Sustainability
Lecture Part 1
SOC165
Spring 2010
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This Week’s Topic
•Sustainability
–Definitions
–Examples
–Debates
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This Week’s Required Materials
•Required reading:
•Bell Chapter 4: Population and development
•Prugh and Assadourian: What is sustainability, anyway?
•Interview with Julian Simon
Required video:
•  Vandana Shiva: Defending biodiversity
•  Patrick Holden: Sustainable agriculture
•  Monsanto Company: Global benefits of plant
   biotechnology
•  Bonnie Bucqueroux: Curing America's eating disorder
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In Part 1
•What is sustainability?
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Can the Status Quo Continue?
•Bell: “How long can we keep doing what we’re doing?”
•In last lecture, we saw data that environmental quality has measurably improved in ČR
•However, there are still many critical problems
–Example: Over-fishing
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Definitions
•What is sustainability?
•Webster’s dictionary: Sustainable = “a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the
resource is not depleted or permanently damaged”
dictionary
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Definitions
•Brundtland Commission, Our common future, 1987: the ability to meet our needs without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
•Three main factors: ecology, economy, society
•Intergenerational solidarity
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Definitions
•Worldwatch: “Ultimately, sustainable development and sustainability itself are about collective
values and related choices and are therefore a political issue….
Because values, politics, and our understanding of the Earth and its systems will evolve, notions
of what is sustainable will never be static.”
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Theoretical Perspectives
•Virtually every environmental sociology theory ultimately deals with sustainability – how to
create a harmonious relationship between nature and society?
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Theory
Perspective on Sustainability
HEP-NEP
(Dunlap & Catton)
The New Ecological Paradigm calls for a new relationship with nature, in which society is not as
exploitative
ToP
Get off the treadmill: radically change the current political and economic system to achieve
sustainable development
Marxism
Communism should be the ultimate sustainable society
Ecological modernization theory
Create new technologies that will make economic growth good for the environment
Social constructionism
Environmental issues are social constructions, based on scientific knowledge and media
presentation; “sustainable development” is one frame for viewing the human-nature relationship
Environmental justice and eco-feminism
Sustainability involves liberation of oppressed minorities and, for feminists, a new relationship
with nature based on beneficial coexistence rather than exploitation and destruction
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Is Sustainability Possible?
•Debate
•Spectrum of opinions
–Cornucopians
–Reformists
–Revolutionaries
–Environmental determinists
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End of Part 1
Continue to Part 2.
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Citations Used in This Lecture
•Bell, M. (2004) An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine
Forge Press.
•
•Our Common Future (1987) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
•
•Prugh, T., Assadourian, E. (2003) “What is Sustainability, Anyway?” Worldwatch magazine,
September/October, pp. 10-21.
•
•Simon, J., and Buckley, Jr., W. F. (1982) “Answer to Malthus? Julian Simon Interviewed by William
Buckley.” Population and Development Review 8(1):205-218.