Sustainability Discourses

Conceptually linked to the question of obligations/responsibilities to
future generations of people.

Since the early 1970s: Often couched in terms of I = PAT.

Since the 1980s: Often couched in terms of sustainable
development.

Since the 1990s: Often couched in terms of weak sustainability and
strong sustainability.

Today: There are many, many sustainability discourses. Our
textbook Green Development: Environment and sustainability in a
developing world by W.M. Adams is one attempt to sort through
some of these discourses.
Obligations to Future Generations:
Five Central Problems
1. Ignorance Problem: How can we know what future people will really need and want,
what rights they might insist upon, and what they will blame us for doing right and
wrong?
2. Typology of Effects Problem: How can we determine which of our actions will really
have moral implications for the future?
3. Problem of Intergenerational Trade-Offs: How should a particular generation balance
concern for its own moral and prudential concerns with concern for future
generations?
4. Distance Problem: How far into the future do our moral obligations extend?
5. Saving Stuff Problem: What should we save for future generations—actual natural
resources or monetary investments? This tracks the distinction between strong and
weak sustainability.
What is development?
As cited in Adams (pp. 7-11), development is:
1.
an ambiguous and elusive concept, a Trojan Horse of a word (L.
Frank).
2.
a perception which models reality, a myth which comforts societies,
and a fantasy which unleashes passions (W. Sachs).
3.
the colonization and enclosure of debate that limits the extent to
which alternative futures can be imagined (A. Escobar).
4.
a word used both descriptively to describe what happens in the
world as economies, environments, and societies change and
normatively to set out what should happen (D. Goulet).
And development is:
5.
a duty the United States has to extend foreign aid to
“underdeveloped areas” of the world for humanitarian reasons and
to prevent communism from expanding (President Harry S.
Truman, Inaugural Address, 1949)
6.
a worldview in which the modern West is recreated across the
globe by industrialization, urbanization, democracy, and capitalism
(G. Aseniero).
7.
a refiner’s fire though which successful societies emerge singed
but purified, modern, and affluent as they pass through five stages
of economic growth: traditional society, preconditions for take-off,
take-off, maturity, and a new age of high mass consumption (W.W.
Rostow).
The Dilemma of Sustainability

In order to achieve sustainability, development must
occur to bring people out of poverty.

In order to achieve sustainability, development must be
slowed or halted to protect nonhuman nature.
“Feeding People vs. Saving Nature”
Holmes Rolston III
If persons widely demonstrate that they value many other worthwhile
things over feeding the hungry (Christmas gifts, college educations,
symphony concerts),
2.
And if developed countries, to protect what they value, post national
boundaries across which the poor may not cross (immigration laws),
3.
And if there is unequal and unjust distribution of wealth, and if just
redistribution to alleviate poverty is refused,
4.
And if one-fifth of the world continues to consume four-fifths of the
production of goods and four-fifths consumes one-fifth,
5.
And if escalating birthrates continue so that there are no real gains in
alleviating poverty, only larger numbers of poor in the next generation,
6.
And if low productivity on domesticated lands continues, and if the natural
lands to be sacrificed are likely to be low in productivity,
7.
And if significant natural values are at stake, including extinctions of
species,
Then one out not always to feed people first, but rather one ought to sometimes
save nature.
1.
Protecting Nonhuman Nature:
Some Problems

Failure to actually protect natural areas because local
people exploit natural resources, kill animals and plants,
encroach upon habitat, and/or denude or destroy habitat.

Worries that local people will put their own interests
above the goal of protecting local natural areas.

Worries that local people will make bad management
decisions about how to protect natural areas.

Ironically, attempting to protect natural areas might
hasten their demise.
“Nature as Community: The Convergence of
Environmental and Social Justice”
Giovanna Di Chiro:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Traditional environmental groups (TEGs) have focused too heavily
on wilderness preservation and protecting endangered species and
too little on urban and rural environmental problems.
With their focus on protecting nature (wilderness) and species “out
there” in the wild, TEGs have denied human-nature relationships
and perpetuated past colonial injustices by alienating people from
nature.
TEGs typically advocate top-down nature management at the
expense of local communities.
In terms of their leadership and concerns, TEGs have practiced
discriminatory environmentalism.
Therefore, TEGs have contributed to injustices suffered by
marginalized urban and rural peoples.
Protecting Nonhuman Nature:
Some Problems

Forced removal of local people to create protected
areas.

Torture and intimidation of local people to enforce
protection policies.

Restricting access of local people to local natural
resources.

Excluding local people from participating in decisionmaking and management of local protected areas.
Solving the Dilemma of Sustainability?
Subaltern Environmentalism

Focus on livelihood issues: A local community’s struggle
to gain access to and control over natural resources to
support itself.

Provide critiques of modern, capital-intensive
developments that increase export revenues, displace
local people and knowledge, and usurp subsistence
production.

Combat structural forces that marginalize and
subordinate people and that produce environmental
degradation.
“Caribbean”
Barbara Deutsch Lynch
The Green and the Brown:
International tourism requires a supply of iconic island landscapes; the
development community seeks to maintain the renewable resources
and ecosystems of the region. Residents worry about natural
disasters; urban services; water; pollution from military, mining, and
manufacturing activity; the health effects of pesticide-intensive
agriculture; urban sprawl; and access to land and resources. The
locus of environmental decision making also is contested. (p. 130)
“Caribbean”
The Green
[T]ourism requires “an endless supply of ‘pristine’ beaches, ‘untouched’
coves, and ‘emerald’ pools,” whereas many islands struggle with the
water and sewage demands of the hotel industry. Ecotourists want
to visit national parks that have lush vegetation, well-marked trails,
and folklore displays but are free of local human economic activity.
The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) emphasize
biodiversity and forest and coral reef conservation. This preference
is reflected in the ornithologist Jared Diamond’s Collapse (2005),
which argues in favor of the repressive forest policies of the former
Dominican president Joaquin Balaguer, which were condemned by
human rights and environmental justice groups. (p. 131)
“Caribbean”
The Brown
In contrast, brown issues such as waste management and pollution
often top local agendas…. Real estate markets consign poor people
to polluted areas. Pollution is aggravated in countries where cars,
busses, and trucks run on dirty petroleum fuels. Land markets also
encourage sprawl, which raises the cost of urban services and takes
land out of agricultural production, making it harder for families to
find affordable food. (p. 132)
Discussion

“Protecting Environmentally Sensitive Areas and Promoting Tourism
in ‘The Back Patio of the United States:’ Thoughts about Shared
Responsibilities in Ecosystem and Biodiversity Protection” by Colin
Crawford

“The Rich, the Powerful and the Endangered: Conservation Elites,
Networks and the Dominican Republic” by George Holmes

“One Island, Two People, Two Histories: The Dominican Republic
and Haiti” by Jared Diamond
Colonial District, Santo Domingo
El Cercado
Who are these guys?