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Ethics of Sustainability

Ethics of Sustainability. Situating the “discourse” of sustainability Why now, what purposes does it serve? Defining and critiquing the concept Sources of ambiguity Sustainability in context Related discourses Note on resilience . A Little History: Modern States and Social Sciences.

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Ethics of Sustainability

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  1. Ethics of Sustainability • Situating the “discourse” of sustainability • Why now, what purposes does it serve? • Defining and critiquing the concept • Sources of ambiguity • Sustainability in context • Related discourses • Note on resilience ESPP-78

  2. A Little History: Modern States and Social Sciences • Rise of “governmentality” in 19th century • Rise of new institutions of people management (hospitals, schools, prisons, factories, etc.) • New means of classification, standardization, and separation of normal from abnormal • Associated forms of technical expertise (e.g., statistics, economics, risk assessment) • Emergence of populations and their lives as objects of government (biopolitics, biopower) ESPP-78

  3. Globalization and Environmental Sciences • New sciences (or scientific discourses) appear to underwrite new global institutions. • Climate science, remote sensing, “sustainability science,” vulnerability assessment, resilience, biodiversity • Which institutions are developing these global ways of knowing the world? • WCED, IPCC, UNEP, WHO, WTO, World Bank… • Who consumes this knowledge? • How are these sciences validated? ESPP-78

  4. Trust in Models? • Fairhead and Leach: “Second Nature” • Which came first in West Africa: forest or savannah? • Two ways of seeing the Ozone Hole • British Antarctic Survey: Farman et al. (1985) surprised atmospheric scientists when they announced in Nature a rapid decrease of 50% in total ozone that occurred over Halley Bay, Antarctica, each year from 1975 to 1984, reaching the lowest annual values in early October. • NASA satellite: Early in 1984, the quality control team at NASA was aware of a cluster of anomalously low ozone occurrences in Antarctic readings from September-October 1983. But they thought they were looking at an instrument problem, because their data did not match the normal levels being reported from the American South Pole ground station at the same time. ESPP-78

  5. What is Sustainability? • Defining sustainability (WCED, 1987): • “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” • How many ambiguities does this definition contain? ESPP-78

  6. What’s new about sustainability? A Paradigm Shift? • Features to note: • Merger of environment and economics • “Sustainable development” • Intergenerational concerns • Interests of future generations on a par with present • Placeless in application • Defined at unspecified scales, from local to global • Cuts across nature and society • Which is it that needs to be sustained (Makah or whales)? ESPP-78

  7. Scale and Sustainability: Formal Agreements • Rio “Earth Summit” of 1992 • Emergence of a networked global environmental movement (Global Forum) • Business Council for Sustainable Development • Rio Declaration (“Earth Charter”) • A constitution for the earth? • Agenda 21 • Emphasis on local action (e.g., cities enter the picture) • Notion of “partnership” (inclusion of corporate actors) ESPP-78

  8. Problems of Enforcing Sustainable Development • Ambiguity and lack of clear standards • What is the scale of definition of sustainability? • How should existing disparities be factored in when looking at needs of future generations? • If sustainability requires social justice, then how will conflicts about justice be resolved? • Nation-states have refereeing institutions, but what about global governance? ESPP-78

  9. “Speaking” Global Environmentalism • Sustainability • From harms (“bads”) that should be prevented to benefits (“goods”) that should be protected • Vulnerability • From causes of harm to effects of harm • Resilience • From risk of damage to potential for recovery • Environmental equity • From probability of harm to distribution of harm • Biodiversity • From threatened and endangered to flourishing variety • Precaution • From assessing (un)certain harms to avoiding severe harms ESPP-78

  10. The Normativity of Resilience • Not just another planning discourse but also a product of long histories of survival • Where do imaginaries of resilience come from? • From exile to empire • Diaspora of the British Loyalists • Islands of the mind • Disappearance of Kiribati, Maldives -- and their peoples? ESPP-78

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