SUSTAINABILITY

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SUSTAINABILITY

• Higher Education

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Sustainability Principles
In the sustainable society, nature is not subject
to systematically increasing
Increasing concentrations of substances extracted
from the earths crust
Increasing concentrations of substances produced
by society
Degradation by physical means
and human needs are met worldwide.
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Sustainability requires that we focus
simultaneously on systemic changes that improve
health for current and future humans, build
strong, secure and thriving communities, provide
economic opportunity for all by restoring and
preserving the integrity of the life support
system.
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Why Sustainability Now?

• We are the first generation capable of
  determining the habitability of the planet for
  humans and other species.  

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Global Perspective
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Social Well-being
Flourishing Environment
Strong Economy
Sustainable Society
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Ice Cores Preserve the History of Atmospheric CO2
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has never been above 300 ppm for at
least the last 430,000 years (and probably not
for the last 30 million years!)
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Computer models of climate match the observations
only when natural and human forcings are
included in the models. The human forcings are
responsible for most of the rapid warming
1970-2000.
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Coastal glaciers are retreating
Muir Glacier, Alaska, 1941-2004
August 1941
August 2004
NSIDC/WDC for Glaciology, Boulder, compiler.
2002, updated 2006. Online glacier photograph
database. Boulder, CO National Snow and Ice
Data Center.
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Soon Americans will have to settle for a
Non-Glacier National Park.
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Greenland ice Melting 1992, 2002, and 2005
Greenland summer surface melting, 1992-2005
1992
2002
2005
In 1992 scientists measured this amount of
melting in Greenland as indicated by red areas on
the map
Ten years later, in 2002, the melting was much
worse
And in 2005, it accelerated dramatically yet again
Source ACIA, 2004 and CIRES, 2005
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Shrinking mountain glaciers The famous snows of
Kilimanjaro have been shrinking rapidly in recent
decades and are nearly gone. This is
particularly significant because high-elevation
ice and snow near the equator does not vary much
except when climate is changing globally. The
decline between 1912 and 2000 was 81
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2011 Mississippi Floods
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Combining the ice-core data and the direct
measurements from Mauna Loa yields a curve
strikingly similar to the curve that describes
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Global Transition

• From
• Fossil powered
• Take, make, waste
• Living off natures capital
• Market as master
• Loss of cultural biological diversity
• Individual centered

• To
• Solar powered
• Cyclical production
• Living off natures income
• Market as servant
• Increased cultural biological diversity
• Community centered

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Reversing Climate Disruption

• Energy Efficiency
• Renewable Energy
• wind, solar, geothermal, hydro
• Land use transportation
• higher density, less auto dependence
• alternative fuels for vehicles
• Circular economy
• Sustainable/local agriculture
• Carbon sequestration

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Higher Educations Importance to Sustainability

• Influences current future leaders
  professionals
• Deeply influences K-12 education
• Dedicated to new ideas, exploration and
  experimentation
• Has critical mass diversity of skills necessary
• Crucial but overlooked leverage point in
  transition to sustainability

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Opportunity in Higher Education

• 4,096 U.S. Colleges and Universities1
• 14.8 million students1
• 277 billion annual expenditures 2.8 of the
  GDP1
• Higher education expenditures greater than the
  GDP of all but 25 countries in the world2
• 1 From 2001 Digest of Education Statistics, US
  Dept. of Education.
• 2 From 2001 CIA World Factbook and Dowling,
  Mike., "Interactive Table of World Nations,"
  available from http//www.mrdowling.com/800nations
  .html Internet updated Friday, June 29, 2001

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Higher Education Modeling Sustainabilityas a
Fully Integrated Community
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Higher Education Stakeholders

• Administrators
• Faculty
• Operations facilities managers
• Students
• Trustees
• Staff
• Higher Ed Associations

• Alumni
• Parents of students
• Communities
• Accreditation orgs.
• Future Employers
• Funders
• Professionals
• Future Generations
• World cultures
• Biosphere all its species

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American College University Presidents Climate
Commitment

• Voluntary effort to Mayors Climate Agreement
• Organized by AASHE, Second Nature ecoAmerica
• Commit to 3 actions
• Plan within 2 years to achieve climate neutrality
• GHG Inventory
• Operations, Education Research
• Adoption of select emission reduction measures
• Public reporting on plans and progress thru AASHE
• www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org

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• End of Part I

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Sustainability Principles
In the sustainable society, nature is not subject
to systematically increasing
Increasing concentrations of substances extracted
from the earths crust
Increasing concentrations of substances produced
by society
Degradation by physical means
and human needs are met worldwide.
The Natural Step guiding principles
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What is Biomimicry?

• A science that studies nature's best ideas and
  then imitates these designs and processes to
  solve human problems.
• The core idea is that nature, imaginative by
  necessity, has already solved many of the
  problems we are grappling with.
• Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate
  engineers. They have found what works, what is
  appropriate, and most important, what lasts here
  on Earth. 1
• 1 From An Interview with Janine Benyus, 2003
• .

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Material Inspirations

• Abalone mussel nacre
• (mother of pearl coating)
• Hard coatings-for windshields and bodies of
  solar cars, airplanes, anything that needs to be
  lightweight but fracture-resistant.
• A crystalline coating self-assembles in perfect
  precision atop protein templates. In the abalone,
  it's a 3-D masterpiece, tougher than anything we
  can manufacture! 1

1 From www.biomimicry.net
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Natural Capitalism

• Dramatically increase productivity of natural
  resources
• Shift to biologically inspired production models
• Move to solutions-based business model
• Value as flow of services, e.g., illumination not
  lightbulbs
• Reinvest in natural capital

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• End of Part II

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