Building a Sustainable Community

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Building a Sustainable Community

• Bruce Snead
• Engineering Extension at Kansas State University

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Building a Sustainable Community

• Building a sustainable community through local
  leadership means effecting change in the best
  long-term interests of your community. Learn
  about the opportunities and techniques (policies,
  programs, planning and participation) which you
  can use to build a strong future-oriented
  community.

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Topics

• Borrowing from the Future
• What is Sustainability?
• Sustainable Development
• Opportunities and Resources

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Are You an Optimist or Pessimist?

• How many of you believe your children will have a
  better quality of life than you have?
• What is it that makes where you live a special
  place?

• What will it take to sustain that quality of life
  and preserve those special things for your
  children?

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Borrowing from the Future

• Weve gotta do it for the kids. - Sam Brownback
  on the budget and debt.
• I think there are a lot of similarities in the
  economics of natural systems.
• A baby born today will by age 75 have
• produced 52 tons of garbage
• consumed 43 million gallons of water
• used 3375 barrels of oil -Philadelphia Inquirer

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Bringing Up Baby
A US born baby will, over a lifetime, cost the
world
Water - 41,289,000 gals
Eggs - 18,046
Wood - 5,777 CF
Vegetables - 13,652
Coffee - 688 lbs
Coal - 290 tons
Potatoes - 3,728
Fish - 1,123 lbs
Petroleum - 80,598 gals
Pesticides - 280 lbs
Data from US Census and World Resources Institute
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Borrowing from the Future?

• Our 4.5 of world population consumes 30 of
  planets natural resources, burns 25 of the
  fossil fuels.
• The US is the 3rd most populous country with the
  highest birthrate among developed countries.

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Warning Signs?

• Shrinking forests
• Eroding soils
• Falling water tables
• Collapsing fisheries
• Rising temperatures
• Dying coral reefs
• Melting glaciers
• Disappearing plant and animal species

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Different Attitudesabout the Future

• Our resources are not passed to us by our
  ancestors but loaned to us by our children.
  Kenyan Proverb

• Im spending my kids inheritance. Bumper
  Sticker

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Quotes about the Future

• we are treating the Earth as if it were a
  business in liquidation. Herman Daly
• Man will occasionally stumble over the truth,
  but most of the time he will pick himself up and
  continue on. Winston Churchill
• The future belongs to those who give the next
  generation reason to hope. Teilhard de Chardin

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What is Sustainability?

• Then I say the earth belongs to each....
  generation during its course, fully and in its
  own right, no generation can contract debts
  greater than may be paid during the course of its
  own existence. Thomas Jefferson -6/9/1789

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What is Sustainability?

• development which meets the needs of the present
  without compromising the ability of future
  generations to meet their own needs.
  UN Brundtland Commission

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What is Sustainability?

• ...living on the Earth's income rather than
  eroding its capital.
  British Government
  White Paper, 'This Common
  Inheritance', 1990

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Sustainability?

• Sustainability requires managing all households
  -- individual, community,national, and global --
  in ways that ensure that our economy and society
  can continue to exist without crippling or
  destroying the natural environment on which
  we all depend.

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Sustainability?
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Sustainable Development

• That level of human activity that can be
  continued indefinitely without diminishing the
  capacity of the biosphere to support life or
  assimilate waste

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Growth?

• Sustainable development is not a no-growth
  movement.
• Rather, it asks the question what should grow and
  how should it grow.
• Perhaps the question should be Is this
  sustainable?

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Sustainable Development

• "Sustainable development involves the
  simultaneous pursuit of
  economic prosperity, environmental quality
  and social equity. Companies aiming for
  sustainability need to perform not against a
  single, financial bottom line but against the
  triple bottom line.

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Transitions

• From short-term to long-term thinking
• From a linear flow of resources to a cyclic flow
  of resources
• From an economy outside of nature to an economy
  integrated into nature
• From keeping score with gross cash flow to
  keeping score with a whole-system balance sheet
  (many indicators)

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Transitions

• From seeing environmental, social and economic
  issues as separate and competing, to seeing them
  as an interconnected whole
• From hoping growth will eliminate poverty to
  addressing poverty and its causes directly
• From fossil fuels to renewable energy
• From a focus on growth (size) to a focus on
  development (quality)

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The Real Challenge - Quality of Life

• Quality of life is improved by a shift in public
  planning from simply accommodating growth to
  planning for sustainable human activity.

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Our Choice

• The longer we wait, the greater the risk of
  having to impose rigid regulations in time of
  crisis.
• The sooner we change, the more options we will
  have to create mechanisms of adjustment that are
  socially acceptable and economically feasible.

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Questioning Myths and Assumptions

• Growth is everything
• No energy problem
• Design cities to move cars
• Better costs more

• We know how to measure progress
• Density Congestion
• Economy vs. environment

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Whos Doing It

• PCSD
• Seattle
• Milwaukee
• San Jose
• Austin
• Santa Monica
• Racine
• Chattanooga

• Routt County,CO
• Boise/Ada County
• Valmeyer,IL
• New Jersey
• Manhattan
• Springfield
• NACO, USCM
• DOE, EPA

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How Do Communities Start?

• Crisis and Reaction
• Citizen Initiatives
• Mayoral Initiatives
• City Council Initiatives
• Legislative Initiatives
• Gubernatorial Initiatives

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Current Trends

• Sustainability applied to
• Building and Real Estate Devt
• Economic Development
• Land-Use Planning
• Industrial Development
• Transportation Systems
• Disaster Recovery

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Technology

• GIS
• New Tools for Decision Making
• Software
• Indicators Projects

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Sustainable Economic Development Strategies

• Use resources efficiently
• Meet local needs using local resources
• Invest in an efficient sustainable
  infrastructure.
• Protect and enhance community quality of life.
• Create new businesses that provide services or
  products that protect or restore the environment.

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Sustainable Economic Development

• Pollution Prevention/Waste Minimization
• Recycling Based Manufacturing
• Energy Efficiency
• Renewable Energy
• Green Business and Environmental Technologies

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Implementing Sustainability

• Personal choices
• Local decision making and policy implemented by
  tools and process
• Examples and Education
• Scope of Services
• Planning/Development Guidelines
• Capital Budgets

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Web Resources

• www.usmayors.org/USCM/sustainable
• www.sustainable.org
• www.iclei.org/la21/onestop
• www.sustainable.doe.gov
• solstice.crest.org

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Web Resources

• http//odin.bi.no/sbc
• http//www.iccwbo.org/home/environment/charter.asp
  
• http//sbn.envirolink.org/
• http//www.naturalstep.org/

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Web Resources

• http//iisd.ca/
• www.sustainabledevelopment.org/
• www.sustainablebusiness.com
• www.naturalcapitalism.org/