Dear Tom,
in open response to your comments. Now in my view there is a link between
your notions of aspirational goals and my views on sustainability. So
much of present-day transition to sustainability is about minimising the
resource demands of existing activities, which involve mild forms of
innovation but are hardly aspirational and inspiring. I would contend
that the only substantive way to a 'close to sustainable' future will
involve great human ingenuity and technological and social innovation.
That is really aspirational because it will require such radical
technological and social change, courage and wisdom.
Indeed the changes envisioned if we truly seek this goal would make the
NASA space-venture look like the commitment by a child to the building of
a sand castle and a balmy summers day.
Maybe what we need is the same type of leadership Kennedy gave when
commiting the US to its space mission. If that leadership was good enough
for space surely something bolder, more innovative and more challenging is
no less than the Earth and its inhabitants deserve. Given this thought
where indeed are the leaders?? And why do they niot come forward?
Nigel Roome
> > > Dear Friends:
>
> Nigel's post provoked me to think about my occasional discomfort with
> the term "sustainable" and I turned to the economic movement called
> General Equilibrium. That movement, still dominant in much of the
> world, was a response to fears of economic Depressions. To avoid the
> downsides, economists and their fellow travelers in the policy world
> tried to build systems that prevented bad things. What we have found
> out, and as Joseph Schumpeter pointed out during the last Great
> Depression, success in that effort also costs us some good things like
> creativity, improvements, positive change. When we focus on minimizing
> the downside risks, we tend to also minimize the upside, creating a
> static version of the status quo. Schumpeter rejected that, being much
> more interested in figuring out what causes improvements.
>
> Sustainability sounds a lot like an ecological version of General
> Equilibrium -- like we are aiming at a minimal steady state. Granted,
> that threshold is probably better than we are achieving in many facets
> of human activity now, but is it the right kind of goal? Like
> Schumpeter, I'm more interested in the things that make us better, not
> in a specific target, an unreachable asymptote.
>
> Is sustainability the best to which we can aspire? I'd like to think
> we can aim higher, above that threshold. Much of human history is
> defined by our attempts to improve things. Such basic things as
> gardening, scientific research, engineering, exploration, cooking,
> architecture -- the marks of human history are those of improvements.
> So, for me, and accepting Nigel's definitions, sustainability is a type
> of minimum goal.
>
> I'd like to see our schools have goals that aim at doing better than
> the ecological minimum. We have lots of evidence of environmental
> damage. We have some idea of what break-even would be like. What's
> beyond that? Where are humans acting in ways that improve the ecology
> of this planet? Do we have some examples of that already? (Yup, I
> think so, but I'm looking forward to the debate!) That's what we should
> be aiming at in our research, and what we should be teaching in our
> schools.
>
> Just stirring the pot on a fragrant and humid Louisiana afternoon...
>
> Best regards,
>
> Tom.
>
>
> Prof. Thomas A. Bryant, Ph.D.
> The Bollinger Family Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship
> Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, LA 70310, USA
> Tel: (985) 448-4179; e-mail:
tom.bryant@nicholls.edu
>