OrrNotes

1
OrrNotes

• Chapter One Conceptual Causes of Environmental
  Problems

2
The problem of the social trap (the
microeconomic argument)

• Situation of short term rationality leading to
  long-term negative consequences The Tragedy of
  the Commons -- characteristic of externalities
  individual gain, social loss

3
Social trap, continued

• Decisions can be adjusted not by changes in
  rationality but by changes in the information
  leading to the decision full cost accounting,
  incentives
• Solution still relies on rationality. Plenty of
  evidence to suggest many decisions are made
  irrationally, in spite of economists efforts.

4
The problem of economic growth Two Economies
(to borrow from Wendell Berry)

• Focus on growth (ie capital expansion) as metric
  of success. Industrial production outstrips
  limits of resources. (the ecological footprint
  argument). The human economy vs the natural
  economy.

5
Two economies

• But growth may be an aberration fueled by the
  discovery of unclaimed resources (the Americas
  in the 1400s and 1500s, and coal/oil/gas in the
  18th and 19th). In other words, the growth that
  we see as normal and required may be viewed in a
  longer time period as binge eating and drinking.

6
Two economies

• Growth, as evidenced in consumerism, leads to in
  effect a social or power arms race.
• But, "If everyone in a crowd stands on tiptoe,"
  as Hirsch puts it, "no one sees better."

7
A social arms race?

• If everyone is better off, how do I distinguish
  myself from the crowd? By consuming exclusive
  goods waterfront property.
• The importance of growth to the modern economy
  cannot be justified empirically on the grounds
  that it creates equity.

8
Are resources effectively unlimited?

• But resources may be unlimited (at least in the
  sense that we conceive natural resources wood
  as fuel is replaced by coal is replaced by oil is
  replaced by original art is replaced by printed
  posters and waterfront property is replaced by
  pools, or perhaps virtual waterfronts (big screen
  TVs) as desire and creativity enable. The
  ultimate energy source, the sun, is by and large
  unlimited. We will figure out how to tap the
  suns energy when we need to.
• Dont worry, be happy.
• Infantile self-gratification or mature
  capitalism?

9
On the escape of tigers

• But thermodynamics trumps economy. One cannot
  make something from nothing and something cannot
  be made into nothing.
• From the perspective of physics and ecology, the
  flaws in mainstream economics are fundamental and
  numerous. First, the discipline lacks a concept
  of optimal size, which is a polite way of saying
  that it has confused bloatedness with prosperity.
  Second, it mistakenly regards an increasing gross
  national product as an achievement, rather than
  as a cost required to maintain a given level of
  population and artifacts. Third, it lacks an
  ecologically and morally defensible model of the
  "reasonable person," helping to create the
  behavior it purports only to describe. Fourth,
  growth economics has radically misconceived
  nature as a stock to be used up. The faster a
  growing volume of materials flows from mines,
  wells, forests farms, and oceans through the
  economic pipeline into dumps and sinks the
  better. Depletion at both ends of this stream
  explains what Wendell Berry calls the
  "ever-increasing hurry of research and
  exploration" driven by the "desperation that
  naturally and logically accompanies gluttony."24
  Fifth, growth economics assumes that the human
  economy is independent of the larger economy of
  nature with its cycles and ecological
  interdependencies, and of the laws of physics
  that govern the flow of energy.

10
The problem is that we want to Dominate and
Subdue Nature.

• Judeo-Christian -- (NOT!)
• Enlightenment Thinking modern science has
  separated humans from nature by its reductionist
  analysis.
• Operate on the assumption that social systems are
  resilient enough to contain the economic and
  political results of technological change.
  Perhaps we ought not use some technologies.even
  though we can public perception toward nuclear
  power
• Need to distinguish between wisdom a systemic
  view, and
• knowledge a fragmented view. Not inherently
  anti-technological (as many environmentalists
  are) but wiser knowledge, more thoughtful design.

11
The problem, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
but in our selves

• Perhaps evolution took a wrong turn when it came
  to humans, or to put it another way, the best
  evidence against Intelligent Design is humans.
• Need more contact with nature the isolated from
  nature argument and benefits of natural
  environments.

12

• Aldo Leopold "A thing is right when it tends to
  preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of
  the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends
  otherwise."43 The essence of Leopold's Land Ethic
  is "respect for his fellow members, and also
  respect for the (biotic) community as such."44
  Respect implies a sense of limits, things one
  does not do, not because they cannot be done but
  because they should not be done.

13
Orrs Approach to Sustainability

• Technological Sustainability
• We only do what humans can do, and our machines,
  however they may appear to enlarge our
  possibilities, are invariably infected with our
  limitations .... The mechanical means by which we
  propose to escape the human condition only extend
  it.26
• Sustainable Development An Oxymoron?

14
Ecologic Sustainability

• Proponents of ecological sustainability, then,
  aim to restore civic virtue, a high degree of
  ecological literacy, and ecological competence
  throughout the population. This, in contrast to
  the Hollywood conservatism of the 1980s, begins
  by conserving people, communities, energy,
  resources, and wildlife. It is rooted in the
  Jeffersonian tradition of an active, informed,
  competent citizenry.
• Utopianism?

15
The Virtue of Traditional Knowledge

• From a systems perspective, Norgaard writes,
• the patchwork quilt of traditional agroeconomies
  consisted of social and ecological patches
  loosely linked together. The connections between
  beliefs, social organization, technology, and the
  ecological system were many and strong within
  each patch for these things coevolved together.
  Between patches, however, linkages were few,
  weak, and frequently only random. The global
  agroeconomy, on the other hand, is tightly
  connected through common technologies, and
  international crop, fertilizer and pesticide, and
  capital markets.

16
Implication

• For the present system, any failure of
  knowledge, technology, research, capital markets,
  or weather can prove highly destabilizing or
  fatal. Disruptions of any sort ripple throughout
  the system.
• Hub and Spoke Airlines
• Mad Cow Disease
• Avian Flu

17

• proponents of ecological sustainability regard
  nature not just as a set of limits but as a model
  for the design of housing, cities, neighborhoods,
  farms, technologies, and regional economies.
  Sustainability depends upon replicating the
  structure and function of natural systems.
• Nature is not inherently good human-made
  bad, but nature has had a lot longer to figure
  out what works and what doesnt, and perhaps we
  could/should learn from that

18

• designers of resilient systems tend to follow
  the old precepts such as KISS (keep it simple
  stupid) If it ain't broke, don't fix it You
  don't put all your eggs in one basket and, If
  anything can go wrong, it will, so plan
  accordingly! Resilience implies small, locally
  adaptable, resource-conserving, culturally
  suitable, and technologically elegant solutions
  whose failure does not jeopardize much else.

19

• Advocates of ecological sustainability use
  nature as a model, but they do not necessarily
  agree on the use of that model. Does sustainable
  development require the restoration of natural
  systems as authentically as possible, or only the
  imitation of their structure and ecological
  processes?
• Restoration ecology is the best example of the
  former, while Wes Jackson's efforts to breed
  perennial polycultures that resemble prairies
  exemplifies the latter. Attempts to mimic nature
  and ecological processes may in time come to
  resemble Baconian science with its goal of total
  mastery. If, on the other hand, sustainability is
  interpreted to mean the restoration (and/or
  preservation) of natural systems as authentically
  as possible, letting natural selection do most of
  the work, then its advocates must develop a clear
  understanding of what is natural, what is not,
  and why the difference is important.

20

• An alternative, postmodern technology, in
  Frederick Ferre's view, would aim to optimize
  rather than maximize, to cultivate rather than
  manipulate, and to differentiate rather than
  centralize.
• Umm, maximization is a form of optimization and
  whats the difference between cultivate and
  manipulate? As sentiment, understood. As
  logical argument, pretty flawed.

21
So, whats the mechanism for changing the
system?

• How to transform from modern to post-modern
  Hardin.
• Variations on the use of nature as a model
  Johnson and Johnston

22
Garret Hardin and the Tragedy of the Commons

• Theatre sense of term tragedy
• Greatest good for the greatest number
• Increased productivity (work per person)
• Industrialization modern ag, assembly line,
• Leads to Increased (or maintained) standard of
  living for more people
• Assuming finite resources?
• Assuming infinite resources?

23
Rationality of individual decision making

• Assumption that what is good for an individual is
  good for the population (society).
• The Commons

24
Transformation to environment

• Hardin Polluter
• Johnston Homeowners driveway

25
Solutions?

• Privatization
• Temperance
• Appeals to Conscience
• Responsibility vs. Guilt
• Practical Remove commons through compensatory
  taxation, building codes, stormwater regulations,
  etc.

26
So how is this related to land resources and
ecological design again?

• Appeals to morality
• fish and trees have rights, we should respect
  them.
• Give a Hoot, Dont Pollute
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
• Coercion
• Regulations
• Taxation
• Incentive
• Education (Ecological Literacy)
• Redesign (Ecologic Competence)

27
Ecological Design as an Educational Vehicle

• Some Examples
• Compare with Boston Fens

28
Alan Sonfist Time Landscape

• In the mid-sixties, Alan Sonfist conceived a plan
  to return areas of cities across the world to a
  more balanced ecosystem. Called Time Landscapes,
  these urban parks celebrate the unspoiled
  landscape existing before human intervention. The
  artist believes that nature deserves to be
  ecologically restored and commemorated. Rather
  than taming or controlling nature, Sonfist
  creates art works that draw attention to ways
  that humans can help with its restoration. In
  1978 in conjunction with The Metropolitan Museum
  of Art, city planners, and community boards, he
  created Time Landscape Greenwich Village, New
  York, located between Houston and Bleecker
  streets in Manhattan, New York

29
Malcolm Cochran, Field of Corn (with Osage
Orange)

• "Whether you embrace it or not, it makes you
  think. That's one of the most important functions
  of public art." The materials Cochran selected
  are layered with meanings. His juxtaposition of
  nature (the park/corn field) and culture
  (concrete/progress) reflect social tensions that
  exist in rural, suburban, and urban areas about
  differences in evolving ways of living associated
  with political economic development.

30
Mel Chin, Revival Field

• Conceptually this work is envisioned as a
  sculpture involving the reduction process, a
  traditional method when carving wood or stone.
  Here the material being approached is unseen and
  the tools will be biochemistry and agriculture.
  The work, in its most complete incarnation (after
  the fences are removed and the toxic-laden weeds
  harvested) will offer minimal visual and formal
  effects. For a time, an intended invisible
  aesthetic will exist that can be measured
  scientifically by the quality of a revitalized
  earth. Eventually that aesthetic will be revealed
  in the return of growth to the soil.

31
Harrisons -

• Their working process is articulated by art
  historian Barbara Matilsky (1992)
• Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison
  conduct ecological projects that often begin with
  an invitation from either an art institution or a
  community organization to investigate a regional
  environmental problem. After firsthand study,
  research and interviews with ecologists,
  biologists and planners the artists create a
  photographic narrative that identifies the
  problem, questions the system of beliefs that
  allow the condition to develop and proposes
  initiatives to counter environmental damage. They
  exhibit their documentation in a public forum --
  a museum, library, city hall -- to stimulate
  discussion, debate, and media attention. By
  communication to the public the problems that
  confront a fragile ecosystem and the ways in
  which the balance can be restored, they exert
  pressure on the political system and rally public
  opinion in an attempt to avert ecological
  disaster. (p.66-67)

32
Ecological Design as an Educational Vehicle

• Some Examples
• Compare with Boston Fens