the anthropocene: acknowledging the extent of global ......the anthropocene: acknowledging the...
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The Anthropocene: Acknowledging the extent of global
resource overshoot , and what we must do about it.
Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future.
Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future.
Understanding the balance between human needs and environmental resources
Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future.
The Anthropocene Story 3 minute video
Reflections on the Anthropocene Story
“ … we must find a safe operating space for humanity”
“... we must understand resource limits and size ourselves to
operate within planetary boundaries”
“…our creativity, energy, and industry offer hope”
Reflections on the Anthropocene Story
Empty words
Cognitive and behavioral paradigm shifts would offer ‘guarded’ optimism for the future.
A preview of this afternoon’s discussion: 1. Realistic meta-level picture of humanity’s relationship with the planet 2. Talk about that relationship and the conceptual meaning of sustainability 3. Discuss the need for ‘transformative’ change and one approach to achieving future sustainability
The Problem
Climate change is not the problem.
Water shortages, overgrazing, erosion, desertification and the rapid extinction of species are not the problem.
Deforestation,
Deforestation, reduced cropland productivity,
Deforestation, reduced cropland productivity,
and the collapse of fisheries are not the problem.
Each of these crises, though alarming, is a symptom of a single, over-riding issue.
Humanity is simply demanding more than the earth can provide.
Climate change
Desertification Deforestation Collapse of
fisheries Rapid extinction of species
Witnessing dysfunctional
human behavior
Today’s reality: Global Resource Overshoot
Supply = 1 Earth
How do we know we are
- living beyond our resource means? - exceeding global capacity?
- experiencing resource overshoot?
• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Released in 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was a four-year global effort involving more than 1,300 experts that assessed the condition of and trends in the world’s ecosystems. The Assessment found that in the last half of the 20th century, humans changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of history, primarily to meet growing needs for food, freshwater, timber, fiber, and fuel.
Capture fisheries Wild foods Biomass fuel Genetic resources Biochemicals Fresh water Air quality regulation Climate regulation Erosion regulation Water purification Pest regulation Pollination Natural hazard regulation Spiritual values Aesthetic values
What do we know about the status of the world’s ecosystem services?
Degraded Enhanced Mixed
Provisioning
Cultural
Regulating
Crops Livestock Aquaculture Carbon sequestration
Timber Fiber Water regulation Disease regulation Recreation & ecotourism
Financial Indicators
• GDP = Gross Domestic Product
• ISEW = Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
• ISEW = GDP w/adjustments Degree of consumption inequality
+ Value of housework
- Wasted expenditures (e.g. wars)
- Pollution and environmental damage costs
- Depletion of non-renewable resources
$
1950 1975 2000 2025
GDP
ISEW
$
1950 1975 2000 2025
GDP
ISEW
Quantifying Human Demand: Our ‘Ecological Footprint’
A population’s eco-footprint (demand) is
the area of land and water ecosystems
(bio-capacity) required to produce the
resources that the population consumes,
and to assimilate the wastes that the
population produces, wherever on Earth
the relevant land/water may be located.
Overshoot – Demand now outstrips supply. It takes more than 1.5 years for the earth to
regenerate the renewable resources humans
consume in a year.
Human Demand:
Our Global ecological
Footprint
Nature’s Supply:
Global Biocapacity
ffads
global biocapacity: 12.0 billion hectares
current human eco-footprint:
19.0 billion hectares
The
Big
Pic
ture
gha
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ecological Footprint
1.0 One Earth
(Capacity = 100%)
# Earths
gha
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ecological Footprint
1.0 One Earth
(Capacity = 100%)
# Earths
Unsustainable
Possibly Sustainable
gha
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ecological Footprint
1.0 One Earth
(Capacity = 100%) Capacity allocation for bio-diversity
# Earths
gha
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ecological Footprint
1.0 One Earth
(Capacity = 100%)
Historical
“Empty World”
The World has Fundamentally Changed
“Overshoot” World
# Earths
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
1.0 (Capacity = 100%)
Historical
“Empty World”
The World has Fundamentally Changed
“Overshoot” World
# Earths
Time
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Historical
“Empty World”
The World has Fundamentally Changed
“Overshoot” World
Limitations Man-made Capital
Labor Natural Capital
Policy Implications
Invest in capital goods “Economic stimulus” plans
Maximize production
Invest in natural capital
To end poverty (In a production constrained world):
Stabilize and reduce population!
human population (2013): 7.1 billion
average eco- footprint/person: 2.7 gha
biocapacity per person: 1.7 gha
overshoot (EF – biocapacity) 1.0 gha
58% overshoot
Our Global Ecological Deficit
ffads
global biocapacity:
12.0 billion hectares
current human eco-footprint:
19.0 billion hectares
Th
e B
ig P
ictu
re
Missing: Four Phantom Planets
If everyone on Earth lived the consumer lifestyles of North Americans, we’d need three or four additional Earth-like planets.
Problem: “Good planets are hard to find.”
• Humanity is already consuming resources at an unsustainable rate.
• We are already exceeding planetary boundaries.
• We are putting earth systems and human civilization at risk.
“…the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human
civilization in recent centuries is at risk. Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity, and other critical resources:
these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological, and social crisis, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale.”
“[We are] burning through [global] resources in the name of prosperity, as if there is no tomorrow” Ban Ki-Moon (4/20/12)
What is sustainability?
Sustainability conceptually describes an economy
and full set of societal endeavors, the demands of
which are in equilibrium with basic ecological and
resource support systems
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
What is sustainability?
Despite the confusion, ‘sustainability’ is not a difficult concept
Sustainability simply means that the human family must live more equitably within the productive means of nature.
Humans cannot consume essential renewable resources faster than Nature replenishes them nor generate material wastes faster than nature can assimilate and recycle them.
No society is sustainable if it maintains itself or grows by depleting its income-producing wealth or ‘capital’. It follows that:
The world community must learn to live on the annual income generated by both its manufactured capital and natural capital.
Economic Implications
A sustainable economy thrives on the annual income of its capital assets: finance capital, manufactured capital natural capital.
At ‘carrying capacity’ a sustainable economy is a non-growing or steady-state economy.
A steady-state economy is characterized by a constant or modestly fluctuating through-put of energy and material resources (‘natural income’) that leaves its capital intact.
A steady-state economy is not a stagnant economy. It does not grow but can develop dynamically. Society steadily improves as technologies evolve, new industries replace old, and human well-being increases.
What’s to fear? What’s not to like??
Resource overshoot
Possible Solutions
“Our collective challenge: Scaling down the human endeavor”
R = P A T D
e
< = R e Cap
Resource demands must be less than or equal to capacity
C I
P T
< = R e Cap
Can we stabilize and reduce human population numbers?
C
Possible Solutions
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
25.00
30.00
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100 2120
Global Population (Billions)
Constant Fertility
Global Population – What will it really look like later this century ? N
um
be
r o
f P
eo
ple
(m
illio
ns)
Median
9.3 B by 2050
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
25.00
30.00
2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100 2110
Constant fertility
Median Variant Assumptions
Global Population (Billions)
Global Population – What will it really look like later this century ? N
um
be
r o
f P
eo
ple
(m
illio
ns)
Median
+0.5 TFR
-0.5 TFR
Constant Fertility
Population growth is not destiny
Empowering women and expanding access to family planning information and services
must be part of the global sustainable development discourse and solution.
P T
< = R e Cap
Can we lower our consumption of material goods and services?
C
Possible Solutions
Reducing consumption
Who will be giving up their “goodies?”
In fact the world is going in the other direction (e.g. cars in China)!
P T
< = R e Cap
Can we ‘decouple’ our economy from the demands we place on natural capital?
C R e D =
Will ‘greening’ our global economy lead to a sustainable world?
Possible Solutions
Mr. T
Technology
Technology advancement is not the answer to the sustainability challenge.
It is necessary, but not sufficient!
Greening the economy is not the answer to the sustainability challenge.
It is necessary, but not sufficient!
Resource efficiency improvement is not the answer to the sustainability challenge.
It is necessary, but not sufficient!
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Greening the economy is necessary, but not sufficient.
William Stanley Jevons
1865 – English Economist
In economics the Jevons paradox is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource. Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal use led to increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to intuition, technological improvements could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Greening the economy is necessary, but not sufficient.
While green technologies may help to de-link resource extraction from economic growth, they will not ensure progress towards sustainability.
Complete mitigation of the global warming and climate disruption crisis
Sustainability
Sustainability
Achieving food security
Solutions
1. Change the political mandate from economic growth to
shared economic development within planetary limits.
Our challenge, should we choose to accept it:
Write a new, more adaptive cultural narrative
Sustainable material growth is an oxymoron.
The economic policy emphasis must shift from
efficiency and growth (merely getting bigger)
toward sufficiency, equity and development
(qualitative improvement, getting better).
The underpinning values of society must shift
from competitive individualism, greed, and short-
term self-interest, toward cooperative mutualism,
community, and humanity’s long-term collective
interest in survival.
Motivation and Rationale? It’s in everyone’s long-term best interest
Individual and national interests have converged with humanity’s common interests. That is;
Sustainability is a collective problem that demands collective solutions (no country can become sustainable on its own);
Failure to act for the common good will ultimately lead to civil insurrection, geopolitical chaos, resource wars and ecological destruction.
Cognitive Steps Forward
Recognize that on a biophysically-constrained planet, everything is connected to everything else: economic policy is ecological policy is social policy.
Re-legitimize public planning at all levels of governance. We need comprehensive mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change (markets alone can’t achieve sustainability).
Abandon the cult of consumerism. The material ethic is spiritually empty and ecologically disastrous. Cultivate saving and conserver values over shopping and consumer values.
Solutions
1. Change the political mandate from economic growth to
shared economic development within planetary limits.
2. Increase media attention to population and sustainability
issues.
Solutions
1. Change the political mandate from economic growth to
shared economic development within planetary limits.
2. Increase media attention to population and sustainability
issues and serial dramas for behavioral change.
3. Incorporate resource sufficiency evaluation (RSE) and
reporting into national and global governance.
The Global Challenge
“How do we promote dynamic and inclusive economic and human
development
while achieving more equitable and
sustainable management of resources”
…UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development agenda
The Global Challenge
“How do we promote dynamic and inclusive economic and human
development
while achieving more equitable and
sustainable management of resources”
…UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development agenda
Balance the resources we demand with what’s available!
Economic Activity Social Structure
The finite system of planetary natural resources
The open system of human development and well-being
Earth (A closed system)
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
What does RSE look like?
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Bio-physical (not economic) ‘balance sheets’
What does RSE look like?
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
What does RSE look like?
Bio-physical ‘balance sheet’ accounting - Germany
Resource Category
Fresh Water
Energy
Bio-capacity
Societal Demand
30
330
420
National Capacity
110
130
160
Surplus (Deficit)
80
(200)
(260)
Sustainability Rating
Sustainable
Unsustainable
Unsustainable
Measurement Units
Billion cubic meters
1000KT Oil Equivalent
Million global hectares
Human Activities
Sustainability Assessment Measuring what we want to achieve
Earth Resources
Resource
Accounting Methodology
Resource
Accounting Methodology
Biophysical Resource Demands
Biophysical Resource Capacity
Policy Direction
Policy Options: Macro-economics
Nat’l Population Policy Consumption policies
Material Recycle Technology Transitions
EF Accounting I/O Analysis
Energy Balances
Biophysical
Balance
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Benefits • Directly measures a critical sustainability criteria • Measures what we need to manage in today’s world and
provides a clear understanding of sustainable resource use
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Benefits • Directly measures a critical sustainability criteria • Measures what we need to manage in today’s world and
provides a clear understanding of sustainable resource use • Provides a prescriptive solution to the north-south political
divide by asking all countries – both developed and developing – to evaluate, report, and make progress toward bio-physical balance
• Protects inter-generational equity
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Benefits • Directly measures a critical sustainability criteria • Measures what we need to manage in today’s world and
provides a clear understanding of sustainable resource use • Provides a prescriptive solution to the north-south political
divide by asking all countries – both developed and developing – to evaluate, report, and make progress toward bio-physical balance
• Protects inter-generational equity • Builds public awareness of our universal challenge of resource
system overuse • Puts sustainability into the political discourse
Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE)
Our road map to a sustainable future.
Thank you
(additional information available)
Thank you
We’d appreciate your questions and comments.