Does the concept of sustainable development provide a useful platform for planning and policy?

We have spent too much time trying to “save the Earth”. We should save ourselves – from ourselves and with ourselves. We are a tiny part of the environment, not the entire ecosystem. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould warned us on “Eight Little Piggies” that “if we scratch her (the Earth), she will bleed (as she is doing now), (but will eventually) knock us out, bandage up, and go about her business at her own scale.” By saying so, the apprentice of “the survival of the fittest” is not claiming that we should be fatalist in our judgments, but, just as Lumley and Armstrong highlighted, that our civilization must develop altruistic behaviors to establish harmonious and cooperative relations among every nation to guarantee the survival of all societies.

We need more market and better officials. Economic diversity creates jobs and distributes wealth. Efficient governance protects freedom and allows participation. Failed economies and states have had none of them and the result was the intensification of poverty, inequality, and conflicts. Try asking a young educated Burmese living in the outskirts of Yangon, a mother of a hungry child fleeing from Darfur, or a peasant Chinese who recently migrated to the city climbing out the poverty line but still living miserably, the question: “What do you wish?” The answers will certainly gravitate around autonomy, peace, and choices. I wonder if Gunder considered these fundamental human issues when proposed sustainability as a planning process to achieve social equity.

The contribution of sustainability is not even clear in developed areas. Let’s take the case of Hawaii. A survey distributed among residents asking them to define sustainability in terms of their impressions over “the limits of natural environment”, “understanding of interconnections (economics, society, and environment), “equitable distribution of resources and opportunities”, and “inter-generational concern” served as the basis for the planning document “Hawaii 2050”. From these questions, it is clear that local officials and planners tried to balance the “triple-bottom-line”, which is a legitimate form of generating inputs and influence decision-makers to carry out public interventions. Nevertheless, it seems that straightforward questions like “Do we need more green areas?”, “Do you drink tap water?”, “How many miles do you drive during the week?” are less time consuming, in addition to generating objective data for a pragmatic environmental agenda.

"We" comes before sustainability. Global warming, biodiversity depletion, tropical deforestation are caused and exacerbated by “our” decisions. These problems, however, do not seem to be addressed by disregarding the power of economics - or focusing on assessing the relation between sustainability and governance, as Jordan suggests. If we expect to guarantee our survival, we should adopt realistic approaches by supporting officials designing and implementing policies that share responsibility and foster development at a global level. The first step, though, is developing simplicity and humility mindsets by changing perceptions and notions of time and scale. The whole depends on its parts, partially.