Sustainability and Cultural Ecology

From Urban Earth

Introduction

Globalization, fueled by the Western mass consumption culture, threatens life for future generations as we know it. This concern officially arose in 1972 at United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. It became well known in 1987 when the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, published “Our Common Future,” also known as the Brundtland Report. The Brundtland Report addressed global sustainable development issues, which include questions of social equity, economic prosperity, and environmental stewardship. Sustainable development is commonly misunderstood to mean sustainable economic growth alone, while ignoring social and environmental dimensions. This common misconception presents a problem because as globalization continues to spread the western economic model of mass consumption and as countries worldwide “modernize,” the ecological sources that allow such economic activity will eventually be destroyed (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 13). The exclusive economic view of sustainable development is a characteristic of the modern worldview, which currently dominates mainstream popular culture. Although the masses continue to hold the modern worldview and consume at unsustainable rates, many others are well aware of the threats that this lifestyle poses to current and future generations. Awareness of the problem has begun to check this imprudent worldview and allow more sustainable cultural views to emerge. Ecological limits are causing a change in the way people view their relationship with the environment and are therefore influencing cultures worldwide. A glimpse into this instance of cultural ecology can be viewed in the ongoing diffusion of sustainability ideas.

An unsustainable worldview

Urbanization driven by the consumer culture worldview is unsustainable. More than half of the world's population lives in urbanized places (Solecki and Leichenko 2006, p. 12). Cities continue to grow as people move toward city centers and space is made available from decentralization and urban sprawl (Solecki and Leichenko 2006, p. 12). Urbanization can be viewed as an attempt to pursue the modern worldview and attain a modern urban lifestyle. Aside from ecological pressures posed by the in-migration of these modernity-seeking people towards city centers, "[t]he urban sprawl now observed in most large and medium-sized cities has been fostered by the rise of a transnational consumer culture and a global emergence and diffusion of suburban living as a preferred “modern” lifestyle for the middle and upper classes in cities in developing and rapidly developing countries" (Solecki and Leichenko 2006, p. 12). As population levels in urban areas continue to rise and the consumer cultural lifestyle spreads globally, the ecological limitations will continue to come to the fore and challenge the global modernization trend. Inherent in the modern culture is an ecological contradiction and any chance at realizing sustainable economic, social, and ecological conditions depends on the abandonment of this worldview.

The seemingly limitless amount of resources that are available and the success to which we have figured out how to use them has created the perception that we can do anything with our environment (Lamm 2006, p. 3). Past scientific discoveries and an abundance of natural resources have created a false sense of security that there is nothing beyond our capabilities. This may be the case now, so long as the finite resources are still available. The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as “... development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED 1987, p. 43). At the heart of this definition is the ethical component of ensuring inter-generational equity of natural resources. Disregarding this ethical component of sustainability seems to be a fundamental characteristic of the modern worldview as proponents position themselves in contradiction to environmental sustainability. This view has its roots in the Western culture sometime after the scientific revolution about 500 years ago (LeFay 2006, p. 36). The scientific revolution ended an organic worldview that previously dominated Western culture and replaced it with a mechanistic one (LeFay 2006, p. 37). Scientific discovery allowed people an advantage over nature, which led to a view of superiority and dominion, leading to the notion of self-importance. “Nature was perceived to be separate from man, a wild and unruly force that ... had to be tamed, subdued and conquered, and bent to man's will for the purpose of creating a 'civilized' world" (LeFay 2006, p. 37). This view is still supported today by modern worldview proponents although some may not even be aware. The scientific revolution was beneficial to humanity in that attaining a livelihood became easier as technological advances overcame natural obstacles. Because of the benefits they offered, these advances became the building blocks for “civilized” societies and provided a guide for Western cultural development. The result was an overconfident and imprudent culture.

There are various sociological perspectives to analyzing human-environment interactions. When tested for sustainability according to an accepted sociological model, the modern worldview, as supported by the modernization theory, does not seem to hold. The study “Footprints on the Earth: The Environmental Consequences of Modernity” (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003), empirically tests three general sociological perspectives in regards to sustainability: human ecology, modernization, and political economy, which all make different assertions about how humans affect the environment. The study provides descriptions of the three perspectives as follows:

• Human Ecology: the view that, although humans have developed the capacity to distance themselves from other species, this capacity is bound by ecological limits. In other words, human ecologists hold that social and political variables (technology, public policy, etc.) might partially check the key factors of environmental impacts, but they will never overcome them. This view is consistent with a neo-Malthusian perspective, which focuses on the importance of population size, growth, density, and social structure for explaining environmental impact (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003, p. 283).

• The Modernization Theory: the view that environmental problems are caused by economic activity and further economic activity will solve those problems. From this perspective, a quality environment is a luxury for affluent societies and come about when an economy is stable and a society can afford being concerned with such matters. For environmental improvement, free markets are necessary. By creating environmental public policy, governments will make investing in environmental protection technology cost-effective for businesses, which will then become environmentally oriented. Similarly, some have argued that capitalism itself provides incentives for environmental research, which could provide environmental innovations. Additionally, neoclassical economic reasoning holds that an economy allowed to mature will become primarily service based, which will alleviate stress on natural resources. A controlling government would hinder this process, so the free markets and economic growth associated with modernization would be key to solving the environmental problems. This process is illustrated in the environmental Kuznets curve, which creates an inverted-U curve proposing that environmental impacts are large in the early development of an economy and eventually level off and decrease as an economy matures (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003, p. 283-285).

• The Political Economy Perspective: the view that the only way for businesses to make profits is to expand and companies would not willingly internalize environmental costs because doing so would reduce profits. Also, this perspective exposes the capitalist contradiction that the necessary continued growth would lead to the depletion of the finite resources, which will reduce profits as time goes on. This will inevitably lead to an environmental crisis. This view holds that the only answer to the problem of sustainability is to curb economic growth and restructure the economic system. The world-system theory, a type of political economy perspective that is global in perspective, as described, provides a good argument against the environmental Kuznets curve, which supports the modernization theory. According to the world-system theory, the Kuznets curve only applies in a local economy context, but when viewed globally, it does not take into account that core nations are predominantly consumers and extracting resources from and dumping waste in periphery regions is a side effect. This means that an apparently environmental and modernized area may only be shifting its environmental impact outside of its borders. Focusing on this total impact, which goes beyond political borders, does not produce an inverted-U shaped curve as the environmental Kuznets curve, but shows the environmental impact proportional to economic growth. This point effectively undermines a strong modernization theory argument and reinforces the threat that such a lifestyle poses to sustainability (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003, p. 286-288).

To empirically test these views in a common framework, the study considers these perspectives according to a modified version of the IPAT model, a well-known model in sociology studies, which relies on ecological principles and is designed to assess the predictive capabilities of environmental impact theories. According to the IPAT model, environmental Impacts are the multiplicative product of Population, Affluence, and Technology, I=PAT. The indicator for environmental impact used is the “ecological footprint,” “[which] allows comparison across types of impacts by estimating the quantity of land that would be required to support the material consumption of a nation” (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003, 280). The study considers the ecological footprint to provide good insight into the sustainability of societies because it measures land use, which is the bases for living space, a source of resources, and a sink for wastes, which are the main benefits provided by the environment. The study found that, consistent with the human ecological perspective, environmental impact increases proportionately with population. Contrary to modernization theory, the study found that an increase in economic maturity (determined by Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) did not follow the Kuznets curve, but instead environmental impact increased with economic growth. Additionally, the study found that urbanization increased environmental impact and free markets and other mitigating human impacts (i.e.: state environmentalism) have no impact on the environment, contrary to the modernization perspective. In short, the study found that, contrary to modernization theory and consistent with the human ecological view and political economy perspective, population and economic growth threaten ecological sustainability.

The study above provides evidence that the modernization theory promotes an unsustainable lifestyle. Although it may appear that modernizing holds good prospects for development, there is a limit to this type of development and the likely end result is crisis. A modernization theory supporter may argue that, although it is possible that problems may arise, it is not feasible to change the force of modernization without completely restructuring the global economic system. This may hold true, but it could also mean that the root of the problem will then have to be dealt with to thwart the dangers that are inherent in the modernization view. Dealing with the root of the problem would require a change in the worldview for many.

Sustainability and cultural change

A change in worldview is inline with American Pragmatism claims and current environmental theory. American Pragmatism "... is the distinctively American philosophical school which, roughly, holds that our ideas, theories, and worldviews should be examined and evaluated in the light of their impact on lived experience, according to how well they enable us to maneuver through experience successfully"(Reitan 1998, p. 2). Current environmental theory holds that “... the contemporary consumerist worldview is largely to blame for our current environmental crises, and any solution to that crisis must be driven by a change in worldview" (Reitan 1998, p. 2). Therefore, according to Pragmatism and environmental theory, the modernist worldview must change in order to realize sustainable conditions. In addition to providing a valid argument against the modern worldview, the pragmatic method, a device to evaluate the validity of cultures, provides guidance with identifying valid worldviews that embody sustainability principles.

American Pragmatism provides a clear argument for why the modern worldview is illegitimate and should be abandoned. In his paper “Pragmatism, Environmental World Views, and Sustainability,” drawing from American Pragmatism, Eric Reitan supports the claim that there are two pragmatic criteria for evaluating world views called: the Criterion of Meaning and the Criterion of Truth. The Criterion of Meaning uses the pragmatic method, which “... is to try to interpret each notion by tracking its respective practical consequences" (Reitan 1998, p. 2). In other words, if an alternative worldview with different attributes could exist, what would the practical difference be? When two worldviews are compared, if there is no difference in consequence in a topic of interest then two alternative views are practically the same and one is not better or worse than the other in respect to the specified topic, and they have the same meaning. The pragmatic method, maintains the assumption that there is a direct link between worldview and human behavior, so it is behavior that causes the threat of crisis. Because of this, the pragmatic method is concerned with the type of behavior that a worldview produces. In this case, the impact that a worldview has on the environment through measured expressed behavior would have to be compared to the practical effects of an alternative worldview on the environment. If the impacts are determined to be the same, then, with respect to environmental impact, the two worldviews have the same meaning. The Criterion of Truth takes “truth” to “mean ... nothing but this, ideas ... become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience ... " (Reitan 1998, p. 4). According to this criterion, then, a world view's truth depends on how well it helps us get through our lives, that is, how well it works to help us live in accordance with values as prescribed by that world view. If we look at the modernist view in this light we find a contradiction and, therefore, it is pragmatically false. The modern worldview defines success in terms of the ability to consume (Reitan 1998, p. 4). If modernism does not help us consume in a sustainable manner, then it is not a truthful worldview. Because unsustainable consumption will eventually lead to the depletion of natural resources, the mark of success according to the modernist culture will not always be possible. A contraction like this one found in the modern consumerist worldview is an example of how a worldview can be untrue and, therefore, pragmatically false (Reitan 1998, p. 4). The strength of the pragmatic method is that it shows us that, even though a worldview seems to be working in a society, the success may only be apparent and may not reflect reality. The eventual end to the “success” that appears to be provided by this worldview warrants the need to change to a more sustainable and pragmatically true worldview.

In order for an alternative worldview to be considered as a suitable replacement, the element(s) of the modern worldview are responsible for its disadvantage first has to be determined. What causes the disadvantage is the unsound understanding of the human-environment relationship that modernists maintain. “The modern worldview is built upon a paradigm of dominating nature, of transforming and controlling nature to suit human preferences, not on realizing harmony with it" (Reitan 1998, p. 4). The view that we are separated and in a dominant position over nature have led us to believe that our consumer based culture can persist without any threatening ecological repercussions. That there are ecological limits, however, makes this belief false and the worldview contradictory. Because “our worldview ... has more direct impact on how we live our lives than any other single thing” (Reitan 1998, p. 4), the modern view of our relationship with nature is the underlying cause of the unsustainable condition and therefore the cause for the disadvantage. If we consider the Criterion of Meaning, a worldview that does not share this disadvantage (and therefore, its consequences) is an alternative worldview that has a different meaning in terms of environmental impact. This quality alone would make such an alternative worldview worth considering as a suitable replacement. The element of the modern worldview that needs to change, therefore, is the modernist view of the human-environment relationship.

A new cultural worldview that does not maintain the modern culture disadvantage inherent in their view of the human-environment relationship will also alleviate those harmful cultural elements that depend on it, opening the way for a more sustainable culture. A culture that is based on consumption places an emphasis on maintaining a prosperous economy. This emphasis has shown to be detrimental to the environment, but it also creates harmful conditions that bleed into the social fabric of a society. A clear example of this is the well-established, now globalizing, capitalistic system that creates conditions where equity cannot be maintained because those that are in a disadvantaged position in the system may be unable to meet their basic needs. A less obvious example of how the modernist view creates unsustainable social conditions is the intergenerational equity that is at stake if natural resources are overexploited, leaving the means of production exhausted for future generations, who will then be unable to meet their needs. In this way, the consumer culture puts people at odds with one and other in that competition to attain as much material goods as possible usually comes at the expense of something or someone else. As the psychologist Philip Cushman argued, the consumer culture might also put a person at odds with oneself. “He sees … urbanization industrialization, and secularization as having created an increasingly isolated an individualistic American self that bears the dual trademarks of narcissism: appearing “masterful and bounded” on the outside, yet “empty” underneath" (Roszak, Gomez, and Kanner 1995, p. 79). A culture that is less profit-driven and encourages a healthy balance between environmental, economic, and social prosperity is crucial for a sustainable worldview.

The modernist worldview supports behavior that is ecologically unsound, but principles for sustainability include more than just the environmental concern. “Sustainable development is a multidimensional concept involving complex interactions and trade-offs with economic, technological, environmental, political and social aspects”(Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 13). It “is at the intersection of environmental, economic, and societal stewardship" (Arizona State University 2008). A sustainable culture is one that balances these three dimensions. The economic aspect focuses on maintaining a prosperous economy that does not diminish productive capacity over time and equitably meets present and future needs. Social aspects include maintaining equity in society now and for future generations as well as employment issues. The environmental concern is, of course, sustaining the societal and economic sustainability factors in an ecologically sound way. “Even when [sustainability] is applied to the social dimension, it is still often used in an ecological sense to focus on maintaining the stability of biological and physical systems, thus preserving access to a healthy environment”(Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 17). A sustainable way of life will be sensitive to this multidimensional system and will strive to maintain this important balance.

Increased awareness of the problems associated with the modern worldview and the need to embrace a worldview that promotes a better relationship with the environment is influencing the way some people think. An example of this is a new American culture that seems to have emerged in the 1970's. In his paper, “The Emerging Culture,” Paul Ray calls the new culture “Culture Creatives" (Ray 1997, p. 1). Culture Creatives believe in issues such as environmentalism, feminism, global issues, and spiritual searching. According to the study, one-fourth of American adults embrace this worldview and they “… tend to be affluent, well educated, and on the rutting edge of social change" (Ray 1997, p. 1). The study suggests that there are three different worldviews of meaning in value that Americans live by, Traditionalism, Modernism, and Cultural Creatives. According to the study, 29 percent of Americans hold the traditional worldview, 47 percent hold the Modern worldview, and 24 percent hold the Cultural Creatives worldview. Traditionalism is a worldview held by the heartlanders of the country who value small towns, have strong religious adherence, and rebel against the influence of globalization forces. Modernism, according to the study is marked by personal success, materialism, consumerism, and technological rationality. The new culture, Culture Creatives, emerged as Western intellectuals became exposed to non-western religions and philosophies and in the 1960s it “caught fire”, providing guidance for political movements, such as the civil rights movement. Culture Creatives are turned off by the other world views and think of modernism as an antique system that is starting to come to an end. Their worldview is more in line with sustainability principles than the other world views are. They are not as concerned about making money and being successful, in modernist terms, but are more interested in gaining new experiences and tuning in to global issues. The study describes the Culture Creative values, which include: ecological sustainability, globalization, women's rights, altruism, self-actualization, and spirituality, among others (Ray 1997, p. 1-9). The Culture Creatives represent a more sustainable culture. Their awareness and involvement in social and ecological issues makes their worldview appear a good replacement for the modernist worldview.

Sustainability and cultural diffusion

Increased awareness of the earth's ecological limits and the need to provide sustainable solutions to keep up with globalization forces has sparked the diffusion of sustainability-related ideas throughout societies. Beginning in the early 1970’s, perceptions of the environment began to change as literature on population growth and environmental degradation accumulated (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 15). Due to the complexity involved with finding sustainability solutions, the search for best practices has created a global dialogue between all levels of society. The need for best practices has therefore encouraged a pattern of cultural diffusion that can best described as hierarchical and reverse-hierarchical expansion diffusion. The cultural diffusion reveals how ecological limits are stimulating new cultural perspectives.

The concerns for the environmental impact of over population and industrialization first circulated among scholars and world leaders. The book, “The Limits to Growth" (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens III 1972) made the problem known to world leaders as they warned that ecological disaster was immanent if action was not taken to check population growth and industrial production (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 15). The UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 was the first to officially treat the environmental concern as a critical global issue. As a result, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) was established to take the lead of communicating the problem to nations and communities worldwide. In response to growing awareness of the environmental problem, UNEP established the World Commission on Environment and Development (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 15). In response to a request to propose solutions to the environmental problem, the Brundtland Commission report, “Our Common Future,” in 1987, offered the concept of “sustainable development.” This concept has since been widely used in environmental literature and policy planning (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 15). The concept of sustainable development was key in the issuance of the Rio Accord (Agenda 21), a plan for sustainable development, which resulted from the UN Conference on Environmental and Development in Rio de Janeiro. To implement the plan, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007, p. 15).

The history of how the concept of sustainability emerged and spread throughout high levels of international governmental organizations reveals the “leapfrogging” of ideas from important groups to other important groups that is characteristic of hierarchical culture diffusion. Since the emergence of sustainable development as a concept, awareness of it as a global issue has spread to other members of societies. An example of this trickling down of the awareness of sustainability issues, are university-wide initiatives to incorporate sustainability concepts into curriculum. Universities worldwide have taken the initiative to educate future generations about sustainability issues in an attempt to influence their lifestyle choices and worldviews. University-wide “sustainability initiatives are influencing curriculum decisions, operation budgets, faculty plans, and campus culture" (Herman Miller 2005). Universities treat sustainability as an interdisciplinary focus that includes subjects that range from the physical sciences to the humanities. This all-inclusive approach to delivering sustainability concepts to students brings together faculty and students of various disciplines that would normally not collaborate. This increases the number of students that will gain exposure to sustainability-related concepts and therefore other members of society.

Although increased awareness of sustainability issues helps with motivation to find solutions, the problems that societies face with realizing sustainability varies by location, revealing some of the complexity with the issue. In the case of Third-World countries, economic development is the priority while environmental and societal sustainability seems to be of less importance. The opposite is true for countries that have well-established economic systems, but are faced with finding ways to sustain their current lifestyles without threatening the prosperity of future generations. The worrisome prospects that "modernized" countries face with regards to sustainability exposes the ambiguity thought to exist in the concept of sustainable development. The ambiguity of the concept arises when the two elements of the concept "sustainability" and "development" are viewed as contradictory. In terms of development, the majority view maintains that a great deal of economic growth will be needed to spread benefits of a larger proportion of the growing world population (Willbanks 1994, p. 544). Due to ecological limits, however, global economic growth in accordance with the European and American model would put too much pressure on the environment, making development in this way unsustainable. World development, then, by way of historical means, would spread unsustainable conditions. "Accordingly, it will be necessary to develop new paths for economic and social development--paths that emphasize renewable resource use patterns, resource-use efficiency, and environmental management--without slowing down the development process ...” (Willbanks 1994, p. 544). Since the solutions that have guided historical paths of development threaten to create unsustainable conditions, new innovations are needed to make sustainable development possible.

New paths of development being created involve the reverse-hierarchical diffusion of sustainability ideas. Innovations of sustainable methods for development have been diffusing from developing areas to the developed world, going against the global current of modern culture ideas. This diffusion has been in line with The United Nations Environment Programme, which has stated that capacity building would be the means to sustainability" (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, and Ramaswami 2007, p. 3415). "Capacity can ... be increased by facilitating knowledge transfer across developed and developing world boundaries[, t]herefore, the ideal operational model for sustainable development would be a global partnership, enhanced by integrating the best and most appropriate knowledge, methodologies, techniques, principles, and practices from both the developed and developing worlds" (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, and Ramaswami 2007, p. 3415). Most efforts to advance global sustainability have focused on transferring ideas from the industrialized world to the developing world, but the successful application of innovations that have occurred in the opposite direction, show that capacity building for sustainability is a two-way system. One such idea is thermal cooling technologies that use water as a building material. Water has been used for cooling homes and preserving foods by many ancient cultures and is still practiced in many developing countries today (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, and Ramaswami 2007, p. 3418). The U.S. and Europe also used water and ice for cooling, but the invention of mechanical refrigeration has since taken its place. As the energy needed to run mechanical refrigeration systems poses a challenge for sustainability, the historical origins of water-cooling is beginning to make a comeback (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, and Ramaswami 2007, p. 3419). In rural Nigeria, a man named Mohammend Bah Abba has developed a pot-in-pot refrigerator system, which uses water as a coolant. In this system, one pot is placed in a larger pot and wet sand is placed between the two. The inside of the pot is cooled as heat energy is used to evaporate the water. The downside to this cooling method is that, because evaporation occurs best in dry places, it would not work well in humid climates. To overcome this problem, engineers are experimenting with materials that have high adsorptive capacities of water that would drive evaporation in humid environments. These refrigerating systems have been tested in Japan and Germany and are "being researched at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory for application for ... cooling urban buildings" (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, and Ramaswami 2007, p. 3415). This reverse-hierarchical diffusion of the water-based refrigerating system provides an example of how ideas that originate in the developing world can diffuse to the developed world. Although the pot-in-pot system is very simple, if the concept is extended to larger systems, such as cars, homes, and buildings, it could provide great relief to the ecological environment.

Conclusion

As the modern worldview spreads with globalization forces, the faults in the lifestyle that it encourages become more and more apparent. Inherent in the modernist way of life is a contradiction with ecological limits. The modernist perspective assumes that infinite economic expansion is possible, but natural resources are finite and therefore expansion is limited. Increased awareness of this contradiction is occurring as modernism spreads and the focus shifts to ecological limits. The ecological limits are causing a change in the way people view their relationship with the environment and are therefore influencing their culture. This process of cultural ecology is evident in the diffusion of ideas that is occurring globally as people try to find sustainable solutions to the problem.

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