Sustainability

Sustainability is the third and final fundamental principle upon which my visions of utopia are based on. Freedom relates to the individual and equality relates to the whole collective of individuals, both of which are human factors. Sustainability is the only non-human factor that is needed, largely because the scope of sustainable practices is huge. Sustainability protects the environment in which the society resides and draws its sustenance from, which in the current global economy, with present industry practices, is the whole planet. It is far easier to make an argument for the necessity of sustainability within society by defining unsustainability. Any recurring process which is not sustainable must cease to occur with the passage of enough time. It is as simple as that. I shall return to a quote I have previously used from Bertrand Russell;

"To formulate any satisfactory modern ethic of human relationship, it will be essential to recognize the necessary limitations of men's power over the non-human environment, and the desirable limitations of their power over each other."

Russell is very clear in this statement in the difference of importance between limitations on an individuals freedom over the environment and individuals freedom over each other. The former is essential while the latter is only desirable. To appreciate the gravity of this statement I shall remind the reader that laws against rape and murder are the present manifestations of the desirable limitation. To Russell, well before peak oil was even predicted, conserving our environment was far more important than preventing rapes and murder. This seems cold or perhaps immoral, largely this is my fault in how I have chosen to analyse the sentiment to illustrate my point. It is however both the utilitarian and the pragmatic approach, and I entirely agree with Russell. As time progresses and more of the unsustainable human processes are forced to cease, human existence will tend towards a far more primitive existence capable of supporting far fewer persons. In these terms the loss of billions of people and the further loss of all those persons potential progeny clearly outweigh the ill deeds we do to each other, not to mention the reduction in quality of life for those who remain. How society would revert is hard to imagine and would certainly be a gradual uncertain transition. This inability to truly conceive or appreciate the ramifications of continued unsustainable action is largely to blame for the popular view not being more in line with mine and Russell's.

In reality we have always on the clock as the sun will pose many problems for us. The sun's expansion is likely to make the Earth too hot for life in around a billion years, for which fantastical solutions exist such as altering our orbit with asteroids. After that hurdle the sun will burn out it another four to eight billion years removing the energy source for life. Even if we had the technology to move the Earth and provide sufficient power to fuel it or resettle the populace on other worlds it is all just a game of prolonging the inevitable entropy death. No fuel is entirely renewable, a perpetual motion machine is impossible. Solar power is called renewable as we shall have access to it for significantly longer than fossil fuels. The same is true of nuclear fission and even the holy grail of fusion, both still require raw materials to work. Their relative abundance and power yields are just many many orders of magnitude greater than those we call non-renewable energy sources. They are more sustainable than the alternatives which is really the aim when finding power sources. So much so that they could last until the more cataclysmic issue of the Sun. A sustainable practice is therefore one that can continue to occur at the same rate for longer than is relevant.

Such a ridiculously long way into humanities future is impossible to account for with understandings and capabilities both likely to be utterly different from those now. Logically the solution is to base present actions on current technology and understanding and consider shorter more practical time frames upon which to measure sustainability. A thousand years is a very long time in terms of human civilization but tiny in terms of ecosystems. It is still a fairly reasonable figure to use to look at the sustainability of human action as it lies between the two elements. As complete sustainability is impossible to achieve the goal is improving the sustainability of thing relative to what ever the current level is, making processes able to continue for longer. As relative sustainability is the only real measure, a nominal figure serves to align the units and make them sensible, it also sets a realistic bench mark to aim for initially.

Say fossil fuels used at the present rate would last for 100 more years they would have a 0.1 measure of sustainability (as in this process can continue for 0.1 of 1000 years before it must cease), compared to say solar power which has at least 1,000,000 on the same scale. Sadly the two are not directly comparable as solar can only really provide electrical power, not plastics or a transportable, reliable fuel.

When looking at specific industries many factors can be ignored. The felling of the rainforest for timber is mostly an unsustainable process as the forest is unable to regrow. The cutting down of every tree in a large area has a measure of sustainability of about 0.05 to 0.5 based on current timber consumption and rainforest area as these are the limiting and relevant factors. Although fossil fuels are widely used within the process and therefore add to the unsustainability of the overall process they are not the aim of that industry. The responsibility to make machinery and electricity sustainable rests with the industries who produce them more than those who use them. If we were to also consider the use of fossil fuels in the acquisition of timber we would not be able to give it a value much greater than 0.1 as that is the value we gave to the sustainability of fossil fuels. A process is only as sustainable as the least sustainable part of the overall process. This means that the most important issues to address are the least sustainable ones, processes which have values in the vicinity of solar power are not worth any immediate attention at all and are of a lower priority than colonising space or relocating earth! Much like quality of life within society the optimal way in which to improve sustainability is by raising the bar across the board. Society is best when no citizens fall below a ever rising bar for quality of life and when no process falls below an ever rising bar for relative sustainability.

There are a number of different ways to look at the sustainability of processes. Quantity of stuff and rate of consumption of the stuff provide for a reasonable approximation in the most severe cases. Whatever the stuff in question, it will also have a rate of formation. When the rate of consumption is a significant number of orders of magnitude greater than the rate of formation it is reasonable to consider that stuff to be a static stock pile. The rainforest can regrow if only a few trees are taken here and there, at which point the rate of consumption could equal the rate of natural formation and no replanting measures would need to be taken. The rate of consumption is the most relevant figure in looking at sustainability, not the actual quantity of stuff. This immediately gives two ways to tackle a sustainability concern, either by reducing consumption or increasing the rate of formation. This assumes that the problem is the loss of a useful resource rather than the propagation of harmful substances, such as processes which evolve carbon dioxide that above certain levels harms the environment. While this is essentially just the reverse of the the previous example it does allow for different approaches. We cannot really increase the rate of natural formation of fossil fuels, nor reasonably create them ourselves in an efficient way and as such are options are to find an alternative or reduce consumption. With carbon dioxide we can tackle the problem by reducing emissions via alternatives or consumption reduction or by directly removing the compound. The latter example is considered far less often as it is more fantastical but it does offer some significant advantages over reduced consumption or alternatives, both of which can cause uncomfortable social transitions and a reduction in freedom and quality of life. Imagine if we engineered a cell which could produce oil as a bye-product and consumed abundant resources such as sunlight to do so. This could solve much of the problems linked to a shortage of fossil fuels but would not tackle the pollution issues. By removing the pollutants in a separate process (perhaps also using engineered cells) rather than trying to reduce their formation we would be able to take full advantage of fossil fuels without any concerns for the environment thus increasing freedoms. Our broader options for these situations are to not damage the environment, or repair the damage that we do.

Recycling is a way to effectively increase the rate of formation of something which is being used. This works very well with substances like steel, acceptably well with some plastics and not at all with fuels used to obtain power. In the latter case you would always need more energy to undo the process than it can yield and therefore achieves less than doing nothing. With plastics it is often more expensive to recycle them than to simply use fossil fuels to make more. This will become less cost effective as supplies run lower and increase the economic viability of recycling. One of the few reasonable uses of subsidy and tax incentives which interfere with free market economics is to increase the viability of recycled commodities produced from finite raw resources. Reusing materials is a way in which consumption can be allowed to sustainably exceed natural formation of the raw material and should be encouraged where ever it makes environmental sense to do so.

Capitalism will eventually come to the aid of unsustainable practices but only when supply cannot meet demand, which can occur long after an unsustainable process starts. As so much infrastructure is based on the use of fossil fuels capitalism may be a little late in finding an alternative. It is hard to predict exactly how global society will transition out of a reliance of fossil fuels, we may adapt seamlessly with new technologies or chaos could ensue and put humanity back severely. Capitalism can be relied upon to achieve the best solutions for public demand but not to ensure the fundamental things upon which society relies without some action from state. Even if capitalism does offer a smooth transition out of fossil fuel usage there are many other unsustainable processes occurring which are either important to society or detrimental to the environment. Is it wise to leave all of the foreseeable and unforeseeable sustainability problems till the last minute? Capitalism is amazing at what it does but the mechanism by which it works is not responsive enough to offer the best chances to society. Fortunately it is quite practicable to use fiscal regulation to kick start the workings of capitalism at the beginning of any unsustainable practice. The difficulty lies in getting a global consensus, or even enough nations to make a difference (and be able to support humanity better when the forced decline of a process does cause social turmoil). Nations should lead by example both in nuclear disarmament and sustainable practices, even if one makes little practical difference the social effect would be far more significant.

I will offer now a brief summary of the technical aspects of sustainability as the ideas read a little disjointedly and lack emphasis on the main points. Society will ultimately be forced into changing all of its unsustainable processes. Capitalism offers a good mechanism to find alternatives but given the potential gravity of the changes and the nature of capitalisms solutions it is unwise to rely on this alone. The best way to implement a more sustainable system of processes is to target the least sustainable on a continual basis, thus ever increasing the overall sustainability in society with sensible priority. This can be done with subsidy on sustainable alternatives and taxes on those who continue to produce unsustainably, this can mimic the environment and the future desires of people contributing their choice to the free market. Sustainability does not have to make living more arduous and constrained, rather than seek to prohibit or make unaffordable any unsustainable activity it is possible to employ labour to undo the detrimental effects of unsustainable processes. If pollutants are removed rather than never being created the end result is the same yet the former offers many more options. As we cannot achieve perfect sustainability we must set an arbitrary level of acceptable sustainability, such as the millennia I previously used, which should also continually raise as the least sustainable practices improve. This arbitrary level would be the point at which a process could be described as sustainable, this would hold little meaning but be useful as a technical description. Sustainability needs to be considered as individual processes and not in terms of a company or even an industry (while industries tend to have one main process they all really use many other smaller processes), the main example of this which is to be found in almost every industry and company is the burning of fossil fuels in combustion engines. Those who make use of the process should incur a tax penalty and those who offer alternatives a subsidy (assuming it is a sensible alternative).

With the technical aspects of sustainability looked at we can move on to a justification for making it a social aim. Society is there to serve the best interest of those who live within it. Taking measures to increase sustainability is unlikely to be in the best interests of those living in the society at that time. I wouldn't like to guess at the ratio of people who deeply care about things after they die compared to those who are indifferent about events after their death. In a perfect democracy if those indifferent to posthumous events are the majority then, if no compromise were possible, you could reasonably argue against any process that could be achieved more efficiently but less sustainably. I would like to think that a majority of people do care about the future of humanity and the planet, but relying on this good will alone could easily be too little too late and just not a risk worth taking. I believe you can justify the enforcement of sustainable practices within society, if not strictly for the good of individuals within the society but for the entity which we define as society as a whole.

Firstly, a society is not a disposable thing. We have disposable nappies and containers, disposable gloves and contact lenses, paper towels and so forth. We do not however have disposable cars because of the work and resources required in their creation. Society is the largest thing that humanity has created, even if not in quite the same manner as a car. To design a society with a shelf life seems like a very poor effort. Why go to the trouble to do things differently if you will need to go through all that trouble again when you are forced into doing things differently? My foremost objection to Plato's republic is not the assumption that people need herding like sheep, which I do still find abhorrent in light of my human fundamentals and rather arrogant. My objection is simply Plato's admission that his social system was destined to fail after a period of time. Sustainability of resources and the environment were not a concern in that era yet Plato failed even to create sustainable systems of governance. Given two similar options of any commodity in both price and function one will always sensibly choose the one that will last longest. Choice of society is no different to choice of commodity. Obviously in this case we have already asserted that sustainability comes at the cost of freedom and luxury and thus the societies cannot be exactly the same rendering the thought experiment less meaningful.

A better analogy is two tools, both perform the same role yet one is much better engineered and consequently more expensive to purchase. Assuming you will continue to require this tool then it is always best to pay more for the better product if the ratio of the two costs is lower than the ratio of their shelf lives.

Tool A costs $10 and will last 5 years while Tool B costs $25 and will last 50 years. To use tool A costs $2 per year while tool B only costs 0.5$ per year.

A completely sustainable society could last indefinitely in principle and by this same logic would make almost any immediate cost worth paying. The problem with the logic is that the user of the tool is analogous to the entity we are calling society (independent of the systems it may operate) rather than the people within it. While sustainability is demonstrably better for the mystical entity society it cannot be shown to always be the case for those living within it at that time.

My moral argument to relate this issue to people rather than a system uses the principles of equality and freedom, the two human fundamental factors upon which my utopia is based. If present society consumes a stockpile of natural resources then the ability to use those things in the future becomes impossible. This removes a freedom from future inhabitants of the society, it also means that there is inequality of opportunity as the ability to do things changes over time. One could argue that unforeseeable events can also alter the levels of freedom and equality between members of the same society at different points in time and so why bother with the effort of sustainable practices. That kind of logic is akin to killing yourself now as you will eventually die anyway. The notion of certain things being outside our control is accurate but it does not then follow that we shouldn't pay attention to those things we can affect.

The trouble with a justification for sustainability in society which is based on the equality and freedom of future generations within that society is that it places the same rights on both real people and potential people. This is a very hard stance to take, especially with the uncertainty of the future. You could end up lowering the quality of life for real people now to benefit people who never exist. I do not think potential people should command the same rights as real people but I do think they deserve consideration, the best term to describe this technically would be 'potential rights'. For society to be able to offer potential rights to potential people it must not knowingly remove its ability to offer them. While in practice it amounts to very much the same thing as considering potential people to deserve the same rights as real ones it is ethically more reasonable and logically more convincing. This is mostly achieved by removing the uncertainty of the future from the equation. The practical difference between actual rights and potential rights for future people in society is that while neither is able to reduce their sustainability, the former must make attempts to account for the continued future while the latter only need consider the immediate future. The former is almost forced into trying to make everything static which is impractical and likely not very beneficial overall. It is only the repeatability of processes which society wishes to make sustainable, it does not gain any advantage from stagnating any other changes.

This gives us three justifications for sustainability being desirable in society. The first was that from a design and efficiency perspective a society system with a short life expectancy is undesirable. The second was that those who invest in society with their creativity, labours and offspring will very likely desire the continuation and improvement of society so as to conserve their posthumous immortality. This can be considered as their justification for existence and without assurances of a continuation of society their life holds less meaning. The final argument was that an unsustainable society would guarantee the removal of freedoms and equality from potential people, and while we have no moral obligation to provide these benefits to potential people we are bound to avoid knowingly removing them. The first justification does not account for people and the second is only valid when held as a majority opinion. The final argument alone should be sufficiently convincing, the others simply add weight to the requirement.

In this essay I have highlighted the need for sustainability in society complete with justifications and a few methods of implementation. I have not made any suggestions for how a society may set this in motion, particularly within an ideal democracy as I have described in other essays. If one is to base a society on freedom, equality and sustainability but ensure complete democratic rule the fundamental principles need to be enforced at a level above the democratic governance. This I shall discuss at a later stage as it relates specifically to my utopian vision where as the content of this essay is as applicable in a utopia as it is now. I am a chemist and as such have a very neat view of equilibria, when a system is at equilibrium it is stable despite many reactions still occurring. Other systems not at equilibria will either change until they reach an equilibria or burn out. This is true of all systems and applies as much in chemistry as it does in economics or the environment. The trick is to set the conditions to ensure an equilibrium can exist and that the equilibrium point is a desirable one.