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The Sustainability ImperativeExtensions Call to Action

Jerry HembdUniversity of Wisconsin-Superior/ExtensionViviane Simon-BrownExtension ForestryOregon State University

1OverviewSystems thinkingEmpty and full world modelEvolving community viewsSeven big economic ideasSix essential steps for Extension

Sustainability BasicsTime (and change)RelationshipsResilienceAt a very basic level, sustainability is about time and relationships. We can see this reflected in most definitions of sustainability, and there are many to choose from. We can also explore the time element of this is to look at some key historical changes. We can look at this at the global level as well as at the community level. 4Systems ThinkingSystems consist of individual but interrelated partsSystems depend on the relationships among the parts as much as the parts themselvesThese relationships make the whole greater than the sum of its parts When you dissect the system, you destroy the pattern of relationships

5SolarEnergyEnergySourceFunctionsSinkFunctionsResourcesFinite Global EcosystemWaste HeatEnergyResourcesRecycledMatterNatural Capital (Ecosystem)Manmade Capital (Economy)Growing Economic SubsystemHumanWelfareEconomic servicesEcosystem servicesEmpty WorldSource: Daly, Herman. Ecological Economics. Island Press, 2004We are going to look at a simple systems model of the earth and contrast what Daly refers to as Empty World and Full World depictions of this model. At a basic level, systems can be either open or closed.The global ecosystem is finite, non-growing, and materially closed it is a closed system with respect to matter. The amount of matter does not change.It is an open system with respect to energy. There is an inflow of solar energy into the larger system and an outflow of heat energy radiated from the larger system.Solar energy turns all of the biogeochemical cycles that support life.Lets start with the Empty World depiction, where we introduce an economic subsystem that is small relative to the global ecosystem. The economic subsystem is an open system with respect to both energy and matter. It can change in size. It takes in matter and energy from the ecosystem the source function and expels degraded waste energy and matter back into the ecosystem the sink function. One way of viewing this is that we start with depletion and end with pollution.Matter can be recycled. For energy, the energy cost of recycling energy is always greater than the amount of energy recycled. The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics set limiting conditions for life on earth. Note system view and bridging of social and natural sciences as a challenge for people like meThe First Law states that total mass or the amount of matter is conserved. It does not disappear; it just changes form. For example, the burning of fossil fuels simply creates gases in the atmosphere. The Second Law states that matter and energy tend to break down over time. For example, a car will eventually turn into rust. The Second Law also states that as matter breaks down it tends to disperse and bioaccumulate. Examples range from mercury and lead poisoning to water pollution and toxic waste. Everything inside the circle in the diagram representing the ecosystem is in physical units.Human welfare, or the psychic satisfaction of wants, is placed outside of the global ecosystem circle. Two sources of services are indicated. The upper line, economic services, represents wants being satisfied by manmade capital. The lower line, ecosystem services, represents wants being satisfied directly by the ecosystem. What economists are typically interested in is to maximize total welfare, to maximize the sum of those two flows of welfare.Remember that the economy is seen as a subsystem of a larger ecosystem. As an economy grows it transforms natural capital, the green stuff, into manmade capital, or the red stuff.

Ecosystem services are the goods and services derived from natural and managed ecosystems upon which human welfare depends. Ecosystem services are essential in maintaining both human welfare and ecological integrity.

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World Population, 10,000 BC to Present7

World population from 1800 to 2100, based on UN 2004 projections and US Census Bureau historical estimates.World Population Projections The key here is that fertility rates continue to decline and the medium population project shown here has held fairly stable over the past decade or more. We anticipate that world population will level off and stabilize by around 2050. I often reference a recent cover story in The Economist that explores this in some detail. So while the world population has been growing dramatically, and currently stands at 6.7 billion, the rate of growth is slowing. 8

DeLong and Maddison are the preeminent estimators of historical economic production at a global level. This graph sort of speaks for itself when we look at things in a long historical perspective back to that TIME dimension of sustainability. 9

Even as we narrow our focus to the more recent historical record, we can see that something definitely changed in the postwar period. Growth since World War II has been unprecedented. But in a broader historical sense, and sustainability refers to changes and relationships over long periods of time, this growth is relatively recent and short-lived. 10Societal Pressure on Earth Systems

Source: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, 200411The implications of this postwar growth show up in many measures. No need to note each of these by name but just to emphasize again the recent nature (postwar) of our current trajectory. 11Societal Pressure on Earth Systems

Source: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, 200412More of the same. 12SolarEnergyGrowingEconomicSubsystemEnergyEnergySourceFunctionsSinkFunctionsResourcesResourcesFinite Global EcosystemWaste HeatRecycledMatterNatural Capital (Ecosystem)Manmade Capital (Economy)HumanWelfareEconomic servicesEcosystem servicesFull WorldSource: Daly, Herman. Ecological Economics. Island Press, 2004Now lets look at a Full World depiction of the model. What drives the size of the economic subsystem?Growth Trends Summary: 1950 to 2000Population more than 2XEconomy 7X this could quadruple by 2050Food consumption 3XWater use 3XEnergy use 4XThese trends are, of course, reflected in the source flows of matter and energy. We can begin thinking about the depletion of resources, including renewables and nonrenewables. These trends are widely reported and documented. Similarly, we are increasingly aware of the impacts of ecosystem manipulation and degradation from the source side. Lets think, for a moment, about the sink functions of the global ecosystem. In the U.S. manufacturing economy, it is estimated that 93 percent of the materials and energy that go into the manufacturing process come out of it as waste. Of the remaining 7 percent that emerge as products, 80 percent of these products are discarded after a single use. This means that within six weeks of sale, around 99 percent of the materials and energy are waste. (Natural Capitalism, quoted from Jays slide show)Then there are synthetic compounds and other man-made substances and materials. There are over 100,000 substances that fall into this category and reliable and established toxicity information is available for only around 15 percent of them. The two laws of thermodynamics apply here as well. Persistent man-made compounds, those that are not easily broken down by nature or through natural processes tend to accumulate in human and animal tissue.For example, in umbilical cord blood alone, 287 different chemicals have been identified, including pesticides, stain removers, wood preservatives, mercury, and flame retardants. . . . Of the 3,000 chemicals produced in high volume in the U.S., 200 are neurotoxicants and another 1,000 are suspected of affecting the nervous system (Orion, May/June 2009).In a full world, the scale of the growing economic subsystem relative to the finite global ecosystem is such that clear and obvious limits to additional growth are being reached.This takes us back to the two science examples that I started with. If it is a question of whether the empty or full world model is the best depiction of our current reality, the empirical evidence seems to be pointing to the full world view.

13Evolving Views of the CommunityUnconnected or silos viewInterconnected or linkages viewInterdependent, nested, or systems view EnvironmentEconomy Society EnvironmentEconomy Society

EnvironmentSocietyEconomyThe verbiage below relates to community and economic development trends in the postwar period. Note that they have evolved into a view that is the same as the world view that was just outlined.

Much of the science of sustainability focuses on the fairly dramatic changes that have been occurring in the postwar period. Views regarding the relationships between the three major components of most sustainability frameworks have been changing as well. These three elements are represented here as economy, environment, and society. Sometimes they are framed as the three Esecology/environment; economy/employment; and equity/equality or as the three Pspeople, planet, and profit. Economic models treat them as the three types of capital that comprise total capital stocknatural capital, physical (built) capital, and human capital. I am going to use a community-level example and briefly overview how views have evolved over the past fifty years through the different historical waves of community and economic development. This first figure depicts economy, society, and environment as unconnected to each other and representing a silos view of capitals within the community. This typified the industrial recruiting wave of economic development that prevailed from the 1950s to the early 1980s.Economic concerns were accorded primacy over environmental and societal considerations. Less generous depictions of this period show the economy circle, from the business point of view, as much larger than the other two or as containing the other two circles within it. The second figure is often used to depict a sustainable development point of view. In this case, economy, society, and environment are seen as linked or interconnected. While this implies that all three need to be considered for development decisions in light of these links, note that large portions of each circle remain outside of the interconnected areas. This is representative of both the cost competition and regional competitiveness waves of community economic development; the former gained strength from the early 1980s through the early 1990s and the latter dates from the early 1990s and continues today. Economic concerns were no longer viewed as fully independent of and primary to social and environmental considerations. This depiction, however, does not reflect in a meaningful way the environmental impacts of the human enterprise that have become increasingly apparent over the past few decades. The final figure is fundamentally different than the other two. It shifts attention to a central aspect of the sustainability revolution and what can be termed the fourth wave of community and economic development. With its nested and interdependent circles, the emphasis is on a systems view of the community and the interrelationships between its parts. The economy exists and functions within society, which exists and functions within a finite environment. A system-based definition of sustainability emphasizes relationships among economy, society, and the environment.The systems view provides a simple way of thinking about the implications of scale, in this case scale of the human enterprise relative to a finite global ecosystem. These sustainability constraints can be viewed as system boundaries or boundary conditions.In this sense, the science of sustainability has become a systems thinking conversation.

14Conceptual Reform in Economics: Seven Big IdeasAdjust economic scaleShift from growth to developmentMake prices tell the ecological truthAccount for natures contributionsApply the precautionary principleRevitalize commons managementValue womenSource: Gardner, Gary, and Prugh, Thomas, Project Directors. State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. Adjust economic scale its physical size relative to the its host, the natural environment or ecosystemShift from growth to development what is economy for, improving human well-being . . . Beyond some level of material well-being gains in happiness seem to fall off and even stop . . . Importance of relationships, both family and social rise in importance Make prices tell the ecological truth getting the prices right . . . Externalities Account for natures contributions global ecosystem services Supporting (nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production)Provisioning (food, freshwater, wood and fibre, fuel)Regulating (climate regulation, flood regulation, disease regulation, water purification)Cultural (aesthetics, spiritual, educational, recreational)The report concludes that two-thirds of the planets ecosystems and their services are degraded or being used unsustainably. Apply the precautionary principle look before you leap, where an activity raises threats of serious or irreversible harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. Revitalize commons management some resources (such as the atmosphere) arguably belong to everyone or are difficult or impossible to privatizeValue women ensuring economic opportunity and equality for women Three quarters of the eight million jobs lost in Great Recession were lost by menThe balance of the workforce shifted earlier this year to women who now hold the majorityMen dominate just 2 of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer

15Framework for Planning1111 Focus on 1 problem/1 solution: climate change & sustainable living education2 Use existing in-situ distribution system3 Address the total lifestyle footprint4 Walk the talk 5 Help communities rethink municipal systems6 Return to essential land-grant institutional values

16So, what can Extension do? What must we do to engage in this revolutionary, science-based, systems thinking, full-world-vision paradigm shift?As outlined in our white paper, A Vision for Relevance, Extension has 6 essential steps to take.1st, we focus on one overwhelming gigantisauras problem and one solution. Ecologically speaking, there is definite agreement among scientists that of all the challenges facing our global civilization population growth, rising temperature, falling water tables, shrinking cropland and forest land per person, collapsing fisheries, and the loss of plant and animal species of all these trends, stabilizing the first two population and temperature is pivotal to making progress on all other fronts. Other prestigious organizations the UN, World Health Organization, Zero Population Growth -- are much stronger on population issues than we are. BUT, global temperature and climate change we could talk about, so climate change mitigation was our problem and sustainable living education our solution. This may sound flippant but bear with me here.

2nd , we have an already-in-place distribution system. Extension has a presence in most areas of the United States. We have new outreach guidelines for large federal grants, which give non-Extension people much bigger incentives to team with Extension. We have multiple technologies for distributing needed programming.

3rd , Educational programs on Sustainable Living must holistically address the total energy, water and carbon footprint of the lifestyle choices of our stakeholders. That includes: business, development and investment interests and decisions; farming, ranching and timbering interests and decisions; household goods and home-life practices; leisure toys and recreational practices. We already have breadth of knowledge and experience in all these arenas. We just need to combine them into multidisciplinary, cross programs and professional Extension association packages.

4th, Extension must be the model for others to emulate. We have to walk our talk. Extension staff members will learn by doing as we green our own lifestyles, offices, campuses and 4-H camps. As a result, we will radically shrink our ecological footprint and visually demonstrate the knowledge and practices we are teaching. The process will be a vehicle for personal re-direction and professional development, and a vehicle for teaching others a hands-on project for individuals, families, and communities. Extension administrators must make green institutional investment a priority and provide the resources necessary to achieve it.

5th With a constituency ready to effect community change, Extension can help communities rethink their municipal systems that constrain our options for living sustainably. Public transportation, conservation subdivisions, growth management, and revitalization of urban areas all support more sustainable lifestyles for people. We can help citizens and community leaders understand and evaluate their potential.

And 6th, this will work because for Extension, its not revolutionary at all. It is a return to the essential land-grant institutional values: quality education at a fair price, taking university education beyond the brick walls; inculcating thriftiness and frugality values; encouraging good stewardship of the land; living a conservation ethic.

Our clientele both traditional and new to us are hungry for a revolutionary, science-based, systems thinking, full world vision paradigm shift organization like ours to help them sort through the myriad of conflicting messages. We do have to remember that a characteristic of the SR is its diversity. We will not be the ONLY source of trustworthy information we dont have an exclusive franchise on knowledge but we can establish ourselves as one of the key players.

Conclusion Preamble to the Earth Charter, June 2000 We stand at a critical moment in Earths history, a time when humanity must choose its future.

Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.Middle section

As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.

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