Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future

Saleem H. AliUniversity of Vermont

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resourceshttp://www.saleemali.net

http://www.treasurebook.info

Presentation to the Japan Institute for International Affairs

Questioning Gandhi

“The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed”

Mohandas K. GandhiPortrait in Mani Bhavan, Mumbai

Material WorldUnraveling our elemental origins as a means of appreciating our most fundamental connections to the planet

Finding ways to harness these elements to improve the quality of human existence

Image created by Pete Land

National Geographic Atlas, 8th edition , 2004

Desire and Development

Would the world be a better place if we curbed our desires for material goods?

The Material World, Rebeka Rodosek, 1999

Argument Sequence

• Impact = Population X Affluence X Technology ?

• Competing goals: conservation, poverty alleviation and pluralism of choice

• Invoking Amartya Sen: The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal

• Regulating without stifling innovation

• Living with sub-optimality and “buying time”

• Innovation and circularity of material and energy processes as our only lasting salvation

Self and Subsistence?

• To decide whether or not to enter the market economy?

• Resources as a planetary trust or local ownership?

• Do humans have a responsibility for global innovation? Photo by Melaina Spitzer, PRI

Consumer Guilt?

“We can feel sympathetic to the dreadful plight of cosmopolitans who feel they have too many pairs of shoes . . . and they bought their child a present instead of spending quality time with them. But is not acceptable that the study of consumption, and any potential moral stance to it, be reduced to an expression of such peoples’ guilts and anxieties.” (Daniel Miller, Materiality, 2005)

Durability and Disposability

Chris Jordan, Cans Seurat, 200760x92“ Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

The “Devil” in the Detail?

Livelihoods: Need or Greed?

Data on Creative Commons image sharing, from ILO and US Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

Comparisons

US Bureau of Labor Statistics Data, 2009

Specific Steps• Consent versus Compensation – establishing norms

• Consider livelihood generation, based on opportunity costs, in metrics of consumption decisions – towards a “sustainable livelihoods index” –configure business development accordingly through appropriate incentives

• Giving consumers the information and the education to make decisions of societal benefit

• Grappling with inequality through a movement on prioritized philanthropy – what should be the role of business here?

• Considering impacts from the perspective of industrial and restoration ecology

• Connecting environmental studies back to the elements to give more substance to aspirations of systems thinking

• Developing a contingency trust for planetary disaster preparedness

The SynthesisY BIOLOGICAL

SUSTENANCE

GREED

NEED

SOCIAL

SUSTENANCE

INNOVATION

IMPULSE

+TREASURE

LIVELIHOODS

NATURAL RESOURCE BASE: ELEMENTS AND ENERGY

INDUSTRIAL

AND

RESTORATION

ECOLOGY

INFORMED

CHOICE

INCENTIVES

&

PENALTIES

Copyright (c) Saleem H. Ali, 2010

Coda

The study of the substances of the earth’s crust, of the air over and the waters under earth, which has led to our present knowledge has been more adventurous than many a great journey. . . . Into the unknown world of things upon the “sea that ends not till the world’s end” scientists ventured, and came back laden with treasure greater than all the gold and precious stones ever taken from the earth

Robert E. Rose, The Foundations of Chemical Industry, 1924