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17.181 / 17.182 Sustainable Development: Theory and Policy
Spring 2009
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Sustainability as a Knowledge Domain
17.181-17.182 Week 3 Outline I.
REVIEW and COMMENTS
Definitions & Key Features
Challenges to Sustainability Theory
Why Systems Collapse – Tainter (first pass)
II. SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE
Defintion
Goals
III. SUSTAINABILITY as a KNOWLEDGE DOMAIN
Knowledge Transition
Knowledge Systems
Knowledge e-Barriers
Solution Strategies to e-Barriers
IV. INTRODUCTION to GSSD
I. Review and Comments
Urban population without
adequate sanitation
Percent
1,000
10,000
20
1,000
10,000
Per capita income (dollars)
Urban concentrations
of particulate matter
Urban concentrations
of sulfur dioxide
1,200
600
1,000
10,000
100,000
50
40
30
20
10
0
100
1,000
10,000
Per capita income (dollars)
Per capita income (dollars)
Municipal wastes per capita
Carbon dioxide
emissions per capita
100,000
100,000
16
600
400
200
0
100
40
Per capita income (dollars)
1,800
0
100
60
0
100
100,000
Micrograms per
cubic meter of air
100
80
60
40
20
0
100
Tons
Percent
Micrograms per
cubic meter of air
Percent
Population without safe water
1,000
10,000
Per capita income (dollars)
Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare
100,000
12
8
4
0
100
1,000
10,000
Per capita income (dollars)
100,000
Graph removed due to copyright restrictions.
Themes that Explain Collapse
According to Tainter
Each of the items below are listed as separate causal factors in his book
(p. 43). A such we cannot see any theory dynamic logic. But if we begin to
group the items, and imply some logic, a form of ‘theory’ emerges*.
(1) Resource Constraints
• Depletion
• New resource Base
• Economic Factors
(3) Persistent Pressures
• Catastrophe
• Insufficient responses
(5) External Threats
• Other complex systems
• Intruders
(2) Social costs
• Class conflict, elite
mismanagement
• Social dysfunction
(4) Beliefs & Chance?
• Mystical Factors
• Chance and events
Source: Tainter, 1968, p. 43
Alternatives to Collapse –
Proposed to the Class (NC)
• Knowledge as problem solving
• Knowledge as problem creation
• Anticipatory tools and behaviors
• Technological investments
• Increased efficiency
• Can we recognize too high marginal
costs?
ONCE MORE:
Requisites for Sustainable Development
DE-MASSIFICATION
DE-SPACIALIZATION
DE-CENTRLIZATION
DIS-AGGREGATION
DE-NATIONALIZATION
DIS-INTERMEDIATION
Source: J.S. Brown and P. Druid, The Social Life of Information (2000)
Hyphen added for emphasis – not in the original
Comments on the TAINTER argument:
Why Investments in complexity yield a
declining marginal return
• Increasing size of the bureaucracies
• Increasing specialization of bureaucracies
• Cumulative nature of organizational
solutions
• Increasing taxation
• Increasing costs of legitimizing activities
• Increasing costs of internal control and
external defense
II. SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE
Sustainability Science
Advance basic understanding of the dynamics of
human-environment systems in order to
Facilitate the design, development, implementation, and
assessment of policy and strategy to facilitate transitions to
sustainability in localized and globalized contexts
particular places and contexts;
Enhance conenctions between (i) research and innovation
(ii) relevant policy and management (iii) in national and
international contexts.
Source: Based on and extended from US-NAS materials
Goals of Sustainability Science
• Knowledge structuring
• Coordination of data
• Multidisciplinary cooperation
• Contextualization – of the above
• Internationalization – of the above
Source: Based on and extended from US-NAS materials
Challenges to Sustainability Science
Specifying**: • Nature of the challenge
• System boundary
• System components
• System behavior
• Time horizon
• Normative Underpinnings National &
International Linkages
• Institutional Linkages
17.181-17.182 Spring 2008
** L ecture Notes