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How to measure and evaluate progress in achieving the “overarching objective” of sustainable production and consumption?
Posted on August 15th, 2009Categorized as Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as consumption, measuring progress, production, scientific consensus, sustainable development
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At the 1992 Earth Summit, world leaders acknowledged that unsustainable production and consumption patterns are the major cause of environmental degradation. These patterns drive climate change, biodiversity loss, and other global crises. In 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable Development identified sustainable production and consumption as one of the “overarching objectives” of sustainable development. However, to achieve this objective — to develop appropriate policies, programs, and criteria for critical decisionmaking — we need scientific consensus on how to define, measure, and evaluate progress. If this “overarching objective” is to be taken serious by the international community as a global priority it needs to be grounded in meaningful, operational definitions and measures.
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Can we envision the detailed functioning of a zero-growth economy?
Posted on August 27th, 2009Categorized as Biodiversity, Interdisciplinary, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as closed-loop systems, economic growth, measuring progress, zero-growth economy
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If we remain on one planet, physical limits suggest that we will eventually need to establish a zero growth economy, even if cheap energy eventually becomes available, and especially if we are to curb our impact on natural environments. If this is so, there are many challenges – (i) in the social system in devising and accepting new criteria for quality of living; (ii) in the economic sphere in envisaging an economics based on zero growth (at least by today’s measures); but also (iii) in the biophysical domain in identifying how we could manage many cycles as closed, recycled systems. It would help if biophysical scientists began to apply serious attention at the global scale to how we could limit the growth of the nitrogen cycle and the redirection of the water cycle, yet still deliver food; as well as address a new order of magnitude of recycling of building materials, metals, and many other items in our day to day lives. The conceptual and practical changes will be substantial, so an integrated investigation of how they might be made needs to begin soon.
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How are ecosystems responding to global efforts to curb changes?
Posted on September 1st, 2009Categorized as Interdisciplinary Tagged as climate change, conservation, ecosystems, feedbacks, impact assessment, measuring progress
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In the face of climate change, management actions are important tool for ecosystem conservation – we need to know if local and global efforts are effective or not – This is very crucial for the future of life in earth. It is only important to take action, it is more important to see the impact and whether we are doing the right thing and whether it is enough to safe lives and maintain ecosystem ability to cope with this global challenge or not?? .
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One huge challenge facing our ability to embark on more socially and ecologically-sustainable pathways is presented by the metrics through which governments measure “progress.” What are alternative ways to measure progress, do we even need to think in terms of “progress,” and what institutional changes are needed to change the ways we measure progress or change?
Posted on August 11th, 2009Categorized as Interdisciplinary, Social Science, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as institutions, measuring progress, political change, sustainable development
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Measures such as GDP and even HDI have been critiqued in the social sciences for being inadequate in multiple ways. We thus need some better metrics that recognize the deep inter-linkages between social and ecological systems. Importantly, we also need accompanying political changes to change the way the world understands progress. Obstacles include a dazzling array of different measures of “sustainable development,” an equal number of critiques of these measures, and a dearth of research on how exactly we get from point A (our current political systems, focused on GDP, growth, etc) to point B (a new political system that uses better metrics).
