Sustainability

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Sustainability
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Sustainability -

• UN definition meets the needs of the present
  without sacrificing the ability of future
  generations to meet theirs

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How do people feel about the future?

• Main categories
• 1. No real change over 25 years (or even 100
  years?) slightly (or more) worse than today
• 2. Technology will save the day has so far
  JETSONS
• 3. A dark despondent future of environmental
  catastrophes BLADERUNNER (film)
• 4. A sustainable future??? (hope of change or
  forced to change

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Book titles for instance influence us Earth in
the Balance 50 ways to save the earth State of
the world Saving the earth Environmental problems
in the third world cities Environmental Problems
in an Urbanizing World Finding Solutions in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America 101 Solved
Environmental Engineering Problems Renewable
Natural Resources and the Environment Pressing
problems in the Developing World The Worlds
Wasted Wealth 2 Save our Wealth, Save our
Environment From Apocalypse to Way of Life   DO
IT OR ELSE? Could a positive future be there?
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To put it simply 2/3 of the people WANT to be
environmental BUT, most dont want to decrease
their Standard of Living (SOL) too much
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• Standard of Living
• Are you successful if you earn 200,000/yr?
• - but work 90 hours/week?
• - your life is moving at 90 mph
• - no time with family?
• no time for recreation?
• quality of life?
• ? An illusion of success

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Truman Burbank leads what seems to be a simple
life on the island of Seahaven.
But something is wrong in his life. At first he
can't quite put his finger upon it, but soon he
realizes that he is at the center of something
that goes far beyond anything he could ever have
imagined.
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The Truman Show, is repeating a story that dozens
of other works of popular fiction have used for
decades. It is a story that reveals an essential
truth about what is happening to society in the
20th 21st Centuries. What is that truth? For
Truman, he accepted the illogical way things were
because that is how his reality had been given to
him he knew no differently.
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Buying in to the Falsehood We accept reality as
it is presented to us
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For us What is that truth? In part, it is
about how the media and corporations have begun
to surround us with a universe of illusions. At
some point, we were convinced that there is a
specific way to live. Then we treat the
symptoms.
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• We believe that we have to live a certain way.
• Affluenza (video)

We live in a world of have and have-nots.
Despite a 22 fold increase in economic growth
since 1900, 53 of the people in the world try to
survive on a daily income of less than 2 (U.S.).
And one of every six of the worlds people,
classified as desperately poor, struggle to
survive on less that 1 (U.S.) a day.
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The nature of the human species is to reject
what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what
is obviously false but comforting H. L. Menchen
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Sustainability is about seeing things in a
different way that solve our environmental
problems and create a better Quality of Life
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You never change things by fighting the
existing reality. To change something, build a
new model that makes the old model obsolete.
Buckminster Fuller PAINT a NEW PICTURE of the
FUTURE
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Sustainability

• The Stone Age didnt end because we ran out of
  stone

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Evoke a positive and sustainable depiction of the
future that is attainable now   SUSTAINABILILTY
has all that you want from our current way of
living, but the future will be sustainable so
we just need you to think differently about how
you do things.
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Sustainability is NOT voluntary poverty and
penance for our environmental sins!
ENVIRONMENTAL SAINTHOOD NOT REQUIRED
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Sustainable development

• McDonough Braungart Development that
  Eliminates the concept of Waste
• Industrial Ecology - an ecological concept

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Sustainable development

• Sustainable solutions found by consulting and
  emulating natures time-tested patterns and
  strategies

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Sustainable development

• Imagine
• harnessing energy like a leaf
• growing food like a prairie
• spinning fiber like a spider
• growing ceramics like an oyster
• running a business like a redwood forest.

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Use good research science! Dr. Julian Simon,
Economics and Business Administration Professor
at University of Illinois and University of
Maryland, and senior fellow at the Cato
Institute, said, In regard to Copper, we will
never run out of copper because it can be made
from other metals. SCIENCE, Vol 208, p1431, June
27, 1980 and even if the sun were not as vast
as it is, there may be suns elsewhere. THE
ULTIMATE RESOURCE, Princeton University Press,
1981, p.49
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The greatest shortcoming of the human race is
our inability to understand the Exponential
Function. Albert Bartlett Albert A. Bartlett is
an emeritus Professor of Physics at the
University of Colorado at Boulder
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Lets visit the EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION Doubling
time 70 growth rate (gr) Therefore 1
gr 70/1 70 years 5 gr 70/5 14 years. 7
gr 70/7 10 years 10 gr 70/10 7 years
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64
128
256
512
1024
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2
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18,446,744,073,709,551,616
64
2
36,893,488,147,419,103,232
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Does this hold true in real life? Vail Ski-Lift
tickets have grown at a rate of 7 per year
Year 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 2013 2023 2063
5 10 20 40 80 160 320 2560
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Lets assume a constant growth rate of say
3.5 which gives a doubling time of just 20
years for an essential non-renewable and
finite natural resource X
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20
This is the amount of resource used after the
first 20 years from when it was discovered and
the full screen is the finite amount of resource
X
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20
40
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20
40
60
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20
40
60
80
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20
40
So what happens in the next 20 years?
60
80
100
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20
40
120
60
80
So what happens in the next 20 years?
100
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120
We have reached the half-way point of OIL so
how much time is left of oil?
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120
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and our RATE of usage is now INCREASING? Developin
g Countries are coming on board
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Developed land
Agricultural
Forests/Wilderness
Grazing/Pastoral
Non-useable land (Deserts/Mountain, etc.)
Total Amount of Land on Earth
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Development
Agricultural
Forests/Wilderness
Grazing/Pastoral
Non-useable land (Deserts/Mountain, etc.)
Total Amount of Land on Earth
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Development
Agricultural
Forests/Wilderness
Grazing/Pastoral
Non-useable land (Deserts/Mountain, etc.)
Total Amount of Land on Earth
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Development
Agricultural
Forests/Wilderness
Grazing/Pastoral
Non-useable land (Deserts/Mountain, etc.)
Total Amount of Land on Earth
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Development
Agricultural
Forests/Wilderness
Grazing/Pastoral
Non-useable land (Deserts/Mountain, etc.)
Total Amount of Land on Earth
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Our Ecological Footprint

• Humanitys ecological footprint has exceeded
  earths ecological capacity.

Figure 1-7
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Lets review where the problem really lies
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Error 1 Irrelevance Trap

• Environmental protection and conservation is seen
  as irrelevant to most peoples lives
• Special interest
• Only for the Yoga and granola crowd
• Its something for someone else to worry about

Environmental Sainthood is NOT Required to Create
the Solution
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One day, with the money made by industry, well
be able to clean up the environment.
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Error 2 Vision and Values Trap

• It is not shown -
• How important the environment is to our everyday
  lives
• How important and beneficial environmental
  protection is to our social and economic well
  being
• We dont seem to understand exponential growth
  and usage
• Where does food come from? The store!

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Commenting on a scientific analysis done by
petroleum geologists of oil peaking in 2011, one
expert said, This analysis is a piece of
foolishnessthe world will never run out of oil,
not in 10,000 years. M.A. Aldelman, Economics
Professor at M.I.T., in FORTUNE, Nov 22, 1999,
p.194
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Error 3 Symptoms Approach

• We focus on the Symptoms - Solutions ? Band Aids
• We take an issue-by-issue approach
• We fail to recognize the connections
• We largely ignore root causes

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Error 3 Symptoms Approach

• The Chief Source of problems is the
  symptomatic solutions
• Eric Severeid

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Error 3 Symptoms Approach

• Weve enjoyed successes ? laws regulations
• But traditional environmental protection
  strategies rarely achieve our goals of protecting
  the environment
• Traditional environmental protection is
  end-of-pipe where symptomatic thinking is failed
  thinking

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Error 3 Symptoms Approach
There is a clear tendency in American
conservation to relegate to government all
necessary jobs that private land-owners fail to
perform. SCA-213
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Facts do not cease to exist because we ignore
them Aldous Huxley
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What can we do?
Solutions
Principles of Sustainability
How Nature Works
Lessons for Us
Runs on renewable solar energy.
Rely mostly on renewable solar energy.
Recycles nutrients and wastes. There is little
waste in nature.
Prevent and reduce pollution and recycle and
reuse resources.
Preserve biodiversity by protecting ecosystem
services and habitats and preventing premature
extinction of species.
Uses biodiversity to maintain itself and adapt
to new environ- mental conditions.
Controls a species population size and
resource use by interactions with its
environment and other species.
Reduce human births and wasteful resource use to
prevent environmental overload and depletion and
degradation of resources.
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Sustainable Development

• Development that meets the needs of the present
  without sacrificing the ability of future
  generations to meet theirs

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• REAL THINKING - Sustainability
• Everything is connected
• Everything has to go somewhere
• There are "no free lunches"
• Every action has a consequence

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REAL THINKING Sustainability Thinking
SYSTEMICALLY (whole systems) With Long-term
Perspective And NOT Symptomatically (band-aid
solutions for the short-term)
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How far do you have to step back to see the whole
picture?
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A New Path

• Extraordinary Challenges but Lots of Hope
• All ecological problems and destruction are of
  our own making.
• 2. All our current problems can be resolved with
  current technology.
• 3. All the solutions we need have already been
  implemented somewhere on the planet.

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• Remember
• Achieving sustainability is about making choices
• You make those kinds choices all the time
• As consumers
• As citizens
• Be the change you want to create Ghandi
• What do you want the
• QUALITY of your LIFE and your descendents lives
  to be?

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Lets all create clean, reliable, affordable
energy, a clean healthy environment, and a secure
and prosperous future
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Comments?
QUESTIONS?
Today
Thoughts?