Sustainability

1. Class 12: Wessels, The Myth of Progress, Intro & 5 CofC Fall 2010 Sustainability

2. Progress • “It’s a very recent phenomenon that landscapes to which people were once connected have become smothered by development—growth that we are told is a sign of progress. But is progress truly possible if its wake continually generates loss—loss of connections to place and community, loss of clean air and water, loss of other species who are truly part of our ancestral family tree?” (p. xii)

3. Myth of Progress, Intro • Book Thesis: Challenge to our current “paradigm” that “in order to progress we need to keep growing the economy.” • Paradigm: represents a core belief that dramatically structures our worldview. • Econ growth: predicated on increasing consumption of resources • Econ Development: can occur w/o increasing consumption—encouraged thru value-added activities (p. xvi)

4. Introduction • Book seeks to address both literature on unlimited growth is not sustainable AND complex systems science through chaos theory. 2 Elements of Progress that support Myth of Unlimited Progress • Material “Progress”: indicators are based on GDP • Linear Model of “Progress”: fails to acct for iterative feedback that can change how a complex system behaves.

5. Hierarchy of Progress • Need different measure of material progress  hierarchy of progress with emotional well-being at top, material at bottom • “our task as individuals is to progress in a manner in which our attention, compassion, and empathy grow ever-outward to benefit our communities and society as a whole” (p95) • First, indivs have to reach a state of emotional well-being  become fulfilled • Material progress can foster well-being but it can also erode them if a society becomes too focused • Studies show: More affluence, less contentment

6. Cultural Change = Ancient Values • Large part of prob is individualism & self-absorption Lessons from Ancient cultures: • Reciprocal altruism • Each had a critical role, but knew place within world • Part of land, not apart from it • Reflective practice

7. 10000 Yrs of Cultural Transformation • 2 changes with advent of agriculture • 1. part of land replaced with being apart from it • 2. as villages grew, political hierarchies formed * resulted in exclusion • With Ind Rev: • Extended families shed for more mobile nuclear ones • Societal changes accelerated, & with greater mobility, connections that grounded people to place were lost • Today (4th cultural transformation) • Global, postindustrial culture  shifts in populations from pol & econ upheavals and changing job mkts • Nuclear family under assult (both parents work) • Major decisions made by trade reps, MNCs, & appt officials

8. Epilogue: Connection not Consumption • Main Prob: “isolation of people from community, place and reflective practice has become a crisis of culture.” (p109). • As economy & consumption grow, entropy (sys becomes disorganized & simplified as it loses energy) will accelerate. The feedback from this mounting entropy will eventually destabilize and curtail econ growth.” • “with an econ sys that continuously moves away from cooperative integration of efficient, specialized enterprises to huge transnationals that thrive on competitive exclusion, we find a system that grows increasingly wasteful, lacks critical redundancy, and as a result moves toward greater instability.” (p113) • CSA: Community Supported Agriculture  people buy shares in a farm and get all produce as members