disciplines; to understand, be part of, and see relationships to and connections with the external world on which they are dependent.

Facilitation and the Strategic Planning Process

Brainstorming with a group of people is a powerful and creative technique for capturing new insights. Brainstorming can create bold ideas, solve existing problems, and develop collaborative teams. It can also motivate organizations by involving participants in bigger management issues and getting people working together. To better ensure success, facilitated sessions need to be structured and follow some general rules. The brainstorming process is such that everyone must be able to see what’s happening and to have their contributions acknowledged. This places a burden on the facilitator to manage the process and participants’ level of engagement, and then to manage follow-up actions. When done successfully, brainstorming provides impactful results in improving the organization’s performance and collaboration. As experts know, the trick is to leverage the way people actually think and work in creative problem-solving situations. McKinsey calls this “brainsteering”.27 If done purposefully and with a focused, questions-based approach, managers and faculty can more consistently get better ideas from participants.

A facilitated, stepwise process is designed to be used in team-based workshops to get people thinking creatively and to develop lists of action items for planning and implementation. “It can also be a tool for analysis, vision creation, program design, tool development, community building, and leadership.”28 Much like the operations management literature involving the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle,29 this methodology is best when repeated as part of regular planning cycles. It should involve people from across disciplines, especially those who do not agree with you on a regular basis, and should be integrated into future meetings and planning practices. This repetition builds collaboration across the organization while working on sustainability and facilitates buy-in regarding organizational strategy and change management.

For more specific information on the ABCD process, see The Natural Step web site, along with publications by Broman and Robért.30 For the purposes of this action learning exercise, this process is summarized below.

Step A: Building a Shared Understanding and Vision. The participants involved in the exercise create a shared mental model of what a sustainable future will look like including socio-economic systems and sustainability challenges. Using the first three questions while envisioning a sustainable world 50 or 100 years from now is a purposeful start to this brainstorming exercise. This first step enables a shared understanding of the issues an organization and industry face. Step A also allows for the application of the framework for strategic sustainable development and a science-based approach to identifying issues and opportunities for the firm.31 Participants should ask themselves, “Does this vision of the future enable the organization to provide products or services in new ways, what as an organization do we want to create, and how do we integrate sustainability with current goals, actions and strategy of the organization?”32 The answers to these questions do not have to come out of this first step, but instead are transitions to subsequent steps, further research, and analysis. This initial vision is iterative and can and should be modified or changed when going through the rest of this exercise and as part of future planning practices. See Figure 1 for how this stepped process and integration of sustainability is supported by a problem-based approach to learning and collaboration.

Step B: Assessing the Current Reality. Here the team benchmarks the organization’s “as is” activities according to how these activities contribute to sustainability or unsustainability. This step generates a list of current activities and assesses impacts and contributions to socio-economic systems. Impacts and contributions can be in the form of products, services, and existing investments in efficiency and waste reduction initiatives.

When reviewing these activities, it is important to acknowledge negative impacts. To this end, there are basic sustainability principles that provide explicit guidance for individuals or any organizations interested in moving towards sustainability. “In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing … (1) concentrations of substances from the earth’s crust (such as fossil CO2 and heavy metals), (2) concentrations of substances produced by society (such as antibiotics, pollution, and endocrine disruptors), (3) degradation by physical means (such as deforestation and draining of groundwater tables), and in that society …(4) there are no structural obstacles to people’s health, influence, competence, impartiality and meaning.”33

Here participants can look for potential weaknesses in the organization such as dependence on fossil fuels, use of hazardous materials, contributions to the degradation of natural resources, or involvement in activities that compromise human safety, health, or living standards. This step can be considered a benchmark or SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, with specific activities set up for follow-up research and analysis after the exercise.

Step C: Brainstorming Actions to Close the Gap. Next, there is typically a chasm to cross between the current reality and the sustainable vision. This step involves brainstorming a list of actions, collaborative efforts, and investments that will help the organization to cross this chasm to a more sustainable future reality. These actions can involve raw material substitutions, new product and service design, energy systems, goals of zero waste, 100% renewable energy, and closed loop systems, and should involve both short-term and long-term opportunities. In this step, participants can review the examples and the lists of topics from Appendices 1–434 to see what resonates with their organization and to check if they may have missed something.

Step D: Prioritization. In this step the team analyzes the list of what is possible from the previous step. Asking three primary questions outlined by Robért et. al.35 will help move this analysis along. First, does the proposed action lead toward sustainability? Next, can the action be a platform onto which we build future improvements? Finally, does it provide a sufficient value proposition and return on investment? Whether an organization is publicly traded or not, value creation can be looked at as opportunities for revenue growth, operating margin, asset efficiency and even stakeholder expectations.36 When prioritizing actions in this way, participants can focus resources on investments that are material to the organization and can provide an Integrated Bottom Line return sufficient to ensure the continued success of the organization and other competing actions. When assessing materiality, organizations typically look at what responsibilities and actions are important to stakeholders and what actions are within the control of the organization. Other questions to ask during this step include 1) what are the most strategic actions we can take and 2) are there any significant risks or opportunities that we should be aware of within our value chain?

Building on the findings of Step C, the thinking and prioritization here provides an opportunity to develop a summary strategy statement regarding sustainability and the key areas of alignment for the organization.  Figure 2 offers an example from Blackburn37 of how to capture sustainability actions relevant to an organization within a relatively brief strategically aligned statement.38 Step D is an important part of problem-based learning as the outcomes are reinforced through participant ownership of the learning process, repetition, and leveraging double- and triple-loop learning feedback cycles.39 The outcomes of this step not only set into motion short-term and long-term actions, but also allow managers to review day-to-day decisions and resource allocations to help ensure they are in line with the organizational strategy and vision of sustainability.

v1n1-sroufe-fig2

If there are further opportunities for public disclosure of actions, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines suggest an organization should identify, prioritize, validate, and review information relevant to internal and external stakeholders.40 Operationalizing sustainability can be the catalyst for understanding what is material to an organization and for later external reporting efforts. The process of operationalizing and use of the four-stepped planning process aligns well with the use of the GRI guidelines for reporting.41

Modeled after the process outlined above, we have tasked incoming graduate business students with developing their own strategic statement to guide their graduate experience and future careers as creators of sustainable value. Before introducing the topic of sustainability, we have participants answer the question “What is sustainability?” and have them place their answer in a sealed envelope. This envelope can be reflected upon at the end of a facilitated workshop or at the end of a semester to see how the participant’s thinking has changed regarding the definition of sustainability and how it relates to the organization.

One example of a cohort’s approach to operationalizing sustainability started during orientation in this way and continued into their first semester with online collaboration and multiple iterations to result in this summary statement:

Our vision of sustainable performance includes researching and developing responsible business opportunities for an Integrated Bottom Line that is economically, environmentally, and socially beneficial. The program’s economic success will depend on brand strength, community prosperity, value creation and return on investment. Environmental responsibilities include resource conservation, recycling, reduction of supply chain impacts, collaboration with communities, closed loop systems, the pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Our social responsibility includes action learning, working with corporate sponsors on the business case for sustainability, respect for stakeholders, systems thinking across disciplines, and an ethical approach to decision making.

The students’ statement provided a foundation and rationale for the collaboration of faculty and industry partners for components of a graduate business program. Here curriculum design can specifically integrate cornerstone and capstone action learning that emphasizes sustainability.

Conclusions

Collaborative, cross-discipline problem-based learning ties theory to practice when conducted in a real-world setting with real-world consequences. Much like any Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle and planning initiative, there need to be opportunities for follow up, implementation, and review of progress. The proposed process for operationalizing sustainability can help find short-term, easy-to-implement actions while also setting organizational sights on long-term goals of zero waste, regenerative buildings, 100% of energy coming from renewable sources, reduction of poverty, resilience to drought, or the elimination of diseases. Part of this stepped process should always include action items for immediate work, planning the next round of meetings, and integration of sustainability into regular organizational meetings and performance evaluations.

What is important about operationalizing sustainability is more than the issues participants work on. It’s moving beyond single-loop learning to deep reflection and examination of the assumptions driving organizational decision-making. The bigger picture is about the participant’s individual and collective reflection and understanding of their organization’s practices and how to challenge the status quo with new value propositions.  Without this perspective, commitments to sustainable practice remain focused on relatively simple environmental and efficiency measures or one-off projects.

The development and delivery of applied coursework is the future of the business school curriculum. Armed with models, frameworks, and action learning, any business program can integrate sustainability and transform the way we think about the future. It is important to recognize that faculty who play a facilitating role and clients who collaborate with students to assess and solve problems also benefit from this action learning approach.42

The benefits to individual skill development and the capabilities of multidisciplinary teams of operationalizing sustainability with this problem-based approach should not be underestimated. This staged process enables teams to be responsible for their learning and outcomes, provides meaningful work with multiple stakeholders facilitating collaboration and analysis of alternatives, and supports skill development through outcomes and feedback resulting in ownership, complemented by double- and triple-loop learning.43 Through action learning experiences such as this, participants gain an understanding of what sustainability can mean to them.

Working under the assumption that we do not have to redefine sustainability, the proposed model and approach to operationalizing sustainability will help organizations and individuals better understand this burgeoning sustainability paradigm by enabling practical management action. This approach has real potential in the development of a new performance frontier,44 skill development, learning,45 knowledge management,46 and management research. Senge, et. al.,47 posed the question: “How can we get beyond benchmarking to build learning communities?” The answer for both organizations and individuals can be found in the integration opportunity provided by sustainability as an end goal, and the identification of material actions to strategically move toward this goal. For academic institutions, learning communities and new pedagogy can be found through courses that require cross-functional content integration and non-traditional human collaboration—where students work with high-level practicing professionals to solve real problems. In these emerging communities, students and faculty will offer recommendations that have Integrated Bottom Line (IBL), financial, social, and environmental consequences. Those participants who engage in first-hand learning, research, and analysis while operationalizing sustainability will develop actionable solutions that cut across disciplines, engage value chains and align industries to move toward the goal of sustainability.

End Notes

  1. ^Gru Brundtland, Mansour Khalid, Susanna Agnelli, Sali Al–Athel, Bernard Chidzero, Lamina Fadika, Volker Hauff et al., “Our Common Future”, 1987.
  2. ^John Ehrenfeld and Andrew Hoffman, Flourishing: A Frank Conversation About Sustainability, Stanford University Press, 2013.
  3. ^W. Blackburn, “Sustainability As a Business Operating System,” International Journal of Sustainable Business 12, no. 2 (2005): 1–11.
  4. ^A. B. Carroll, “Corporate Social Responsibility –Evolution of a Definitional Construction,” Business and Society 38, no. 3 (1999): 268–295. See also, B. E. Joyner and D. Payne, “Evolution and Implementation: A Study of Values, Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility,” Journal of Business Ethics 41, no. 4 (2002): 297–311; and C. R. Carter and M. M. Jennings, “Role of Purchasing in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Structural Equation Analysis,” The Journal of Business Logistics 25, no. 1 (2004): 145–187.
  5. ^see for example, J. Peloza and R. Yahnin, “Valuing Sustainability: A Systematic Review,” Research Network for Business Sustainability, 2008; A. Hoffman, “Thirty-Five Years of Research on Business and the Natural Environment, Part 1: A Statistical Synopsis,” Organizations and the Natural Environment Blog, July 13, 2013.
  6. ^S.U. Hoejmose and A.J. Adrien-Kirby. “Socially and Environmentally Responsible Procurement: A Literature Review and Future Research Agenda of a Managerial Issue in the 21st Century,” Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management 18 (2012): 232–242; L. C. Giunipero, R. Hooker, and D. Denslow, “Purchasing and Supply Management Sustainability: Drivers and Barriers,” Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management 18 (2012): 258–269; and J. Miemczyk, T. E. Johnsen, and M. Macquet, “Sustainable Purchasing and Supply Management: A Structured Literature Review of Definitions and Measures at the Dyad, Chain and Network Levels,” Supply Chain Management: An International Journal 17, no. 5 (2012): 478–496.
  7. ^S. Curkovic and R. Sroufe, “A Literature Review and Taxonomy of Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing,” American Journal of Industrial and Business Management 6, published online, March 2016.
  8. ^Alexander Dahlsrud, “How Corporate Social Responsibility Is Defined: An Analysis of 37 Definitions,” Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 15, no. 1 (2008): 1–13.
  9. ^Ibid; M. Marrewijk, “Concepts and Definitions of CSR and Corporate Sustainability: Between Agency and Communication,” Journal of Business Ethics 44, no. 2/3 (2003): 95–105. Along with M. Pagell and A. Schevchenko, “Why Research in Sustainability Supply Chain Management Should Have No Future,” Journal of Supply Chain Management 50, no. 1 (2014): 44–55.
  10. ^K. H. Robert, G. Broman, D. Waldron, H. Ny, S. Byggeth, D. Cook, L. Johansson, J. Oldmark, G. Basile, H. Haraldsson, J. M. MacDonald, B. Moore, T. Connel, M. Missimer, P. Johnson, and E. Daly, Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, Karlskrona, Sweden: Psilanders Grafiska, 2015.
  11. ^G. I. Broman and K. H. Robert, “A Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development,” Journal of Cleaner Production, in press, 2015.
  12. ^GRI, Global Reporting Initiative, “G4 Guidelines,” 2016; Global Reporting Initiative, “Materiality in the Context of the GRI Reporting Framework,” 2016.
  13. ^L. Torp and S. Sage, Problems As Possibilities: Problem-Based Learning for K-16 Education (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2002.
  14. ^C. E. Hmelo-Silver, “Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn?” Educational Psychology Review 16, no. 3 (2004): 235–266.
  15. ^J. Savery, “Overview of Problem-Based Learning: Definitions and Distinctions,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning 1, no. 1 (2006): 9–20; H. S. Barrows, and R. M. Tamblyn, Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education, New York: Springer, 1980.
  16. ^R. DeFillippi and R. Milter, “Problem- and Project-Based Learning,” Sage Handbook of Management Learning, Education and Development, London: Sage Publications Ltd. (2009): 344–363.
  17. ^P. Senge, B. Lichtenstein, K. Kaeufer, H. Bradbufy, and J. Carroll, “Collaborating for Systemic Change,” Sloan Management Review 48, no. 2 (2007): 44–53.
  18. ^Y. L. Doz and G. Hamel, “Alliance Advantage: The Art of Creating Value Through Partnering.” Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998; and L. C. Abrams, R. Cross, E. Lesser, and D. Z. Levin, “Nurturing Interpersonal Trust in Knowledge-Sharing Networks.” Academy of Management Executive 17, no. 4 (2003): 64–77.
  19. ^J. Pfeffer & R. I. Sutton, “The Knowing-Doing Gap,” Harvard Business Review 26 (2000): 62–74. S. I. Tannenbaum, “Enhancing Continuous Learning: Diagnostic Findings from Multiple Companies.” Human Resource Management 36 (1997): 437–452. R. S. Rubin and E.C Dierdorff, “How Relevant is the MBA? Assessing the Alignment of Required Curricula and Required Managerial Competencies.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 8, no. 2 (2009): 208.
  20. ^P Senge, et al., “Collaborating for Systemic Change” (2007).
  21. ^W. Blackburn, Sustainability As a Business Operating System, 2005; and W. Blackburn, The Sustainability Handbook, 2007.
  22. ^Ayşe İdil Gaziulusoy, “System Innovation for Sustainability: A Scenario Method and a Workshop Process for Product Development Teams.” Ph.D. diss., ResearchSpace@ Auckland, (2010).
  23. ^Nancy Bocken, Samuel Short, Padmakshi Rana, and Steve Evans. “A Value Mapping Tool for Sustainable Business Modelling.” Corporate Governance 13, no. 5 (2013): 482–497.
  24. ^O. J. H., Bosch, C. A. King, John L. Herbohn, I. W. Russell, and C. S. Smith. “Getting the Big Picture in Natural Resource Management—Systems Thinking As ‘Method’ for Scientists, Policy-Makers and Other Stakeholders.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science 24, no. 2 (2007): 217–232.
  25. ^Henrik Ny, Sophie Hallstedt, Karl‐Henrik Robèrt, and Göran Broman. “Introducing Templates for Sustainable Product Development.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 12, no. 4 (2008): 600–623.
  26. ^Quote from the Drucker Institute, http://www.druckerinstitute.com/link/opportunity-in-disguise/
  27. ^McKinsey “Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming,” 2016.
  28. ^K. H. Robert, et al., Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, 2015.
  29. ^W. E. Deming, “Out of the Crisis,” MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study, ISBN 0-911379-01-0. (1986).
  30. ^G. I. Broman and K. H. Robert, “A Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development,” 2015; and K.H. Robert, et al., Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability, 2015.
  31. ^Ibid.
  32. ^K. H. Robert, et al., Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, 2015.
  33. ^Ibid.
  34. ^Modified from W. Blackburn, Sustainability Handbook, and the current GRI G4 reporting guidelines.
  35. ^K. H. Robert, et al., “Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, 2015.
  36. ^E. G. Lukac and D. Frazier, “Deloitte Consulting LLP, Linking Strategy to Value,” Journal of Business Strategy 33, no. 4 (2012), 49–57. http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ie/Documents/Strategy/2012_linking_strategy_to_value_deloitte_ireland.pdf
  37. ^W. Blackburn, Chapter 2, The Sustainability Handbook, 2007.
  38. ^Ibid.
  39. ^C. Argyris, “Learning and Teaching: A Theory of Action Perspective.” Journal of Management Education 21, no. 1, (1997): 9–26.
  40. ^GRI, Global Reporting Initiative, “G4 Guidelines,” 2016.
    Global Reporting Initiative, “Materiality in the Context of the GRI Reporting Framework,” 2016.
  41. ^Ibid.
  42. ^J. Raelin, “Toward an Epistemology of Practice,” Academy of Management Learning and Education 6, no. 4 (2007). 495–519.
  43. ^C. Argyris, “Learning and Teaching” (1997).
  44. ^Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim, “The Performance Frontier,” Harvard Business Review 91, no. 5 (2013): 50–60.
  45. ^L. Torp and S. Sage. “Problems As Possibilities,” 2002; and C. E. Hmelo-Silver, “Problem-Based Learning,” 2004.
  46. ^Marianne Gloet, “Knowledge Management and the Links to HRM: Developing Leadership and Management Capabilities to Support Sustainability.” Management Research News 29, no. 7 (2006): 402–413.
  47. ^P. Senge, et al., “Collaborating for Systemic Change” (2007).

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Education

Sustainability of Education: An Ecopedagogical Approach

Gary Padgett, Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

Abstract

This article is a call to action and further research. It also suggests that it is important to move from education about sustainability to the sustainability of education. In the tradition of Freire and Giroux, this article examines the commodification of education stakeholders and the impact this has on education. This article also explores how critical theory and ecopedagogy can change how the conversation is occurring within the field of education.

Introduction

Sustainability is the ability to endure. It’s a simple definition for a simple concept, one that our ancestors knew and applied to their daily lives. Keep the sources of water clean for drinking. Eat food that provides energy and does not cause disease. Help your family and neighbors in order to create a social network capable of providing long term care and protection. Over the generations, other ideas have taken priority, and the concept of sustainability is now struggling to be recognized as a viable alternative to a consumer lifestyle. Faster food, cheaper wifi, and more parking are priorities that did not exist in the not so distant past. A consumer lifestyle has evolved, and the impacts are defining it as unsustainable. Water, food, even people are commodities to be used towards a profit. The economic and social practices of most countries are unsustainable. Globally, 1.8 billion people drink from an unsafe water source.1 Indigenous communities in the United States are losing their homes due to rising sea levels2 as are the people of the Marshall Islands.3 People are losing their lives as world leaders analyze the definition of genocide4 and debate the legal rights of women.5 The results, whether they are acknowledged or not, are effecting everyone.

As an assistant professor of education, I look to my own field for answers regarding sustainability. Any basic search using the popular internet search engine Google will reveal that when the words sustainability and education are used together, science education is the topic that is most often returned. The research in this area focuses on teaching how to utilize the environment in a less destructive manner. Article after article, research center after research center, each one focuses on educating about natural resource use. There is also research dedicated to the idea of building partnerships with the people who actually live on the land,6 and its focus is on teaching about sustainable agriculture and common ownership of land. The research in this area spans a broad area from communal living to small urban community gardens.7 These are both meaningful topics, but they address the education of sustainability, rather than the sustainability of education. As an educator, I want to create sustainability within my field so that the education system is perpetuating sustainable relationships rather than utilizing students, parents, and community stakeholders as commodities. In order to do this, we need to rebuild the relationships that have deteriorated due to this commodification.

Critical Theory

As an educator and critical theorist, I am interested in the social aspects of education. As such, I am looking for an “educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action.”8 This is how Giroux defined and founded the educational philosophy of critical pedagogy. It is the basis for how education can combat the commodification of its stakeholders; this commodification is in direct opposition to sustainability. Giroux writes that:

The real enemy is not consumption per se, but a market-driven consumer society fueled by the endless cycle of acquisition, waste and disposability, which is at the heart of an unchecked and deregulated global capitalism. Under such circumstances, there are few remaining spaces in which to imagine a mode of consumption that rejects the logic of commodification and embraces the principles of sustainability while expanding the reach and possibilities of a substantive democracy.9

In a search for a sustainable system of education, the building of relationships under a democracy controlled by the people, and not corporate interests, is vital. Giroux goes a step further and writes that “As the line between for-profit and not-for-profit institutions of higher education collapses, the tensions between democratic values and market interests blur and the distinction between education and job training breaks down. Not surprisingly, it has become more difficult for the public to recognize that the problems facing higher education have less to do with corporate management, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness than with the erosion of democratic ideals.”10

Creating a consciousness of freedom and encouraging the ability to take constructive action are revolutionary ideas that are critical for sustainability. These are concepts that enable societies to look at their communities and decide if their practices are sustainable or not, and change them if necessary. Giroux’s writings support empowering communities to make decisions by stating that:

Democracy is in crisis throughout the world, and one way of addressing this crisis is through modes of education that not only take place in a variety of spheres including public and higher education, but also through a commitment to utopian longings in which we can glimpse communities organized around courage rather than fear, shared human needs rather than amoral values of the market, and moral principles that provoke us to not just hoping, but acting to eliminate human suffering and exploitation while expanding democratic rights, identities, and social relations.11

Allowing communities a voice in their futures can be scary for those embracing an unsustainable lifestyle at the expense of others, but it is empowering to those that have been disadvantaged or oppressed by that exact same system. This is the kind of philosophy that will allow education to not only endure, but produce a global society that creates a system that allows other living things, human and nonhuman, to also endure.

Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered one of the founding texts of critical pedagogy, and helps explain how the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressors can be repaired. Of importance to my search for a sustainable education model is Freire’s writing on the relationships between colonizer and colonized and between the student and teacher. As an educator, I see these power relationships demonstrated on a daily basis. Freire noted these discrepancies in Brazil, but they are just as relevant in the United States where teachers are overwhelmingly white and female12 while the student population is becoming increasingly diverse.13 Rather than place responsibility on just one group, Freire calls for discussion and cooperation across both sides of the dichotomies of power.14 Colonized and colonizer, oppressed and oppressor, teacher and student, are all effected by the inequality of relationships. This building of authentic relationships is important to creating a sustainable education system, and can be expanded to include not only the people involved, but also the place.

Indigenous/Traditional Societies

I believe in the slogan “think globally, act locally.” While it is true that I have found Freire’s ideas echoed throughout traditional societies, I kept true to this slogan in order to keep true to critical theory and ecopedagogy. Friere’s writing is based on his work and observations in Brazil. From Brazil it spread across the globe through the writings of Henry Giroux, Roger Simon, David Livingstone, Peter McLaren, Joe Kincheloe, Shirley Steinberg, and Ira Shor. Each critical theorist worked with and built upon the work of each other to address the needs of where they were located. Each time, critical pedagogy changed and adapted to meet the needs of that time and place. In this manner, critical pedagogy serves a diverse global population. As Giroux states, “I think it is best to think of critical pedagogy as an ongoing project instead of a fixed set of references.”15 Keeping with the intent behind critical pedagogy, I looked for a reference point within the United States. American Indians have a pronounced historical dichotomy of power with other Americans and are continuously under pressure to accept colonization. Within these power struggles and cultures with a different relationship to the Earth, the first place I looked for a practical application of ecopedagogy is the indigenous communities of the United States.

The phrase “all my relations” has become commercialized and is an example of the commodification of traditional indigenous knowledge. However, in light of ecopedagogy’s reflection of this world view of interconnectedness, its continued relevance to sustainability becomes more apparent. According to the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, “all my relations is a worldview of interconnectedness and oneness that deserves attention during these difficult times.”16 While the origins of this popularized phrase is in Lakota prayer, the idea that we are related is not is not isolated to Lakota speakers or indigenous people in general. The idea that we are all related, human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate, and that were are dependent upon one another is a concept that modern Western science is embracing. Food chains have become food webs and agricultural sciences stress the need for diversity in crop growth.17 Even theoretical sciences such as string theory are showing that we are all connected in ways that have yet to be understood, such as by attempting to unify electromagnet force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and gravity into one theory.18 This kind of science or way of understanding the world can be hard to implement in an unsustainable society. To begin the process towards this understanding, I look to another indigenous phrase that has become commercialized, “the seventh generation.”

In order to bring us back to our environment and the beings who inhabit it, Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), stated that the seven generations we are to protect are the seven we are most connected to: our great grandparents, grandparents, parents, our generation, our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. As David Wilkins (Lumbee) writes, “Even if we aren’t fortunate enough to have been in the physical presence of those who came before us, we usually have stories, songs, and photos that have been shared so that we feel a connection. We also want to make sure our kids and grandkids are healthy, safe and aware of where they come from. So, counting our own generation—ourselves, siblings, and cousins—we are accountable to those seven generations, not some imagined futuristic peoples two hundred years down the road.”19 The seventh generation has been commercialized to the point of even being used to sell dishwashing detergent, but the message is reaching a larger audience. Users of this phrase exhort us to remember the seventh generation, our hoped for descendants who will exist between 150 and 200 years from now. While this is a good idea to keep in mind, this concept again divorces us from the here and now. When we seriously look at everyone who is descended from the same great grandparents, we realize we have more cousins than we first imagined. If we then truly adopt the concept of being responsible to the seven generations, then it is no longer us and them. It is we, and we see those familial connections in everyone and everything. The idea of our children versus their children is echoed in Lisa Delpit’s Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. Her research demonstrates the difficulties minority and low income students face when being taught by someone of a different ethnic, racial, or socioeconomic background.20 The philosophy behind the seventh generation suggests that these difficulties can be overcome by doing away with the idea that low income and minority students are other people’s children.

Oren Lyons (Onondaga) has said that indigenous communities do not hold secrets about sustainable living, just common sense.21 John Mohawk (Seneca) would tell people to visit with the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse, the Iroquois Confederacy), learn, then go back to tell their own peoples’ stories.22 This is important, because sustainable living and education is not an American Indian only concept. Traditional and indigenous communities around the world share similar concepts, but this does not leave out populations no longer considered indigenous. Most major world religions share similar ideas. Catholicism has the writings and life of St. Francis, urging us to be stewards of the environment and to care for the poor. Pope Francis puts this into practice on a daily basis, most recently with his publication of Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home, or his Easter announcements to care for the poor and displaced. Even the American Council of Bishops has a department that “educates and motivates Catholics to a deeper reverence and respect for God’s creation, and encourages Catholics to address environmental problems, especially as they affect poor and vulnerable people.”23 Islam teaches about the interconnectedness of life through water,24 while Buddhism and Jainism are known for their teachings on nonviolence towards all forms of life.

Thinking locally provides an indigenous viewpoint from which to view sustainability, both socially and environmentally. This viewpoint is in direct opposition to the commodification of people and relationships, and is reflected by non-indigenous writers such as Delpit who study education. When major world religions are taken into consideration, there is even more support for not exploiting people or the environment. These viewpoints can be combined in theory developed out of critical theory called ecopedagogy.

Ecopedagogy

As a critical theorist, Paulo Freire, like Henry Giroux, is an obvious influence on my search for a sustainability model. His scholarly works developing critical theory later led him to the early stages of ecopedagogy, which Freire was working on when he died. Critical pedagogy was spread across the globe by many scholars, and ecopedagogy was continued by many of the Freire Institutes and Freirean Associations. It influenced the Earth Charter, which is:

a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action. The Earth Charter is a product of a decade-long, worldwide, cross cultural dialogue on common goals and shared values.25

As a continuation of critical theory, ecopedagogy is the direction sustainable education must take. As a critical theorist I accept that these relationships are situated in an environmental context. I cannot divorce a person, or their perceptions of each other, from the place and time in which they live. Researchers need a temporal and geographic context within which to understand people and their perceptions. With this in mind, a sustainable education system must care not only for the person, but also for that which surrounds the person. Freire states this importance when saying, “It is urgent that we assume the duty of fighting for the fundamental ethical principles, like respect for the life of human beings, the life of other animals, the life of birds, the life of rivers and forests. I do not believe in love between men and women, between human beings, if we are not able to love the world.”26 In the current economic and political climate, these statements may not be popular, or seem too esoteric for society to accept. When people are being commodified, it is easy to imagine the world as a resource to exploit as well. However, to ignore the possibility of a situation where people and their environment could work together toward a common goal for the benefit of all does not make sense.

Application of Ecopedagogy to Education

In order to achieve these goals, a methodology is needed to not only present this information, but to transform information into a sustainable model. A useable framework can be found in McNaughton’s research on education for sustainable development (ESD). While her research focuses on how drama can be used to teach about ESD, she does provide a framework from which others can build their own models. Her research revealed that there are six pedagogical themes to the effective delivery of ESD. She states that effective ESD “should be: holistic; active and participative; based on and in the environment; focused on values; based on action competence; and systemic.”27 Building off of this theme, researchers can develop a framework to not only explore the education of sustainability, but also explore the sustainability of education. Utilizing these themes to create a framework, the field of education can develop a methodology for building a sustainable system.

Holistic Learning

The first of the themes mentioned by McNaughton is holistic learning. The students in her research “crossed the boundaries imposed by traditional subject groupings and allowed children to move across the disciplines as they learned about aspects of their world.”28 This type of holistic learning is necessary for our students to develop an authentic relationship with the Earth and those that live here. Teachers need to create experiences that holistically engage the students and demonstrate the relevance of the learning objective, we are able to create a lasting, sustainable effect.

As the writings of Freire and Giroux indicate, a holistic learning experience will not be easy to create. As the free market system continues to integrate itself into the educational system, education will come more and more to resemble job training rather than a system to teach critical thinking. In order to create a holistic learning experience, the education system would also need to include community stakeholders: parents, grandparents, and neighbors in addition to the business leaders and possible future employers. Interacting with the stakeholders will allow students to see diverse viewpoints, put today’s experiences into a historical perspective, and learn about possible future trends. The holistic learning experience would also create for them a social network of support for which they could turn to for support and advice.

Active and participative

McNaughton also calls for active and participative learning. She writes that “pupils should engage in critical, investigative, discursive, open-ended tasks that will challenge them intellectually and engage them emotionally.”29 For learning to be relevant, the students need to connect to the lessons. In order to do this, an emotional response is necessary. Dry lessons, that are separate from the students’ lived experiences, will continue to produce a society that is disconnected and fails to see relevance in anything.

As the commodification of education continues, active learning means classroom activities that mirror future expected job opportunities. This can lead to institutionalized oppression, as pointed out by Freire, based on the educator’s perceptions of the students’ future job opportunities. Those students get to focus their attention towards one kind of market, while our students apply the concepts towards another. This does not work towards sustainability, and actually works to hamper possible progress.

Focusing on the job market also leads educators to ignore students’ creativity and ability to apply the lessons in new and interesting ways. To address McNaughton’s call for open-ended tasks that challenge the students, educators need to address their expectations for an end product. When students apply the lessons and use their lived experiences to do so, it creates an individualized end product that is engaging – both intellectually and emotionally. This level of engagement connects with them and creates the desired sustainability.

Based on and in the environment

The third theme McNaughton identifies is education based on and in the environment. McNaughton’s research discusses methods for substituting drama for actually visiting sites too remote for an actual field trip. Simulations are a valuable tool, and are often used in education courses to create a K12 classroom environment. McNaughton also writes about the importance of “field visits into the local and wider environment.”30 For educators, conducting field experiences is an invaluable experience that allows them to connect to the classes they may one day teach.

Field experiences and observing classrooms is important for educators, but it still allows them to remain safely detached from the students and communities. In order to be effective, teachers, and their curriculum, needs to be based on and in the environment. For teachers who are not a part of the community they teach in, this can be a challenge. While they will never be from there, they will never be indigenous to that place, there are steps they can take. Wildcat and Deloria, Jr. write about indigenizing education. Their writings reflect on the importance of being connected to a place, and the importance of reconnecting native students to the land.31 I would suggest brining this metaphor to any education student. No lesson, course, or program of study can make a student indigenous to a place. However, a course can introduce a student to a place and the people that live there. A program of study can develop a student into a community resource, and build connections that are invaluable to the learning process. If students are not indigenized, if they do not connect to the place and people where they will teach, they will always be the outsider. As outsiders they will not have the same concern or effectiveness as teachers. The first theme of holistic learning can assist in correcting this behavior and allowing educators a better chance of connecting to the community in which they teach.

Focused on values

McNaughton writes that the fourth theme is values based education. She writes that “at the heart of sustainable living there must be a set of values, held by individuals and by society, by which they try to live and make choices.”32 In order to create a sustainable education system, these values must be identified and codified by local communities. No two communities, like no two individuals, will be the same. Each will have their own experiences and priorities, and that will dictate the values set forth by the community and for education to not only reflect, but sustain. It is when education reflects the values set forth by those not of the community, such as textbook companies or the creators of standardized tests, that the education system fails to support the ones it is created to sustain.

It is the reflection of other’s values that makes critical theory and ecopedagogy relevant to a discussion on sustainable education. As Freire states, the oppressed and the oppressors, the colonized and the colonizers, the students and the teachers, must come together to discuss what the community values. Rather than focus on production and profit margins, educational systems must redefine their approach to teaching and utilize instructional materials that support and promote the community’s values. If the community’s values are not supported, and are instead marginalized and challenged, the system is no longer sustainable for that community.

Action competence in the environment

The fifth theme identified by McNaughton is action competence in the environment. The idea that “pupils should be encouraged to be active participants in the care and stewardship of the local and global aspects of the world in which they live”33 is one that demands students be engaged and care. As the fifth theme it is understandable that, after learning about the local communities, working with the local communities, and working to connect with and become a resource for the community, students are expected to become active in the care and stewardship of their world.

While this seems like a defined and measurable goal, applying it will take the longest amount of time. The system of commodifying people and the environment has influenced every aspect of young people’s lives. It will take time and exposure to new approaches for them to learn about their roles as stewards, and what stewardship truly means. As a long term approach with community support and involvement, encouraging those involved to participate and care is a possibility. However, it is one that leads to the sixth theme identified by McNaughton.

System approaches to ESD

The last theme McNaughton identifies is that of a systemic approach to ESD. She, correctly, writes that the benefits of ESD “will be lost if established structures within the education system stop this pedagogy from taking root and flourishing.”34 This indicates that creating a sustainable education system cannot be established through one lesson plan or even by one teacher. Creating a sustainable education system will need the involvement of all of the teachers and all of the administrators. It will also necessitate the involvement of the students, parents, and community stakeholders. When everyone with input into the education system is supporting a sustainable model, then it will have a chance at flourishing.

Call for Further Research

As a critical theorist, I rarely believe research is finished. A popular phrase I hear overused by undergraduate students explains why I feel this way: the struggle is real. The struggle is very real and ongoing. Combing through the literature provides a rationale and a framework for applying an ecopedagogical approach to education. Rather than develop another system for educating about sustainability, I am calling for a system of sustainable education. This system needs to apply McNaughton’s framework on a broader scale to the field of education…and yet very specifically in regards to geographic location. Further research should also apply ecopedagogy and critical theory to the field of sustainability studies in order to revise how we view sustainability and who we allow to particpate in the conversations.

End Notes

  1. ^“Drinking-Water,” WHO, last modified June 2015, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs391/en/.
  2. ^Saskia De Melker, “Native Lands Wash Away as Sea Levels Rise,” NewsHour Productions LLC., last modified June 1, 2012, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/climate-change-jan-june12-louisianacoast_05-30
  3. ^“Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Region,” United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/pdf/factsheet_Pacfic_FINAL.pdf.
  4. ^“How do You Define Genocide?” BBC, last modified March 17, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-11108059.
  5. ^The White House, “Factsheet: The Violence against Women Act,” Whitehouse.gov, Accessed May 15,2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/vawa_factsheet.pdf.
  6. ^“Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Development in the Canadian Artic,” The Government of Canada, last modified September 15, 2010, http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100037493/1100100037495.
  7. ^“Urban Agriculture-Community Gardening,” MRSC Rosters, last modified February 26, 2016, http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Parks-and-Recreation/Recreation-and-Other-Programs/Urban-Agriculture-Community-Gardening.aspx.
  8. ^Henry A. Giroux, “Lessons From Paulo Freire,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, last modified October 17, 2010, http://chronicle.com/article/Lessons-From-Paulo-Freire/124910/.
  9. ^Henry A. Giroux, “Commodifying Kids: The Forgotten Crisis,” Truthout, Last modified April 3, 2009, http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/83374:commodifying-kidstheforgotten-crisis.
  10. ^Henry A. Giroux, “Higher Education is More Than a Corporate Logo,” Dissindentvoice.org, last modified January 26, 2004, http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/corporate_logo.htm.
  11. ^Ibid.
  12. ^“Table 209.10. Number and Percentage Distribution of Teachers in Public and Private Elementary and Secondary Schools,” National Center for Education Statistics, last modified July 2013, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp
  13. ^“Racial/Ethnic Enrollment in Public Schools,” National Center for Education Statistics, last modified May 2016, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cge.asp.
  14. ^Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (New York: Continuum, 2000).
  15. ^“A Critical Interview with Henry Giroux,” Global Education Magazine, last modified January 30, 2016, http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/critical-interview-henry-giroux/.
  16. ^Unci Rita, “Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations),” International Council of Thirteen indigenous Grandmothers, last modified 2016, http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/mitakuye-oyasin-all-my-relations.
  17. ^“What is the Difference between a Food Chain and a Food Web?” Web Agency Marketing Media, Accessed March 30, 2016, https://sciencebob.com/what-is-the-difference-between-food-chain-and-a-food-web/.
  18. ^Andrew Zimmerman Jones, “String Theory for Dummies,” John Wiley & Sons Inc., Accessed March 30, 2016, http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/string-theory-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html.
  19. ^David Wilkins, “How to Honor the Seven Generations,” Indian Country Today, last modified June 18, 2015, http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/18/how-honor-seven-generations.
  20. ^Lisa D. Delpit, Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, (New York: New Press, 1995).
  21. ^Harvey Arden and Steve Wall, Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders, 1st ed. (Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing, 1990).
  22. ^John Mohawk. “The Warriors who Turned to Peace,” Yes!Magazine, last modified Nov 11, 2004, http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/healing-resistance/the-warriors-who-turned-to-peace
  23. ^“Environment/Environmental Justice Program,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, accessed March 30, 2016, http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/environment/index.cfm.
  24. ^Ibrahim Ozdemir, “An Islamic Approach to the Environment,” Ibrahim Ozdemir, last modified 2002. Accessed March 30, 2016,http://www.islamawareness.net/Nature/environment_approach.html.
  25. ^“Earth Charter,” Earth Charter Associates, Accessed March 30, 2016, http://earthcharter.org/.
  26. ^Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Indignation, (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004).
  27. ^Marie Jeanne Mcnaughton, “Educational Drama in Education for Sustainable Development: Ecopedagogy in Action,” Pedagogy, Culture & Society 18, no. 3 (2010): 289-308.
  28. ^Ibid., 292.
  29. ^Ibid., 292.
  30. ^Ibid., 292.
  31. ^Vine Deloria Jr., and Daniel R. Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America. (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2001).
  32. ^Mcnaughton, Marie Jeanne. “Educational Drama in Education for Sustainable Development: Ecopedagogy in Action,” Pedagogy, Culture & Society 18, no. 3 (2010): 289-308.
  33. ^Ibid., 293.
  34. ^Ibid., 293.

Bibliography

“A Critical Interview with Henry Giroux.” Global Education Magazine. Last modified January30, 2016. http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/critical-interview-henry-giroux/

Arden, Harvey, and Steve Wall. Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders. 1st ed. Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing, 1990.

Deloria, Vine Jr., and Daniel R. Wildcat. Power and Place: Indian Education in America. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2001.

Delpit, Lisa D. Other People’s Chrldren: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press, 1995.

“Drinking-Water.” WHO. Last modified June 2015. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs391/en/.

“Earth Charter.” Earth Charter Associates. Accessed March 30, 2016. http://earthcharter.org/.

“Environment/Environmental Justice Program.” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Accessed March 30, 2016. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/environment/index.cfm.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Indignation. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000.

Giroux, Henry A. “Commodifying Kids: The Forgotten Crisis.” Truthout. Last modified April 3, 2009. http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/83374:commodifying-kidstheforgotten-crisis.

Giroux, Henry A. “Higher Education is More Than a Corporate Logo.” Dissidentvoice.org. Last modified January 26, 2004. http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/corporate_logo.htm.

Giroux, Henry A. “Lessons from Paulo Freire.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Last modified October 17, 2010. http://chronicle.com/article/Lessons-From-Paulo Freire/124910/.

“How Do You Define Genocide?” BBC. Last modified March 17, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-11108059.

“Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Development in the Canadian Artic.” The Government of Canada. Last modified September 15, 2010. http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100037493/1100100037495.

“Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Region.” United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/pdf/factsheet_Pacfic_FINAL.pdf.

Jones, Andrew Zimmerman. “String Theory for Dummies.” John Wiley & Sons Inc. Accessed March 30, 2016. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/string-theory-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html.

Mcnaughton, Marie Jeanne. “Educational Drama in Education for Sustainable Development: Ecopedagogy in Action.” Pedagogy, Culture & Society 18, no. 3 (2010): 289-308.

Mohawk, John. “The Warriors who Turned to Peace.” Yes!Magazine. last modified Nov 11, 2004. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/healing-resistance/the-warriors-who-turned-to-peace.

Ozdemir, Ibrahim. “An Islamic Approach to the Environment.” Ibrahim Ozdemir. Last modified 2002. Accessed March 30, 2016. http://www.islamawareness.net/Nature/environment_approach.html.

“Racial/Ethnic Enrollment in Public Schools.” National Center for Education Statistics. Last modified May 2016. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cge.asp.

Saskia De Melker. “Native Lands Wash Away as Sea Levels Rise.” NewsHour Productions LLC. Last modified June 1, 2012. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/climate-change-janjune12louisianacoast_05-30/.

“Table 209.10. Number and Percentage Distribution of Teachers in Public and Private Elementary and Secondary Schools.” National Center for Education Statistics. Last modified July 2013. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_209.10.asp

The White House. “Factsheet: The Violence against Women Act.” Whitehouse.gov. Accessed May 15,2016. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/vawa_factsheet.pdf.

Unci, Rita, “Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations).” International Council of Thirteen indigenous Grandmothers. Last modified 2016. http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/mitakuye-oyasin-all-my-relations.

“Urban Agriculture-Community Gardening.” MRSC Rosters. Last modified February 26, 2016. http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Parks-and-Recreation/Recreation-and-Other-Programs/Urban-Agriculture-Community-Gardening.aspx.

“What is the Difference between a Food Chain and a Food Web?” Web Agency Marketing Media. Accessed March 30, 2016. https://sciencebob.com/what-is-the-difference-between-food-chain-and-a-food-web/.

Wilkins, David. “How to Honor the Seven Generations.” Indian Country Today. Last modified June 18, 2015. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/18/how-honor-seven-generations.

Business & Economics, What is Sustainability?

Economics and Sustainability

J. Douglas Barrett, Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

Abstract

Economics exists as a discipline that governs one of the three pillars (with society and the environment) of sustainability. Traditional economic analysis has addressed some issues within the relatively new field of sustainability. The subfield of sustainability economics offers a normative approach to applying the tools of economics to sustainability problems. Systems theory offers further opportunities in this regard. The current work reviews some relevant work within the literature of sustainability economics and other applicable sources with a focus on the future of economics in sustainability research and applications.

Introduction

What is the role of economics in sustainability? At first glance, this seems to be an odd question. As one of the three pillars of sustainability (with environment and society), one might assume the question is rhetorical. Further reflection suggests differently. Economics simultaneously is treated as a separate entity, a part of an integrated whole, and as a hybrid of the two extremes.1

Often referred to as “the dismal science”, economics in appropriate use is positive in nature. Investigations are mathematical or empirical, and subject to confirmation or refutation by data. Economic analysis exists independent of ethics and moral philosophy. One can find economic “truth” in assessments of relationships between variables. With respect to public policy, economic analysis can establish policy/outcome links. However, whether a given policy should be undertaken is beyond the purview of economics.2

Sustainability is intrinsically normative, as ethics is a fully integrated component.3 This is not to imply that economists eschew normative statements, only that in doing so they are not speaking on behalf of economics qua economics. This oft-overlooked subtle distinction is key in understanding the role(s) of economics in sustainability inquiry. Throughout the article, the issue of ethics/moral philosophy will arise with respect to sustainability. While economics and ethics/moral philosophy are distinct domains, they can be used together in policy analysis. Some4 refer to this mixture as “normative economics”. However, when referring to economics in this article, “economic analysis” is strictly positive.

Economics offers substantial foundational concepts and methodology which can be applied in sustainability studies. Conversely, sustainability presents opportunities to fine-tune many economic tenets. The current work serves to present a brief introduction to the main themes of the treatment of economics in sustainability literature, as well as indicate additional areas in which economics can contribute to the scholarly endeavors of sustainability.

Economics as a Discipline

The term “economics” is used in many contexts. To avoid confusion, when referred to herein “economics” indicates the discipline of economics. A typical introductory textbook definition of economics is “the study of the allocation of our limited resources to satisfy our unlimited wants”.5 More generally, economics is a science of decision-making. Macroeconomics is the study of the economy as a whole. Microeconomics is the study of the behavior of households and firms.6

As a social science, subjects of study within economics often overlap with those of other social sciences such as geography, political science, psychology, and sociology. One example is economic inequality, a topic of much interest in the sustainability literature.7 Economic analysis focuses on measurement of income and wealth inequality, and relationships between many variables and inequality. Minimal attention is given with regard to whether a given level of inequality is “good or bad”, or what impacts changing levels have on the environment.

A crucial distinction is the aforementioned positive character of economics. When used in policy analysis, economics may be used to determine relationships between differing policies and outcomes. Cost/benefit analyses and the general investigation of tradeoffs are useful in evaluating policy options. In short, economics is descriptive. However, advocacy for a given policy requires establishing what outcomes are desired. Is economic growth the objective? Is a higher level of income/wealth equality preferred? These questions are beyond the realm of economics qua economics. They require value judgments, and therefore fall within the purview of ethics.

Sustainability requires value judgments, and is prescriptive.8 As an analysis tool, economics can be used to determine what policies are most efficacious to achieve the ends as indicated by sustainability/ethics. Using the example of income inequality, economic analysis could be used to establish the policies/political systems that tend to accomplish the objectives associated with sustainability, i.e., lowering the level of economic inequality. Specifically, the measurement of economic inequality, political variables, and methodology assessing relationships between them are functions of economic analysis.9

Sustainability

As with economics, “sustainability” has many uses. In general, a practice is sustainable if it can continue indefinitely. However, when discussed as a burgeoning discipline, it has been more specific in nature and focused on the sustainability of humans on earth. On March 20, 1987, the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”10 Note that “development” clearly implies an economic component, as any development activities have inherent costs and benefits.

Sustainability often is characterized by “three pillars”: social (people), environmental (planet), and economic (profit).11 The pillars are viewed as intersecting, which indicates they are interdisciplinary. They also are multidisciplinary, as the tools of inquiry within many disciplines are applicable in sustainability scholarship.

As a pillar of sustainability, economics offers its aforementioned methodologies for investigation. With respect to the interdisciplinary aspect, the disciplines must merge in a manner to achieve satisfactory disciplinary progress. Using the example of economic inequality, economics and sociology are two disciplines actively engaged in study. One difference is the economic view of the economy and society as machines juxtaposed with the sociological view of the economy and society as organisms.12

Economics in Sustainability Literature

The specificity of sustainability necessitates more particular areas of focus within economics, as well as between economics and other fields such as biology, climate science, ecology, ethics, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology. Areas such as ecological economics, environmental economics, and resource economics have renewed and expanded interests within this framework. One particular subdiscipline has emerged: sustainability economics.

A common theme of the research in economics within the sustainability framework is the concern for ignoring long-term costs of use of resources, as evidenced in environmental degradation incurred in obtaining and converting resources into salable products. Such themes have long existed in the literature. Malthus warned of overpopulation and concomitant economic/resource problems in 1798.13 However, the move toward sustainable development has necessitated a much more focused effort toward using the tools of economics to investigate methods of economic growth that do not cause irreparable planetary damage. Sustainability economics emerged to specifically address this area of inquiry.

Baumgartner delineates key components of sustainability economics, noting four key attributes: “(1) subject focus on the relationship between humans and nature; (2) an orientation towards the long-term and inherently uncertain future; (3) a normative foundation in the idea of justice between humans of present and future generations, as well as between humans and nature; and (4) concern for economic efficiency, understood as non-wastefulness, in the allocation of natural goods and services, as well as their human-made substitutes and complements.”14

Components (1), (2), and (4) may be accomplished using standard techniques of economic analysis. However, (3) introduces an ethical element (intergenerational fairness) that must be incorporated. The methodologies of economics may be applied to measure “equity” across generations, as well as investigate the effects of different policy decisions on future generations.

Baumgartner’s exposition echoes parts of Toman. Specifically, Toman15 addresses intergenerational fairness appealing to an augmented Rawlsian concept of justice.16 The essence of Toman’s position is that the current generation has an obligation to future generations with respect to the state of the environment, society, and economy. Toman also addresses resource substitutability, i.e., how nonrenewable resources are treated vis a vis renewable ones, and the effects of resources with no substitutes (such as clean water), and waste associated with the use of resources. A key question regards the level of robustness of the environment to the waste to be absorbed.

Baumgartner cites three fields of inquiry within sustainable economics: (1) interpretation, concretization, and operationalization of the normative vision of sustainability economics; (2) description and analysis of human-environment systems on multiple spatial scales over the long run under uncertainty; and (3) institutions, policy instruments, and governance.17 Field (2) clearly falls within the purview of traditional positive economics, while (1) and (3) incorporate the normative component.

In a similar vein, Toman established a “safe minimum standard” threshold concept for resource use.18 When the consequences of resource use are small and reversible, standard economic tradeoffs between a market allocation and a nonmarket (i.e., governmental directed) may be applied. However, as the consequences become larger and irreversible, the limits for use will be socially determined. Note the prescriptive public policy in this treatment. In any event, this problem in one sense reduces to constrained optimizationÑa methodology in place for decades in standard economics.19

Costanza and O’Neill discuss ecological economics within a sustainability context. In particular, they offer the concept of ecological economics as a “transdiscipline”, i.e., both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.20 With respect to sustainability, several of the aforementioned themes are repeated. One important theme is the inability of any one discipline to handle the complete set of tasks necessary for solving the inherent sustainability problems.

On a larger scale, Ruth extends sustainability to the entire corpus of economics. He argues that if economics fails to adapt to the needs of other disciplines (as is necessary for sustainability, in his view) it will not sustain itself.21 Issues such as the intertemporal effect of resource use/abuse; reconciliation with physical and biological sciences; the lack of independence between the economy, society, and the environment; and more relevance with phenomena in the real world rate as necessities in this work.

Guest is much narrower in scope, but addresses an important piece of the sustainability puzzle: sustainability vis a vis global climate change. Addressing leitmotifs such as long-term thinking22 and irreversibility23, he then moves into newer territories of natural capital and the need for global collaboration managing the “commons”. The idea that the environment/nature is “capital” seems obvious. However, the economic literature rarely viewed it as such.

A theme that has emerged in the literature is environment as capital.24 Specifically, capital can be defined as “a stock that yields a flow of valuable goods and services into the future”.25 Clearly, the environment yields many valuable resources. Water, fisheries, trees, and minerals are examples of nature’s “assets”. These cases illustrate the potential for business to profit not simply by exploiting nature, but by ensuring the continued existence of this capital.26

The issues of economic inequality and economic growth present another challenge for sustainability. Many factors affect income and wealth inequality, as well as economic growth, including technology, education, and system of governance.27 Economic growth is necessary to improve living standards in growing populations. With respect to sustainability, there is a need for economic well-being for an appropriate number of people to be able to live above any required level of subsistence.

The need for a large percentage of the population meeting a reasonably high standard of economic well-being is no “utopian” goal. Appeal to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs28 suggests that people must meet the most basic needs before they can begin to pursue higher levels of self-actualization. Analogy to a nation is straightforward. Geographic entities must surpass a threshold for economic attainment before engaging in the endeavor of combatting environmental wellness and potential anthropogenic climate change.

Economic growth is a topic of interest within sustainability analysis. As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, a certain level of growth is needed to support and enhance a growing population. However, the growth should not be accomplished using environmental degradation if we wish to achieve a certain level of intergenerational fairness. Some see this as an apparent conflict. It is a conflict only if we ignore ethical considerations. As economic growth management is a policy issue, aforementioned decision-theoretic methods may be used to evaluate policy tradeoffs associated with different growth strategies, and ethics/moral philosophy establish the desired outcomes (incorporating concerns such as fairness within and across generations).

Systems Theory/Consilience

So far, the focus has been economics in its traditional forms as can be applied to sustainability research. Another approach is to note that economies are systems, as are societies and the environment. Systems theory (also referred to as systems science) views any system as possessing certain patterns, and seeks to analyze these patterns and glean principles that may apply to all systems.29 Systems theory is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, as many disciplines study systems.

The idea of an economy behaving similarly to a biological system is not new. Gary Becker won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work applying biological principles to economic problems. Part of Becker’s work drew on the evolutionary biology of E. O. Wilson.30 Wilson advocated for a “unity of knowledge” called “consilience”, a blending of the disciplines for finding these patterns that cross the previously assumed boundaries of fields.31 Two areas noted within both systems theory and consilience are chaos and complexity.

The economy, environment, and society are not simply examples of systems, but interacting systems that are interdependent on each other (i.e., they are not closed systems). Events such as the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina affected the economy. Similarly, poverty and crime are linked. Actions taken to ameliorate economic conditions in developing countries can have deleterious effects on ecosystems. Failing to improve these economies can create analogous problems within the social fabric. The view of systems freed from the bondage of traditional disciplinary parameters seems appropriate for the future of the field of sustainability. That said, the methodologies of the disciplines remain highly useful tools for inquiry. An example is cost/benefit analysis with cost and benefit metrics derived from environmental science, human geography, and sociology.

Resolving Apparent Conflicts

The question that remains regards how we as humans can meet the seemingly disparate objectives of meeting a sufficient level of economic growth while maintaining social stability and environmental robustness for future generations. Can economic growth and environmental health coexist? Essentially, many see a tradeoff between the needs for economic well-being and the avoidance of harming the environment.

The “answer” is that there is no easy answer. Were such a solution obvious, the apparent dilemmas would not exist. However, two facts are encouraging. On a micro-level, individual firms are embracing the concept of environment as capital. Examples include Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Xerox.32 On the scholarly side, as academic inquiry eschews the traditional “silos” and embraces interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches (such as systems theory), progress previously unimaginable becomes palpable. As an inventory of inquiry methods, economics has much to offer in this new milieu.

Hausman and McPherson present a compelling case for the integration of economics and ethics with respect to policy decisions. They specifically address environmental protection and global climate change.33 Economic analytic techniques may be used to assess policy/consequence relationships and ethical premises, while moral philosophy integration allows policy-makers to formulate normative economic strategies to solve problems. In this sense, economics and ethics have a symbiotic and synergistic relationship. This “normative economics” is critical as the world addresses the future of issues such as dwindling resources, climate change, health, and poverty.

Future Inquiry

Given the relative nascence of the field of sustainability, much of the corpus is in development. New research continues to offer directions for future inquiry. Much of the investigation either addresses issues previously considered within the purview of economics, or uses economic methodology. Tailoring future research within economic journals to concentrate on sustainability challenges will benefit both economics as a discipline and sustainability science.

Sustainability is normative at its core, while economics is positive. Economics is useful in evaluating tradeoffs and establishing links between decisions and consequences. Determining which outcomes are desired is within the purview of ethics/moral philosophy. Once desired outcomes are established, economic analysis is applicable for reaching an informed decision regarding policy applicability/efficacy. As sustainability challenges often are accompanied by potential policy decisions, the tools of economics offer an important resource for resolution.

Potential areas for further inquiry include 1) applied comparative policy analysis, 2) enhanced resource valuation methods, 3) assessment of the costs of economic inequality, and 4) rigorous studies regarding the tradeoffs between long-term (economic and population) growth and environmental and ecological wellness. Each of the above topics benefits from interdisciplinary collaborations, especially area 4) tradeoffs.

In general, sustainability research offers rich opportunities to the next generation of researchers educated on economic methodology. Whether future inquiry is considered within economics or is subsumed by a broader “field” is irrelevant. The tools of economics always are available for any analysis/investigation in sustainability studies. As previously noted, this is necessary not only for the economics of sustainability, but for the sustainability of economics.

End Notes

  1. ^ Herman Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 1–5.
  2. ^ David Hausman and Michael McPherson, Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy, (London: Cambridge Press, 2006), 6–7.
  3. ^ Stefan Baumgartner, “What is Sustainability Economics?”, Ecological Economics 69, no. 3 (2010), 446.
  4. ^ Hausman and McPherson, Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy, 6–7.
  5. ^ Robert Sexton, Exploring Economics (4th Ed.) (Mason: Thomson-Southwestern, 2008), 962.
  6. ^ Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, Economics (New York: Worth, 2006), G8-G9.
  7. ^ Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Harvard University 2013), 430–467.
  8. ^ Baumgartner, “What is Sustainability Economics?”, 446–447.
  9. ^ David Weil, Economic Growth (Boston: Pearson/Addison-Wesley, 2009), 370-406.
  10. ^ World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 40–41.
  11. ^ Molly Scott Cato, Green Economics (London: Earthscan, 2009), 36-37.
  12. ^ Paul Ormerod, The Death of Economics (London: Faber, 1994), 225.
  13. ^ Robert Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Effects the Future Improvement of Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976 1798), 1.
  14. ^ Baumgartner, “What is Sustainability Economics?”, 446.
  15. ^ Michael Toman, “Economics and “Sustainability”: Balancing Trade-offs and Imperatives”, Land Economics 70, no. 4, (1994): 400–403.
  16. ^ John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1–560.
  17. ^ Baumgartner, “What is Sustainability Economics?”, 448–449.
  18. ^ Toman, “Economics and “Sustainability”: Balancing Trade-offs and Imperatives”, 405-409.
  19. ^ Richard Bronson and Govindasami Naadimuthu, Operations Research (2nd ed.), (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), 1–215.
  20. ^ Robert Costanza and R. V. O’Neill, “Ecological Economics and Sustainability”, Ecological Applications 6, no. 4 (1996): 975–976.
  21. ^ Matthias Ruth, “A Quest for the Economics of Sustainability and the Sustainability of Economics”, Ecological Economics 56, no. 3 (2006): 335.
  22. ^ Ross Guest, “The Economics of Sustainability in the Context of Global Climate Change: An Overview”, Journal of World Business 45, no. 4 (2009): 328–330.
  23. ^ Ibid, 331.
  24. ^ M. J. Harte, “Ecology, Sustainability, and Environment as Capital”, Ecological Economics 15, (1995): 157–158.
  25. ^ Robert Costanza and Herman Daly, “Natural Capital and Sustainable Development”, Conservation Biology 6, (1992): 38.
  26. ^ Mark Tercek and Jonathan Adams. Nature’s Fortune (Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2013), 165–187.
  27. ^ Weil, Economic Growth, 380–387.
  28. ^ Abraham Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review, 50 (1943): 370–375.
  29. ^ Lars Skyttner, General Systems Theory: Problems, Perspective, Practice (second ed.), (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2008), 1–5.
  30. ^ Gary Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 290–293.
  31. ^ E. O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998), 8–9.
  32. ^ Tercek and Adams, Nature’s Fortune (Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2013), 74.
  33. ^ Hausman and McPherson, Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy, 285–289.

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What is Sustainability?

What Is Sustainability? A Geographer’s Perspective

Mario Mighty, Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

Introduction

The development of the concepts and field of sustainability exhibits many parallels to the discipline of Geography. Both study a wide range of areas, emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, and are often misunderstood by those outside of their respective fields. As a geographer who is very interested in promoting sustainability, I feel that I am in a novel/unique position to share my thoughts on what sustainability is all about. The goal of this article is to highlight to the reader how sustainability is viewed from a geographer’s perspective and to offer a few illustrations on the role of geography in both achieving successful sustainability initiatives and understanding some of the obstacles and issues within the field.

Geography is the study of Earth’s landscapes, peoples, places and environments. It is, quite simply, about the world in which we live.1 In fact, the word “Geography” derives from the Greek word geographein, meaning “description of the Earth’s surface.” As noted by Thomas Wilbanks:

[Geography] is defined by relationships between human and physical processes. It relates nature-society issues to spatial pattern issues. It can draw from both location theory and social theory. It is linked directly to many of the same questions that underlie society’s recent rush of interest in geography-globalization, environmental problems, and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It has the potential, in fact, to serve as an intellectual dynamic and a normative focus for integrating our different perspectives on the world around us.2

The discipline of Geography is fairly broad and draws many strengths from being able to accomplish interdisciplinary work. As an integrative discipline, it looks at the “whole picture,” rather than just at pieces of the puzzle. Because of this approach, Geography as a discipline has been directly and indirectly involved in the emergent field of sustainability. While the discipline has been on the fringes of sustainability studies, recent contributions have highlighted both the spatial and scale-based approaches to sustainability studies.3 Whether it be the study of landscapes, economic systems, socio-political issues or even the mapping of human consumption patterns, the emphasis the discipline of Geography places on describing and understanding the patterns of the world around us is critical to the development of solid approaches to adopting sustainable behaviors in our day-to-day lives and preparing for longer-term initiatives that will encourage the wise use of our various Earthly resources.

Space, Scale, and Sustainability

If sustainability has the three pillars—environment, economy and society (or equity in some circles)—then two of the key components of Geography are space and scale. In fact, the so-called first law of geography, “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things”4 reflects the centrality of these themes. But what do we mean by these terms and how do they relate to sustainability?

Geography is a science that examines the relationships among Earth and the life on it. As such, it investigates and explains events as they happen over space. Space refers to the location and operation of various phenomena on Earth’s surface, and its organization is one of the key themes in Geography. A variety of sub-fields explore particular patterns and processes that organize social and natural locations. Broadly speaking, physical geographers tend to be inherently interested in naturally occurring, physical spaces while human geographers focus more on social constructions of space. In the latter category rules, laws, norms, and values are all important constituent factors of space.5 Thus geographers have extensive and meaningful terms to describe patterns and processes from the past, present, and into the future.  Some definitions become more specific and complex in their usage by geographers. Coenen and Truffer note that spatial context is all too often treated as a passive background variable providing little causal explanation or theoretical purchase.6 By incorporating a greater focus on the various spatial contexts, researchers can better analyze systems wherever they lead.

The concept of scale takes the idea of space and defines a scope of study. While we have defined territories and spaces, at a practical level, scale defines a certain level of analysis or investigation of social or natural processes. In many instances this may incorporate multiple levels. Scale can start at the individual level (the human body) and progress through the community, state, national and global scales. It is important to note that scales are not hierarchical, and larger scales do not always determine what goes on at smaller scales. Many of the scales we study are humanly created, not naturally occurring, and so each is being actively constructed and reconstructed with ongoing changes in the world around us. For example, Hansen and Coenen7 note five main domains in the area of sustainability transitions: urban and regional policies, informal localized institutions, areas with local natural resource endowments, areas with local technological and industrial specialization, and local consumer markets.

Each of the above domains have direct implications for sustainability—how it is studied, conceptualized, implemented, and monitored. Let us consider sustainability and space. One of the most obvious questions a geographer would ask is, “Where are sustainability activities taking place?” or alternatively, “Where do sustainability activities need to take place?” From this baseline, one can delve into the patterns that emerge as these questions are explored. Is sustainability a “rich” country phenomenon because they can afford new, cutting-edge technologies? Do poverty and limited resources in general foster sustainable behavior out of necessity? What patterns can we see in the world around us—are there clusters in certain places or cultures, or is there a random adoption of sustainable behaviors?

As we bring scale and sustainability together, our questions can become even more complex. For example, “Does recycling become more efficient as one scales up from home to country?” Such a question not only looks at reducing waste but doing so in larger and larger areas. If this question broadens to also ask, “Is this different in financially wealthier countries or ‘poorer’ ones?” we can get into exploring whether or not places with more economic resources will recycle more than those with less economic resources. One major point that is often brought to the fore in various sustainability debates is that it is often much easier to create, implement, and monitor sustainable concepts and practice at the small scale (think individual, household, and community levels). However, it is necessary for these approaches to be scaled up to the regional, national and/or international levels for broad, positive impacts to be considered meaningful. One can also consider economies of scale and sustainability—some activities and technologies become more efficient if done at a larger scale. This can range from adopting alternative fuel sources (such as solar energy) to systems-level changes such as heirloom design and “de-growth” economies.

Geography and the Three Pillars of Sustainability

Now that we have a solid foundation regarding the core concepts of Geography, we can dig a little deeper as we look at the contributions of Geography through the lens of the classic three pillars of sustainability.

The environment pillar is probably the largest realm in the field of sustainability. It focuses on the biogeophysical aspects of sustainability—the proper use of air, water, and land resources. This is also the realm that most people think about when considering sustainability: how to wisely use the remaining resources of the world, protect faunal and floral species, reduce humanity’s footprint on the environment—in other words, how to “save the Earth.” Reflecting on the definitions of the field of Geography above, it should be no surprise that there is much that the discipline has contributed to sustainability. While many other disciplines concentrate on the how and why of sustainability, Geography gets into the where and the why. Environmental phenomena all have their distributions and patterns, and when it comes to sustainability, having a good understanding of these enables us to take a broad view so that we make accurate decisions that will positively impact the world we live in. At a global level, Tilman and Clark8 delve into the environmental impacts of current dietary trends on greenhouse gas emissions and the accelerated use of natural resources. They advocate for alternative diets that are less reliant on refined sugars, fats, and meats as part of improving environmental and public health policy. One geographical observation is that many quantitative measures of sustainability are not operationalized below the country/national level. Moldan, Janoušková, and Hák9 dig even deeper—they explore many of the indicators that are used to measure environmental sustainability at the international and national level. These can be as broad as the Happy Planet Index and Millennium Development Goals that aimed at broad international targets, to the Environmental Performance Index which quantifies and numerically benchmarks the environmental performance of a country’s policies. Efroymson et al.10 focus on biofuels as part of various sustainability initiatives and advocate for a proper understanding of place in goals that are achievable at all scales and in different spaces. They also highlight the fact that not every indicator of environmental sustainability can be used at all scales.

The economic pillar of sustainability has also benefitted from the contributions of Geography. While the issues of resource depletion, environmental destruction, pollution, food security, etc. are all multi-dimensional and interconnected effects on the biosphere, the primary driver of most sustainability issues is the pursuit of economic growth. Whether through economic geography, population geography, development geography, or others, once again the discipline can explore the goals of sustainability for the economy and help develop our understanding of the issues at hand and how to better achieve the aims of sustainability. At the community level, the Tennessee Valley Authority11 has a Valley Sustainable Communities program. Its stated goal is for communities to be “working toward a triple bottom line: developing a healthy environment, a thriving community and long-term economic prosperity.” This initiative works with cities, towns, and counties throughout the region to help them commit to long-term economic development.12 Pickerill and Maxey’s 2009 study13 of low impact developments (LIDs) in Britain shows the role of small-scale sustainability strategies is making a difference. These LIDs started as grassroots-led movements, and by working with entities at the city and county level, they have been able to achieve greater recognition and encourage further development of similar LIDs. However, it has been recognized that it is essential that LID as a whole is adopted into the mainstream if its comprehensive framework for sustainability is not to be watered down. Many involved in LIDs intend to encourage its broader scale adoption through an emphasis on education and outreach.

The concerns of social equality, religion and the environment, environmental justice, and cultural preservation are but a few of the elements making up the pillar of social sustainability. Geography enters the social side of sustainability through understanding the spatial variations in how sustainability is conceived and perceived by various peoples. From a social and environmental justice point of view, it is important to know who is being affected, where they are being affected, and how these patterns may increase or decrease the possible success of a social sustainability action. Lawhon and Murphy14 provide an example of this. They advocate for the increased consideration of geography in socio-technological transition theory, particularly from the point of view of political ecology. They argue that by viewing the world as a socio-technological system, there is an over-emphasis on technological artifacts at the expense of context-specific social and political relations. As such, the theory insufficiently addresses the role of power relations in shaping socio-technical system outcomes, among other weaknesses. In other words, technology trumps all. To strengthen the framework, they suggest a number of ways in which geography (specifically political ecology) would enhance the theory. These include considering a broader range of actors in a system (expanding the space of study) and exploring power relations and their influence on human-environment relations (incorporating multiple scales of analysis). Although space and scale are harder to pin down when considering religion and sustainability, consumers who are more religious are more likely to participate in sustainable behaviors.15 This may include purchasing green cleaning supplies, recycling, and purchasing organic foods. Not surprisingly, spaces with higher concentrations of nature/Earth-based religions are more likely to engage in sustainable behaviors.

Conclusions

In all of the above explorations of sustainability, it is clear that the discipline of Geography plays a pivotal role in not only understanding conceptions of sustainability and the success/failure of current sustainability goals, but also in the understanding the key patterns that drive this field. Because everything changes over space and scale, this impacts understanding and implementation. Thus Geography as a discipline will remain relevant to the field of sustainability even as it matures and evolves. Alongside the many other disciplines that have contributed, a holistic understanding of sustainability will enhance the chances that, whatever the format and wherever it is implemented, our goals of making the world a livable place for our current and future generations will be realized.

End Notes

  1. ^Royal Geographic Society. “What is Geography?” Accessed March 22, 2016. http://www.rgs.org/geographytoday/what+is+geography.html
  2. ^Thomas J. Wilbanks. “Sustainable Development” in Geographic Perspective. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84 (1994): 545. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1994.tb01876.x.
  3. ^Teis Hansen and Lars Coenen. “The Geography of Sustainability Transitions: Review, Synthesis and Reflections on an Emergent Research Field.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17 (2015): 92–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2014.11.001
  4. ^Waldo Tobler, “A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region”. Economic Geography 46 (1970): 234–240. Accessed January 25, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/143141.
  5. ^Ron Martin, “Institutional Approaches in Economic Geography.” In A Companion to Economic Geography, ed. Eric Sheppard and Trevor J. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003): 77–94. doi: 10.1002/9780470693445.ch6.
  6. ^Lars Coenen and Bernhard Truffer. “Places and Spaces of Sustainability Transitions: Geographical Contributions to an Emerging Research and Policy Field” European Planning Studies 20 (2012): 367–374. doi: 10.1080/09654313.2012.651802.
  7. ^Teis Hansen and Lars Coenen, “The Geography of Sustainability Transitions: Review, Synthesis and Reflections on an Emergent Research Field.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17 (2015): 92–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2014.11.001.
  8. ^David TIlman and Michael Clark. “Global Diets Link Environmental Sustainability and Human Health” Nature 515 (2014): 518–522. doi: 10.1038/nature13959.
  9. ^Bedřich Moldan, Svatava Janoušková and Tomáš Hák. “How to Understand and Measure Environmental Sustainability: Indicators and Targets” Ecological Indicators 17 (2012): 4–13, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.033.
  10. ^Rebecca A. Efroymson, Virginia H. Dale, Keith L. Kline, Allen C. McBride, Jeffrey M. Bielicki, Raymond L. Smith, Esther S. Parish, Peter E. Schweizer, and Denice M. Shaw. “Environmental Indicators of Biofuel Sustainability: What About Context?” Environmental Management 51 (2013): 291 – 306. doi 10.1007/s00267-012-9907-5.
  11. ^Tennessee Valley Authority. “Valley Sustainable Communities.” Accessed March 31, 2016. https://www.tva.gov/Economic-Development/Engage/Valley-Sustainable-Communities.
  12. ^Ibid.
  13. ^Jenny Pickerill and Larch Maxey. “Geographies of Sustainability: Low Impact Developments and Radical Spaces of Innovation.” Geography Compass ¾ (2009): 1515–1539. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00237.x.
  14. ^Mary Lawhon and James T. Murphy. “Socio-technical Regimes and Sustainability Transitions: Insights from Political Ecology.” Progress in Human Geography 36 (2011): 354–378. doi: 10.1177/0309132511427960.
  15. ^Elizabeth A. Minton, Lynn R. Kahle, and Chung-Hyun Kim. “Religion and Motives for Sustainable Behaviors: A Cross-cultural Comparison and Contrast.” Journal of Business Research 68 (2015): 1937–1944, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.01.003.

Bibliography

Coenen, Lars and Bernhard Truffer. “Places and Spaces of Sustainability Transitions: Geographical Contributions to an Emerging Research and Policy Field” European Planning Studies 20 (2012): 367–374. doi: 10.1080/09654313.2012.651802.

Efroymson, Rebecca A., Dale, Virginia H., Kline, Keith L., McBride, Allen C., Bielicki, Jeffrey M., Smith, Raymond L., Parish, Esther S., Schweizer, Peter E and Denice M. Shaw. “Environmental Indicators of Biofuel Sustainability: What About Context?” Environmental Management 51 (2013): 291–306. doi 10.1007/s00267-012-9907-5.

Hansen, Teis and Lars Coenen. “The Geography of Sustainability Transitions: Review, Synthesis and Reflections on an Emergent Research Field.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17 (2015): 92–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2014.11.001.

Lawhon, Mary and James T. Murphy. “Socio-technical Regimes and Sustainability Transitions: Insights from Political Ecology.” Progress in Human Geography 36 (2011): 354–378. doi: 10.1177/0309132511427960.

Martin, Ron. “Institutional Approaches in Economic Geography.” In A Companion to Economic Geography, ed. Eric Sheppard and Trevor J. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003): 77–94. doi: 10.1002/9780470693445.ch6.

Minton, Elizabeth A., Kahle, Lynn R. and Chung-Hyun Kim. “Religion and Motives for Sustainable Behaviors: A Cross-cultural Comparison and Contrast.” Journal of Business Research 68 (2015): 1937–1944, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.01.003.

Moldan, Bedřich, Janoušková, Svatava and Tomáš Hák. “How to Understand and Measure Environmental Sustainability: Indicators and Targets” Ecological Indicators 17 (2012): 4–13, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.033.

Pickerill, Jenny and Larch Maxey. “Geographies of Sustainability: Low Impact Developments and Radical Spaces of Innovation.” Geography Compass ¾ (2009): 1515–1539. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00237.x.

Royal Geographic Society. “What is Geography?” Accessed March 22, 2016. http://www.rgs.org/geographytoday/what+is+geography.html.

Tennessee Valley Authority. “Valley Sustainable Communities.” Accessed March 31, 2016. https://www.tva.gov/Economic-Development/Engage/Valley-Sustainable-Communities.

Tilman, David and Michael Clark. “Global Diets Link Environmental Sustainability and Human Health” Nature 515 (2014): 518–522. doi: 10.1038/nature13959.

Tobler, Waldo. “A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region”. Economic Geography 46 (1970): 234-240. Accessed  January 25, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/143141.

Wilbanks, Thomas J. “Sustainable Development” in Geographic Perspective. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84 (1994): 541–556. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1994.tb01876.x.

What is Sustainability?

Introduction to Issue 1.1, “What Is Sustainability?”

Robert Koch, Jr., Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

It might seem strange to find a professor of English Composition serving as editor on a journal about sustainability, but that’s only until you consider that writing, like sustainability, is interdisciplinary. The work of University Writing Centers and Writing in the Disciplines, which I have been engaged in for most of ten years, requires a perspective on writing that is not limited to notions of canonical English literature, but that instead views the act of writing as a set of decisions that are nuanced by discipline-specific needs as well as content. Similarly, it helps to understand sustainability if we expand it beyond the domain of the natural sciences, and understand it as an interdisciplinary field as well.

Much of the literature available on sustainability, including many of the selections in this inaugural issue, identifies the subject as sitting at an intersection where environment, economics, and society overlap. This is often depicted as a Venn diagram, shown below:

Sustainability Venn diagram

Fig. 1.  Sustainability Venn Diagram

Thus, the definition of sustainability inherently speaks to an overlap in disparate disciplines and competing ideas, most visibly the natural and social sciences with business and economics. The subject is interdisciplinary, in that it can be studied from a number of disciplines and perspectives.

This, then, is the purpose of the Journal of Sustainability Studies: to expand our understanding of, and our relationship to, sustainability by making an array of sustainable ideas accessible to both an academic and non-academic audience. We wish to promote ideas about sustainability that are expressed not only in academic research, but in “how-to” guides, literature, multimedia, and even art. Our goal is to create a journal that comfortably situates selections of intellectual rigor alongside critical experiences in the workplace, community, and even the home.

In our inaugural issue, we asked for contributions that answered these questions: “What is sustainability? In my field, what does sustainability mean? What are examples of current unsustainable practices? What are the barriers to living more sustainably? What is the best-case scenario for how to attain sustainability? If we fail to live sustainably, what will happen? What will sustainability look like in my field? In the distant future, how will people be living sustainably?” The answers were varied, insightful, and, as expected, interdisciplinary.

The cover art for our inaugural issue is a piece by Alabama artist and educator Nancy Muse, a watercolor reimagining of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that clearly delineates competing visions of the future, with and without sustainable efforts. The issue is then divided into four sections. Section I, titled “What is Sustainability?” offers three explanations of how sustainability intersects with three very different disciplines. Mario Mighty illustrates the ways in which geography is a foundational science necessary for answering questions and solving problems in sustainability. Then, Doug Barrett examines the mutually shaping forces that sustainability and economics exert on each other. As a foundational concept in the aforementioned description of sustainability, economic theories and methods play a significant role in the development of this new field. Finally, Gary Padgett argues that critical pedagogy and cultural awareness should lead educators to move from teaching about sustainability to creating sustainable teaching. Uniting each of these selections is a clear understanding that sustainability is not just in vogue, or something likely to become passé, but that it is part of a significant cultural shift that can enhance–and be enhanced by–each of these disciplines.

Section II, “Research and Theory,” transitions from definitions of sustainability to issues in the subject itself. This bridge is best made through Robert Sroufe’s “Operationalizing Sustainability,” which at once outlines the relationship of sustainability to marketing while also delineating specific strategies to be employed in workplace environments that make sustainability less a buzzword and more an idea that can be practiced. Then Mark Puckett outlines a clear argument for sustainability as he explores and explains the geological and atmospheric evidence underlying historical mass extinctions, including the one currently underway. In Section III: “Sustainable Practice,” our contributors provide a deep contrast in practical engagement with sustainability. First, Simon Bevis, a farmer-turned-graduate student, narrates his own experience with sustainability, encouraging readers to follow the old mantra “think globally; act locally” and suggesting ways in which readers might be able to do so. The featured art selections, acrylics by Carty Bledsoe, visually examine what she calls “wounded systems,” creating an artistic parallel to ideas observed in several of our other selections. This issue concludes with reviews of seminal books in Sustainability Studies, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, as well as a review of the website Treehugger.com.

We are proud to present this inaugural issue of the Journal of Sustainability Studies, and would like to thank the following people at the University of North Alabama who made it possible: Dr. Ken Kitts, President; Dr. John Thornell, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost ; Dr. Mark Puckett, Past Director of the UNA Center for Sustainability Studies; Mr. Jeremy Britten, Associate Director for Digital Communications; and the members of the UNA Center for Sustainability Studies, both on campus and in our Facebook community. In closing, I thank the journal interns, Falon L. Yates and Brandi Hope Johnson, for their hard work and dedication, and I welcome Dr. Amanda Coffman, Associate Professor of Chemistry, as our incoming Center for Sustainability Studies director. Enjoy the read, and be sure to check the call for our December issue—our focus will be on Sustainability Policy.

Arts

Cover Art: Starry Night Revisited

Image

Starry Night Revisited

Artwork: Starry Night Revisited

Starry Night Revisited is a playful, cartoon spin-off of the familiar Vincent Van Gogh masterpiece painting Starry Night, illustrating the transition from the outdated era of dirty fuel, polluting industries and “throw -away”, wasteful consumerism to a brighter, cleaner today of a renewable energy economy and sustainable way of life.

Artist: Nancy Muse

Nancy Muse is a full-time, county-wide, elementary visual arts specialist in Lauderdale County Schools, serving 1,000 students per week at four schools. Over the years, she has taught music and art in the Shoals area community, including private lessons in piano, banjo, and guitar and has also organized community arts events and conducted art workshops and camps for children and adults.

  • BA, Visual Art, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, 1977
  • Visual Art Education Specialist Certification, N-12, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama, 1988
  • President and founding member of Shoals Earth Month, a 501(c)3 that hosts the Shoals Earth Day Fest
  • Founding member of the Shoals Environmental Alliance, a local environmental education and watchdog group