Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Farmer Philosopher

Redefining Sustainability: From “Greening” to Enhancing Capacity for Self-Renewal

Redefining Sustainability From “Greening” to Enhancing Capacity for Self-Renewal “Going green” seems to be the new sustainability slogan designed to save the planet. The question is: if we all go green, will that get us to sustainability? A typical dictionary definition of “sustain” is “to maintain,” “to keep going ,” “to keep in existence.” As a broad overview, that is a useful definition, because it calls into question exactly what it is that we want to maintain. In today’s discourse, we generally view sustainability from a quantitative perspective. How can we maintain or improve crop yields? How can we maintain the growth of the economy? How can we improve the energyefficiency of our vehicles so we can continue transporting goods from one part of the world to another in the face of rising energy costs? How can we increase the cod population to maintain our seafood industry? Both environmental and commercial sectors have been captured by this approach to sustainability. More recently we have added the “greening” component to this quantitative perspective. Recognizing that we are reaching certain thresholds that could fundamentally change the functioning of the planet, we are beginning to focus on improving efficiencies, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions , switching from fossil energy to renewable alternatives, and recycling more of our wastes. On the surface these seem like laudable activities, but will they lead us to sustainability? Inspired by the insights of ecologists like C. S. Holling, a new professional society has emerged during the last fifteen years called the Resilience Alliance. Following Holling’s description of natural systems and how they function, the Resilience Alliance has concluded that this quantita238 A version of this article was originally published in the Networker, July/August 2008, available at http://www.sehn.org. 239 Redefining Sustainability tive approach to sustainability is “based on false assumptions. In a world characterized by dynamic change in ecological and social systems, it is at least as important to manage systems to enhance their resilience as it is to manage the supply of specific products.”1 Using the quantitative approach, the Alliance claims, “We have assumed that we could manage individual components of an ecological system independently, find an optimal balance between supply and demand for each component, and that other attributes of the system would stay largely constant through time.”2 Given how both social and ecological systems function, that is a fundamentally flawed assumption. All social and biophysical systems are constantly changing. The basic message from the resilience thinkers is that doing more of the same—new technologies, greater efficiency, more control and command, more intensification, more single-tactic strategies, without addressing the resilience of systems—will not lead to sustainability. A central problem is that the kind of efficiency that leads to optimization tends to eliminate redundancies, the key ingredient of resilience. Additionally, the achievement of such efficiencies tends to cause rebound effects. More fuel-efficient cars inevitably lead to more driving. The kind of greening that pushes the pedal to the metal a little harder—more efficient technologies, better command and control, input substitution—ends up creating the problem we intended to solve. We delude ourselves into believing that working smarter will solve the problem. More often it reinforces the problem, because we have not approached it from a dynamic social/ecological systems perspective. The central issue is that we can never control whole systems; nor can we totally control any part of a system in isolation. Consequently, while greening may bring about desirable short-term results, it will never lead to sustainability. Our world is a complex adaptive system that is interconnected , interdependent, and constantly changing. All systems are unpredictable and proceed in a nonlinear fashion. We can never hold a system in an optimal sustainable state. We can only design systems to enhance their capacity for self-renewal. Sustainability from a resilience perspective operates at two levels. All systems (biophysical and social) operate within a certain structure and function. A shock or disturbance may cause a system to cross a threshold into a new structure and function. For example, recent flooding in Indiana caused a disturbance for Jim Lankford, a farmer who raises corn and soy- 240 Cultivating an Ecological Conscience beans in Indiana. The current “stable” form of agriculture in the Corn Belt is monoculture corn and soybeans, leaving large swaths of soil vulnerable to soil erosion. Unusually heavy rain falling in a short period...