Sustainable Development, or Alice in Wonderland?
Translation: Jean-Rémi Chareyre
Fashion is a powerful driver of human behaviour. Whether we like it or not, fashion substitutes emotion for thought, and mimicry for analysis. When talking about fashion, the first things that come to our mind are clothing or other consumption items, but fashion phenomena are actually to be found everywhere, not least in the domain of ideas and notions.
Today, a very fashionable idea lies behind the notion of “sustainable development”, being defined first in 1987 as follows:
Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
It is definitely a good intention to wish for the everlasting prosperity of humankind, existing and to come, everywhere and all the time. But is the existence of the concept of “sustainable development” of any help to better meet that objective? Does it help us to define precise and realistic goals for the future of humanity? A close consideration of the notion shows that, unfortunately, this is not the case. Its definition provides no particular answer when trying to make reasonable decisions about our future.
When will our “needs” be met?
Let’s start with environmental issues. Is sustainable development of any use to help set boundaries or limits to the ecological pressure we exert on the planet? No: it is perfectly impossible to deduct from the definition where the boundaries should be, as nobody knows how to define, in a non-ambiguous manner, what the “needs of the present”. Hence, it is impossible to determine the amount of resources that are necessary to meet those needs.
Can we say that we have “met our needs” when life expectancy has reached 40 years everywhere? Or will we have to wait until everybody turns 120 to consider that to be the case? Have we “met our needs” when we have 100 square feet of heated living space per person, or does every inhabitant on Earth need 1500 square feet along with a holiday residence featuring a private swimming pool and bubble jet jacuzzi? Have we “met our needs'' when every person on Earth has access to 7000 kilowatt-hours of energy (the average energy use in India according to Our World in Data) or are 165.000 kilowatt-hours (the average in Iceland) necessary to provide everyone with a suitable “quality of life”?
Do we “need” to travel by plane once, 50, or 500 times during our lifetime? Do we “need” to eat 20 or 100 kg of meat per year? Do we “need” one or ten birthday presents every year? Do we “need” one, two or zero car(s) per household in the world?
It must be conceded that, apart from a few very basic needs required for survival, such as water, food, sleep and protection from the cold, the very notion of “needs” is unfathomably ambiguous. The definition of “sustainable development” therefore does nothing to help us set limits or targets, whereas managing a society and its environment often includes setting objectives and limits.
Moreover, our individual “needs” may be in opposition with our collective “needs”, and then “sustainable development” does not provide us with the slightest bit of help to reach a compromise. In the name of individual freedom, we “need” to grant every adult the right to drive wherever they like in their private vehicle, some will argue. But in the name of the common interest, others will reply, we “need” to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is difficult to conciliate with the present amount of car driving. What is the solution to this dilemma according to the definition of sustainable development?
Around the sun in a space shuttle
It is difficult enough to define the “needs of the present” and find the right balance between the “needs” of individuals and the “needs” of the community, but it is an even greater challenge to define the “needs of future generations”. First, what do we mean by “future”? Is it enough for the present “development” to be “sustainable” for at least 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? Or should it be “sustainable” for at least 3 millennia?
Defining the “needs” of our descendants proves to be just as daunting a challenge. Our ancestors who lived around 1800 – most of them farmers – lived in small huts with minimal access to food and heat, resting one day per week at best. They lived half as long as we do today, and didn’t even know the concept of “summer holidays”. If we could travel back in time and perform an opinion poll asking them what their “needs” were, we can reasonably assume that their answers would differ greatly from the answers of a modern-day Icelander.
So, not only is there no clear answer to what the “needs” of the present generations are, but trying to discover what will be the “needs” of future generations is akin to predicting the future by inspecting the entrails of a sacrificed animal (something the ancient Romans could have actually taught us). If the modern world has deteriorated enough by 2150, perhaps dying at 40 after having eaten sufficiently during one’s lifetime will be the best wish of our remote descendants, but if the “energy miracle” has happened, maybe that flying around the sun in a space shuttle for their twentieth birthday will be everyone’s idea of a “normal life”…
Six impossible things before breakfast
The most appalling fact of the matter is that a significantly large number of well-educated and well-informed people seem persuaded that the mere existence of the notion of “sustainable development” will allow us to violate the laws of physics, and that a world of plenty is now at our doors. Its very definition calls for this illusion, as it leads us to believe that we can satisfy everybody’s needs, everywhere and forever, without mentioning any limits to this “satisfaction of needs”. It is a promise, in short, that infinity is right around the corner.
This desire, a call to believe “six impossible things before breakfast” as the white queen put it in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, is to be found among others in the United Nations’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are a statement of belief that we can solve every problem at once.
This is, of course, very human. When we sapiens realise that we cannot have everything, a perverse mental reaction comes into play: the idea that a negative development in the environmental sphere can be compensated by a positive development in the economic sphere and that hereby the outcome will be “neutral”. In other words, after our school teachers have banned us for years from adding up peanuts and cauliflower, here comes “sustainable development” teaching us to add up increasing CO₂ emissions but deduct from it the decrease in the number of children at work in Bangladesh, to then multiply the result by the building of a new hospital in Burkina-Faso and the improving competitivity of the Icelandic fishing industry, and finally divide the result by the increased life expectancy in Africa and the halt on deforestation in South-East Asia. Is this what “sustainable development” is about? The denial of elementary mathematical rules, painstakingly learnt in the no less elementary school?
“One can't believe impossible things,” Lisa said.
“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
To have one’s cake and eat it too
If we fail to address an issue that threatens the very life of a large portion of humanity, what would be the point of “solving” other problems that humanity is dealing with? Is there a shred of rationality in imagining that we can implement “education for all” in a country whose citizens will suffer from famine due to repeated crop failures, or will experience a war caused by increased competition for dwindling resources?
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SGGs) according to the United Nations. Each objective on the list contradicts one or more other objectives on the same list. Eradicating poverty (goal 1) implies increasing income (which is also necessary for 8 and 9), which means that production needs to increase, and with it the use of fossil fuels, so that the first goal contradicts SDGs 12, 13, 14 and 15. SDG 3 (good health) implies an increasing global population, leading to increasing environmental pressure as larger areas need to make room for human infrastructure (contradictory to SDG 15). SDG 2 (zero hunger) implies more land use change for agriculture which is contradictory to protecting biodiversity (SDG 15) and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (SDG 13). And so on…
The notion has also brought about another absurdity: the idea that we can solve a major problem with minor solutions. Almost every solution today presented as being part of “sustainable development” is missing the problem by a couple of zeros. Given the present level of consumption, it is physically impossible to replace all oil consumption by biofuels or e-fuels, conventional coal-fired power plants by wind power, fishing by aquaculture, coal by wood or plastics by line fibre…
It is still the “sustainable development” that will sometimes be put forward to explain that we can enlarge the Keflavik Airport while voluntarily reducing air travel, that we can widen roads and build more bridges and tunnels while, at the same time, voluntarily reducing car traffic, that corporations which emit enormous amounts of CO₂ can at the same time be champions of environmental protection (such as when the aluminium producer Norðurál was granted the title of “environmental company of the year”), that developing countries have a right to develop along with a duty to reduce their CO₂-emissions (which today is unfortunately impossible), and so on… Alices of all Wonderlands, unite!
Sustainability, an all-purpose seasoning for every opportunity
When analysing environmental processes, figures can be hard to establish, but they have an objective meaning: land use, energy and water consumption, the number of existing superior mammal species, or the amount of rain in a particular year can be measured, and an hectare represents the same surface for everyone. It is possible to define a common language, and, as the case may be, to define a non-ambiguous objective, such as no more than X tons of CO₂ per person and per year or no more than Y tonnes of cod per fishing season. And, most of all, when discussing interactions between humanity and the physical world, it is conceivable to define what is “sustainable”, or more precisely what is not: any behaviour that requires a resource, or a purification capability that will become unavailable in a couple of decades is obviously not sustainable!
The notion of sustainability has however been hijacked by fashion and is now being used as a kind of all-purpose seasoning fit for all kinds of dishes. HÍ is no exception to this tendency, as this is the definition of “sustainability” according to its website:
Sustainability is a wide-ranging notion. It does not only apply to environmental issues but also to social justice, health and welfare, culture and economics.
But when turning to social matters, how can one define what is “sustainable”? It is definitely possible to make social inequalities last forever, as history clearly shows injustice is as old as humanity. There is no single example of a perfectly egalitarian society, and yet that has not prevented societies of the past from being “sustainable”.
If we make it a matter of equity, we are in no better position. In one cultural context, “equity” may be interpreted as meaning that no children under 8 years of age should be made to work, and in another culture that minimum could be twelve years. In one society, it may mean that a CEO’s wages should not exceed the wages of 10 workers, and in another society the wages of a hundred workers, and so on. So, what is the norm?
Finally, turning to economics, the objective definition of what can be sustained is even harder: what is a sustainable GDP, or a sustainable turnover? What is “sustainable welfare”? The Icelandic Business Association (Samtök atvinnulífsins), for example, writes on their website:
The three main pillars of sustainable development are protection of the environment, social welfare and economic growth.
A growing number of scientists have, however, pointed to the inconvenient fact that over the last 200 years, economic growth has been the main driver of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. “Sustainable economic growth” is therefore a notion that makes about as much sense as “dry rainfall” or “dark sunlight”. Our ability to dilute the meaning of a rather simple notion with wishful thinking seems to have no limits…
A soft landing or chaotic crash?
The reason behind the popularity of the concept of “sustainable development” might be convenience. That is, the notion has proven to be a convenient one for public relations experts in search of a good justification for a behaviour or activity which, according to measurable environmental criteria, is clearly not “sustainable”.
Thus, the existence of a “sustainable development report” is not a guarantee that the organisation or company issuing the report has a “sustainable” record, even though the authors of the report might be well-intentioned.
But even though the notion is of very little practical use that does not mean we should not be worried about environmental limits – quite the contrary. In a finite world, trees don’t grow indefinitely. We are sometimes told that the choice is between “restricting ourselves forever” or “stuffing ourselves forever”, but, when it comes to any limited resource that we presently rely on, the choice is only between managing ourselves an unavoidable decrease, with a pace that we can control so as to keep the landing as pleasant as possible, or waiting for Mother Nature to take the matter in her own hands and do the regulating on her own terms. In the latter scenario, history tells us that the conclusion is generally very unlikely to improve satisfaction among human societies, or contribute to fulfilling our “needs”.
The right question to ask, therefore, is not whether a decrease in overexploitation of natural resources will happen, but rather when and how: now, on our own terms, or later, according to the laws of nature. The notion of “sustainable development” does not seem to provide any help in facing this reality.
This article is based on previous writings by Jean-Marc Jancovici, a member of France’s High Council on Climate and president of the Shift Project think tank.