Sustained Development
H
umble Student: Professor, what is “sustainable
development”? It seems like a contradiction in
terms?
Brilliant Professor: Oh no, my dear student. Sustainable
development is the current mantra for all environmental
science and engineering education. We teach
that concept to all of our students to let them know
that one really can have a good environment and a
good economy at the same time.
Humble Student: It sounds a bit like having your
cake and eating it, too.
Brilliant Professor: Not at all. Sustainable development
isn’t really a policysit’s more like a promise that
we will continuously improve our environmental performance.
Why, I’ve written dozens of fascinating peerreviewed
papers on the subject. I’m sure you’d like to
read (and cite) them.
Humble Student: But can we “continuously improve”
fast enough? Isn’t the real problem our worldwide
growth in population and consumption? Until we
come to grips with that and get consumption drastically
reduced, it seems we don’t have a chance for global
improvement, especially in light of the need for
developing countries to, well, develop.
Brilliant Professor: It may seem like that to you, my
dear prote´ge´, so young and naı¨ve. But I’ve had the vantage
point of many scholarly sabbaticals, summer vacations,
winter interim periods, and spring breaks to be
able to contemplate the big picture. Although the environment
has definitely taken a hit, we are making
progress through the U.S. Clean Air and Water Acts;
through best engineering practices; and through international
treaties like the Rio Declaration and the Kyoto
Convention.
Humble Student: But the world will soon be meeting
in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of Parties of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and the U.S.
cannot even see its way clear to pass a watered-down
bill like Waxman-Markey to reduce its greenhouse
gases and put a price on carbon emissions. Do you really
think a capitalist system can meet the challenge?
Brilliant Professor: Not to worry. A rainbow emerges
only after the storm. Through leadership from the U.S.,
we will come to an international agreement. And we’ll
have a better economy for it with plug-in hybrid cars,
wind and solar power, and energy efficiency. Of course,
China, India, Mexico, and Brazil will need to limit their
emissions, toosthe U.S, Europe, and Japan can’t do it all.
Humble Student: I took a class in humanities and
global studies, and the professor said that the only
thing the U.S. has done is to profit from its profligate
use of energy and from putting its waste into the atmosphere.
The professor also said that the U.S. publishes
the most about environmental science and technology,
but it’s the biggest polluter of all. And he said that U.S.
corporations control government in Washington, DC
and will never allow a carbon tax or a serious cap-andtrade
program.
Brilliant Professor: Ha! That doesn’t surprise me
coming from the humanities. Why do you take classes
there anyway? My course in environmental modeling
was open last semester...
Humble Student (humbly interrupting): Sometimes
it seems like environmental science is mostly about documenting
the losses and environmental technology is
about designing small improvements at the margins. My
postmodernist friends say that environmental engineering
is a major part of the problem. While seeming to be addressing
the problems, we create new ones and miss the
warning signs, like in Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse.
Brilliant Professor: You should choose better friends.
Actually the air is cleaner and the water is purer than at
any time in the past 40 yearssthat was back when I attended
the first Earth Day protests (and my clothes
smelled like oregano). You can be proud that our profession
is in charge of protecting the air, water, and soil for
the entire world. We’ll get a handle on this problem just
like we did for the ozone hole with the Montreal Protocol.
Humble Student: I guess you really have been
around a long time and can see the big picture. I’m
lucky to be able to learn from that perspective. Do you
think our democratic system can really find a way to
make the hard choices and protect the environment?
We just seem to stumble along, narrowly averting one
disaster after another. Sometimes it seems like the only
thing that society has accomplished is “sustained development”,
but I guess there really has been environmental
improvement.
Brilliant Professor: Someday you will see clearly how
our teaching and research is promoting sustainable development
on this finite planet.
Humble Student: You are so wise, Professor. I’m really
fortunate to be able to learn from you.
Brilliant Professor: I know.
Jerald L. Schnoor
Editor
est@uiowa.edu.
9 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / November 1, 2009 10.1021/es9025744  2009 American Chemical Society8002
Published on Web 10/01/2009
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PublicationDate(Web):October1,2009|doi:10.1021/es9025744