Good intentions on the deck of the Human Titanic

I just read an excellent open access article by Rachel Waters, published in the first issue of The Ecological Citizen, called "Rethinking the United Nations' concept of sustainability".

I write for the UN Environment Programme's forthcoming report "Global Environmental Outlook 6: Healthy Planet Healthy People". I absolutely concur with the main points of this paper, which are:

1. The word "sustainability" is a global catchphrase, touted by myriad businesses and institutions, in an era of accelerating climate change and deadly multi-dimensional crises.

2. When the United Nations (UN) debuted its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the document referenced the word ‘sustainable’ more than 20 times within its stated goals to tackle everything from poverty and hunger to biodiversity decline and climate change.

3. Jason Hickel, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, points out that to eradicate poverty using free market capitalism, the global economy would need to expand to 5 times its present size (Hickel, 2015). This estimate does not take into account the need to leave a fair share of Earth for other species.

4. Therein lies the greatest contradiction within the SDGs: In a world whose economies thrive largely on industries which drill, deforest and pollute, how can the SDGs simultaneously hold nations to the goal of poverty eradication while requesting they do so ‘sustainably’, when there’s nothing sustainable about the engines of growth?

5. Mankind cannot save the Earth and itself while churning out relentless economic "growth" (as I pointed out on this essay inspired by Kenneth Boulding, called "Increasing Unease on Spaceship Earth"). This contradiction is often masked by the language of sustainability, rendering it little more than a flimsy bridge between the disconnected concepts of mankind and nature, and the developed world and the developing.

6. This disconnect lies at the core of neoliberal thinking, which also contaminates the UN. This worldview has for centuries created an artificial divide between the ‘natural world’ and humanity.

7. Extractive capitalism has long lacked constraining ideas of interconnectedness. It has impregnated a view that nature’s bounty is virtually boundless, a free resource to be tapped at will to meet human wants, wishes and demands. As these demands have grown and the resources have fell – as "new poverties of water, air, land, climate and biodiversity" emerge – the word ‘sustainability’ has been slapped on as a Band-Aid.

8. This binary has never been effectively challenged. Even as scientists, activists and Indigenous peoples protest against it governments, businesses and the UN fail to operate from a sufficient stance of interconnectedness.

7. The 2014 Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) (to which I contributed) illustrates an urgent case for changing how we interact with the planet within the global capitalist system. Closer inspection reveals cognitive dissonance that mask the dire consequences of our current trajectory. The IPCC notes that global warming above 2°C  (3.6°F) will have detrimental impacts for “disadvantaged people and communities”.

Note, very confusingly, however, that the IPCC temperature baseline is uncertain (see discussion here) and not always consistent with that generally reported, such as the Paris climate agreement. The agriculture chapter, for example, uses a baseline warming of that in the late 20th century.

8. Waters argues out that the IPCC's use of language such as that climate change will harm “disadvantaged people and communities” isolates the impact of climate refugees and ecological destabilization from the rest of the world (the first and second "clastes"), distancing one from the other and potentially affecting policy and practice within so-called ‘advantaged’ societies. I would add that many comparatively affluent people will point out the suffering of the poor as a way of demonstrating their own level of compassion - but that not many such people are interested in reducing their own quality of life. The approach of most UN documents to poverty follows the poverty of the Pareto Principle; that is if I have 100 units and give you one unit, then while you gain, I lose. Therefore it's better to grow the economy, so that you gain one and I also gain something - which is likely to deepen inequality.

9. Waters also points out the reliance, almost magical thinking that relies on carbon capture and environmental ‘restoration’ in the face of accelerating extraction. She says that this reinforces the concept of man outside of nature and ignores the fact that the cost of natural goods is rising owing to scarcity and environmental externalities.

10. Like Herman Daly (see "A further critique of growth economics" (free version at www.sfu.ca/~poitras/Daly_Economic.pdf), she points out that we are stuck with these price hikes, whether we like it or not.

11. She says, in our interconnected world, there is no containment of ‘advantaged’ and ‘disadvantaged’, nor is there any harmony between relentless economic growth and planetary limits.

12. Humans are only a small part of nature; we cannot realistically extricate ourselves from each other or from nature, or adapt it to meet our demands, and "we should be ethically compelled to reduce our negative impacts as a species on the rest of the planet, as it has a right to thrive independent of the benefit that we derive from it."

13. The UN has the power of normative ideas, conveyed through the language of its documents. The UN must tackle its cognitive dissonance ("dualistic thinking") before it can ponder and help bring about sustainable development.

In summary, the SDGs may reflect good intentions on the deck of the Human Titanic, but they are nowhere near sufficiently courageous. Those with power, reinforced and rewarded by neoliberalism (such as President Trump and Prime Minister Turnbull), are content for environmental brinkmanship to intensify.

There is a discussion of a range of Earth-centred issues with the Ecocentric Alliance’s email group: see www.ecocentricalliance.org/#ju

The Sustainable Development Goals: leading to a "global Brexit"?

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Although the concept of sustainable development was first clearly expressed in the report Our Common Future, published three decades ago, (with earlier precedents) the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) paid little attention to sustainability. Of the ten MDGs, the seventh, which relates to environmental protection, was a spectacular failure. Hastily conceived, and almost overlooked by Mark Malloch Brown, then administrator of the United Nation Development Programme, this Goal sought to “ensure environmental sustainability.” One of its targets was to “integrate principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes” and “reverse the loss of environmental resources.” While its other targets (improve water access and the lives of slum dwellers) are more on track, the failure of the main theme is extremely serious, threatening not only to worsen the lives of future slum dwellers, but to destroy civilization within a century.

In a welcome re-awakening of high level concerns that development must be sustainable, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) took effect in 2015. Claimed by its supporters to herald a new phase of international development, the 17 SDGs exhort all countries, rich and poor, to work towards genuinely sustainable, inclusive development. Critics contend, however, that the SDGs demonstrate profound cognitive dissonance, and provide a façade behind which global injustice will continue, and where “eco-social” determinants of universal human wellbeing will deteriorate.

The SDGs, in fact, are riddled with cognitive dissonance. Their reliance on conventionally defined economic "growth" is a fatal flaw. They remind me of the false promises that globalisation would bring health and prosperity for all. For example, SDG 8 endorses rapid economic growth, including at least 7% per annum in the least developed countries. But economic growth is not, as far as I can tell, defined to include externalities, negative and positive. Can this be achieved without undermining the natural environment, and thus undermining human development?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to me are a fantasy, conjoured by elites living safe within the global fortress, in order to reassure themselves of their own morality and compassion, and to reassure the poor that all will be well. (Not that the poor are likely to have ever heard of the SDGs). 

The problem with living inside a fortress (rather than the kind of world the SDGs imagine, and which, to be fair, many of its promoters work for) is that, eventually, the walls crumble. Well before that point, mentality changes within the fortress, as people think more and more of defence rather than assistance; other people become threats rather than potential friends. This is certainly the case in Australia and the US, as support for migration falters. 

A fairer world is actually safer, happier, less fearful, and healthier. But how do we make it fairer? The SDGs need a path to be partly realised, as well as a less utopian framing, which would make them more credible. Such a path is barely sketched. It cannot be achieved in an intensifying fortress world. It requires more academic honesty about limits to growth, and its implications, including for freedom.

Could the arc of the universe bend toward justice?

Somehow, in this dark night, we have to find some light. Martin Luther King is said to have said "the arc of the universe bends toward justice” (mentioned in this video). (This phrase is attributed to abolitionist Theodore Parker, writing in 1853.) One glimmer of hope I have is the knowledge and increasing realisation that globalisation and neoliberalism have failed.

While a reformed, moderated form of economics and power distribution currently seems unlikely to emerge, I doubt this would have arisen in a US administration led by Hilary Clinton. Were I a US citizen, I would have voted for Bernie Sanders - but neither the power elite nor the people in the rustbucket states were ready for that (though this article claims Sanders would have defeated Trump in these states. It also shows a tweet by Trump where he seems to indicate he regarded Sanders as a more formidable opponent).

--> Perhaps four years of Trump's erratic behaviour will erode his support, even in the rusty states, away from the US coast. Perhaps Senator Elizabeth Warren (who seems to have some characteristics of Sanders) will then be elected. Perhaps Marine Le Pen's influence will wane and Angela Merkel will hang on.
Both the UK and Germany show evidence of understanding that poor eco-social determinants underpin the growing refugee crisis. Germany is acting through the UN institutions. Britain, however, seems to be acting more via its own intervention. Both approaches have a place (and China's too) - but it is also essential that the US play a better role. This will not happen with the US government under President Trump. The big US aid groups such as the Gates and Clinton Foundations are also neoliberal; perhaps the backlash  against globalisation will cause them to reconsider. Let us hope!
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About the author: Adjunct Professor Colin Butler is co-founder of two development-promoting NGOs, each of which promote old fashioned strategies for development such as health care and education. In 2014 he became the first Australian IPCC contributor to be arrested for climate disobedience.

The Sustainable Development Goals: inspirational or dangerous delusion?

The world seems in growing crisis. Pope Francis recently warned that a "piecemeal" World War III may have already begun with the current spate of crimes, massacres and destruction. Such conflict would be catastrophic in a world with so many nuclear armed states. The signs are worrying, not only with growing chaos and frank barbarism in Syria and Iraq, but also war in eastern Ukraine, and famine and genocide (and more barbarism) in parts of Africa. There is tension in the East Asian Sea and open conflict in several parts of South and South East Asia. Boku Harum seeks to annex much of north east Nigeria. 

Most conflicts relate to competition over scarce environmental and human resources, by groups seeking security at the local and regional level. Our species evolved to express this behavior, but we need to develop new insights and ways of being if we are to develop and sustain and further develop an advanced global civilization. 

In this context the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will soon be finalised (I think by the end of 2015). They are widely seen as the leading means to solve the growing global crisis. Many of its phrases are wonderfully aspirational:

“Planet Earth and its ecosystems are our home … “Mother Earth” .. common expression … Rio+20 noted that some countries recognize .. rights of nature in .. context of .. sustainable development. Rio+20 affirmed .. to achieve a just balance .. economic, social and environmental needs of present and future .. necessary to promote harmony with nature.”

But the SDG authors appear at times so optimistic as to approach delusion. One explanation is that elite global policymakers sincerely believe their rhetoric. Another possibility is that they have consciously created overly optimistic SDGs in an attempt to be inspirational. Both views are unsettling. I find it almost impossible to believe that worldly, experienced people in positions of sufficient influence to set these goals could sincerely believe they are attainable, since there is so little evidence of success (on the scale proposed). History firmly suggests they will not be realised - though progress might be made. But if they do believe this, despite the evidence, then they must be deluded, even though sincere. That is unsettling; it means we are led by powerful people who have lost touch with reality.

But it might be as or even more disturbing to think that these elite policymakers do not sincerely believe their rhetoric, but are simply trying to be inspirational. That seems more likely, but to me it suggests that are out of touch with reality, not seeing how our current is world riddled with exploitation, corruption, obscene inequality and double standards (such as the use of drones to kill people the West does not like).

For example, an SDG is to end, by 2030, all hunger. A goal to end all world hunger within a decade was made at the 1974 World Food Summit. It proved way beyond reach then, and it will now. It would need staggering, unforeseeable, beneficial changes to global human behavior, technology and the climate.

There is another explanation, which I think is more plausible than either scenario described above to explain the utopian nature of these goals. This is that these SDG-setting elites know their goals have no chance of attainment, know there have no realistic pathway to get there, and yet set them anyway, in an attempt not only to placate the masses but also create an illusion that there is skilled and caring leadership.

Genuinely useful and inspiring SDGs need more clear-thinking, more truth-telling (including of recognition of double standards and obstacles) and clearly mapped pathways to their achievement. Inspiration is necessary, but I believe that exaggeration sets up future disappointment and promotes cynicism. It also suggests, perhaps paradoxically that elites don't really give a hoot about the poor and inequality, other than to maintain their own power and privilege, as Guardian journalist Larry Elliott recently suggested about the behaviour of the global elite at the Davos World Economic Forum. I'm editing this post on so called Australia Day (or sorry day), on the morning that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appointed Prince Philip, who is married to the Australian head of state, who lives in London, UK, as an Australian knight. I can't resist adding that this action illustrates how the rich and powerful look after one another. To me, it just more evidence that the SDGs will remain hopelessly out of reach.

However, although the SDGs are, in my view, so utopian that they are harmful (or more precisely they illustrate and reflect an elite that is out of touch) we must nonetheless still try to promote sustainable development. Part of that pathway is to recognise that there are limits to growth, to accelerate a clean energy transition, and to challenge the domination of conventional economics. That also sounds utopian, but it would steer us in a better direction than the SDGs as they stand.