The Importance of Vision

Rachel's n.727 (parts 1&2) 21jun01

In recent decades, the natural environment has deteriorated and human poverty has increased, worldwide.[1] As a result, huge numbers of people have concluded that "business as usual" is not sustainable. People everywhere are devoting time and energy to questions of sustainability, but we still lack consensus on alternatives to the limitless growth of material consumption.

With its high per-person use of energy and materials and its relentless commitment to growth, the U.S. is probably among the least sustainable of human societies. Many people in the U.S. sense this, and they worry about the future for their children and their children's children. But so far we have not been able to focus our efforts and work together toward a different future. What we are missing is a shared vision of what "sustainability" entails for the U.S. Without a coherent, relatively detailed, shared vision of what a sustainable society would look like, we cannot generate the political will or united effort to carry us from here to there.

As Donella Meadows has written, "Vision is necessary to the policy process. If we have not specified where we want to go, it is hard to set our compass, to muster enthusiasm, or to measure progress. But vision is not only generally missing from policy discussions; it is missing from our culture. We talk easily and endlessly about our frustrations, doubts, and complaints, but we speak only rarely and with difficulty about our dreams and values."[2]

Robert Costanza of the Institute for Ecological Economics (University of Maryland) has emphasized the central importance of a shared vision: "The most critical task facing humanity today is the creation of a shared vision of a sustainable and desirable society, one that can provide permanent prosperity within the biophysical constraints of the real world in a way that is fair and equitable to all of humanity, to other species, and to future generations. Recent work with businesses and communities indicates that creating a shared vision is the most effective engine for change in the desired direction...."[3]

At the urging of Costanza and others, in January, 2001, a group of 45 individuals met in Oberlin, Ohio to begin to create a shared vision of a sustainable U.S. in the year 2100 -- 100 years in the future.[4] The meeting was facilitated by a technique called Future Search, which is a structured way of creating cooperative projects across the boundaries of geography, organization, culture, class, race, age, and gender.[5] After three intense days of work and some follow-up work by E-mail the Oberlin participants pulled together a consensus statement, agreed to stay in touch and to invite others to offer opinions and ideas about what life might be like in a sustainable U.S. We urge Rachel's readers to take this invitation seriously; see http://iee.umces.edu/ESDA. (At the last minute, the Oberlin participants tentatively identified themselves as the ESDA Network -- ESDA being short for Envisioning a Sustainable and Desirable America -- but this name seems likely to change because the group is focused only on the U.S. and not on other parts of North, Central or South America. What do YOU think the name should be?)

Here and in the next few issues of RACHEL'S, we offer the first draft of the vision statement that emerged from the Oberlin future search conference; this draft was written mainly by Josh Farley of the Institute for Ecological Economics at University of Maryland, with some help from other participants. We emphasize that it is a first draft needing your critique:

THE VISION SO FAR

The most important outcome of the first ESDA future search conference was the creation of a shared vision of a sustainable and desirable America in the year 2100. Creating such a vision is an enormous undertaking, and what we produced is really only a rough sketch. An important part of our work will be to flesh out this vision, and make sure that it is a desirable vision to a representative majority of Americans. We hope you can take the time to read our vision, and offer us your comments. Would you like to live in this world? Are there elements of our vision with which you disagree? Are important pieces missing? When you are done, please send your feedback to farley@cbl.umces.edu.

We have organized our vision into five separate components: Worldviews, Built Capital, Natural Capital, Human Capital and Social Capital.

WORLDVIEWS

Worldview plays a very important role in creating a sustainable and desirable America. What is worldview? Worldview is a belief system held by an individual, community or society that explains the world around us and our experiences and role in that world. Our worldview tells us who we are and what is the purpose of our existence. It tells us where we are: what kind of world and environment do we live in? It also tells us what is right and wrong about the world, and how to preserve what is right and fix what is wrong. Worldview is determined largely by the culture in which we are raised.

A worldview that is appropriate under one set of conditions may not be under another. This only makes sense. Worldview tells us what kind of world we live in, and the kind of world we live in is continually changing. Worldview is also intimately linked to culture and circumstance. Two hundred years ago, European Americans lived in a sparsely populated world of vast frontiers and untamed wilderness. Natural resources were limitless and humans, civilization, machinery and basic consumer goods were scarce. The rest of the world was far away and unimportant. Native Americans lived in a full world, surrounded by neighbors, both enemies and friends. Humans were part of a harmonious natural system that provided all of their needs under careful stewardship. African Americans lived under cruel bondage in a grossly unfair world. Different cultures viewed the same world in dramatically different ways. Over time American culture has converged somewhat, as has our worldview. Enormous differences still remain, but perhaps none as great as divided us in the 18th century. Now however, our world is dramatically different. Natural resources have become scarce, and humans and their accoutrements are now super-abundant. In today's age of rapid technological advance, population growth and resource consumption, the world appears to be changing faster than our worldview. Many components of our worldview are no longer in harmony with today's physically different world. In many cases, what was once reasonably viewed as a solution to our problems has now become a part of the problem.

The America we envision in 2100 is based on a very different way of viewing the world than is common today, one that is more in harmony with the physical constraints imposed by a finite planet.

Humans will re-establish a spiritual connection to nature. Our worldview will no longer divide the planet into humans vs. nature. People will recognize that humans are part of nature, one species among many, and must obey the laws imposed by nature. We will recognize that nature is not something to be subjugated, but instead is something we depend upon absolutely to meet both physical and spiritual needs. We will recognize that natural resources are scarce and must be invested in. Our goal will be to create conditions conducive to life in the broadest sense.

For centuries the worldview of mechanistic physics dominated Western society. Within this worldview, each action has an equal and opposite reaction, and only by studying systems at smaller and smaller scales, can we come to fully understand these reactions. As more and more people come to understand the inherent complexity of ecosystems and human systems, we will come to realize that results cannot always be predicted, and that irreducible uncertainty dominates the provision of life support services by healthy ecosystems. An ecological worldview of complexity and indeterminacy, inspired by nature as mentor -- holistic, integrated and flexible -- will replace the worldview of mechanical physics.

Individualism is appropriate and perhaps even necessary in a world of vast frontiers and unlimited elbowroom. Individualism will still be extremely important in 2100, but will be far more tempered by a concern for the common good. This will lead to a system where communities promote total individual liberty as long as individual actions do not have a negative impact on the community. Individuals in return will accept that they are a part of society, and it is unfair to impose costs on society for private gain. This attitude will be necessary if we are to wean ourselves of our dependence on heavily polluting single occupancy vehicles, for example.

Further, ever increasing consumption will no longer be considered an integral component of human needs as it is today. People will pay attention to their other needs and desires, such as joy, beauty, affection, participation, creativity, freedom, and understanding. Building strong community can help us meet these needs, while working ever harder to pay for more consumption deprives us of the time and energy required to fulfill them.

Thus, status will not be conferred by high incomes and high consumption (individual ends) but rather by contribution to civil society and community ends.

With the recognition that consumption beyond limit is not only physically unsustainable but also does little to improve our quality of life, we will understand that a steady state economy is our goal. A steady state economy does not mean an end to development, it simply means that we limit the input of raw materials into our economic system and their inevitable return to the ecosystem as waste to a level compatible with the ecological constraints imposed by a finite planet with finite resources. We must live within the carrying capacity of our planet. We do not know the carrying capacity, and the carrying capacity is subject to change. Therefore, adaptive management must be a guiding principle. The economy will be solar powered. Economic production will focus on quality, not quantity. Rather than focus on the production of goods, we will focus on the production of the services provided by goods. We do not need cars, we need transportation. We do not need televisions, we need entertainment. Goods are only a means to an end, and by recognizing this our economy can develop as never before without growing in physical terms.

[Part 2 below]

[1] Lester R. Brown and others, STATE OF THE WORLD 2001 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001). ISBN 0-393-32082-0.

[2] Donella Meadows, "Envisioning a Sustainable World," in Robert Costanza and others, editors, GETTING DOWN TO EARTH (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996), pgs. 117-128. ISBN 1-55963-503-7.

[3] Robert Costanza, "Visions of Alternative (Unpredictable) Futures and Their Use in Policy Analysis," CONSERVATION ECOLOGY Vol. 4, No. 1 (February 28, 2000), pgs. 5 and following pages. Available at http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol4/iss1/art5/-inline.html .

[4] Conference facilitators: Sandra Janoff, co-director, Future Search Network ( http://www.futuresearch.net ) and Ralph Copleman, consultant ( http://www.earthdreams.net ). Conference participants: Audra Abt, senior, environmental studies, Oberlin College; Gar Alperovitz, professor of political economy, University of Maryland; Mary Barber, executive director, Sustainable Biosphere Initiative, Ecological Society of America; Seaton Baxter, professor, University of Dundee, Scotland; Janine Benyus, writer; Paul W. Bierman-Lytle, environmental architect and planner; Grace Boggs, activist, scholar, writer, community organizer and speaker; William Browning, senior consultant, Rocky Mountain Institute; Diana Bustamante, executive director, Colonias Development Council; Warren W. Byrne, managing director, Foresight Energy Company; Mark Clevey, vice-president, Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM); Jane Ellen Clougherty, research analyst, Center for Neighborhood Technology; Robert Costanza, director, University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics; Tanya Dawkins, senior vice-president, United Way; James Embry, board president, Boggs Center for Nuturing Community Leadership (Detroit); Jon Farley, President and CEO, Zarn Enterprises; Josh Farley, Executive Director, University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics; Harold Glasser, assistant professor (environmental studies), Western Michigan University; Becky Grella, executive director and president, Aiza Biby; Elaine Gross, executive director, Sustainable America; Gerald Hairston, urban gardener; Sarah Karpanty, co-director and secretary, Aiza Biby; Carol Kuhre, executive director, Rural Action; George McQuitty, professor (law/environmental education), University of St. Andrews (Scotland); Peter Montague, director, Environmental Research Foundation; Dondohn Namesling, Aiza Biby; David Orr, professor (environmental studies and politics), Oberlin College; John Petersen, assistant professor (environmental studies and biology) Oberlin College; William Prindle, Alliance to Save Energy; Tom Prugh, writer, consultant to Energy Information Administration; Jack Santa-Barbara, M.D.; Claudine Schneider, co-chair, U.S. Committee for the United Nations Development Program; Ben Shepherd, Rocky Mountain Institute; Megan Snedden, economic development coordinator, Colonias Development Council; Karl Steyaert, The Center for a New American Dream; Theodore Steck, M.D., professor (biochemistry and molecular biology), University of Chicago; Harvey Stone, vice president of marketing, BizBots; Paul Templet, professor (environmental studies), Louisiana State University; Mary Evelyn Tucker, professor, the Center for the Study of the World's Religions, Bucknell University; Sarah van Gelder, executive editor, YES! magazine; Rafael Vargas, Aiza Biby; Verlene Wilder, King County (Washington) Labor Council.

[5] Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord, FUTURE SEARCH: AN ACTION GUIDE TO FINDING COMMON GROUND IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITIES (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, revised edition, 2000; ISBN 1-57675-081-7) See http://www.futuresearch.net

A VISION STATEMENT -- PART2 n.728 5jul01

Here we continue publishing the draft consensus statement that emerged from a 3-day "future search" meeting at Oberlin College in January. (See REHN #727, http://iee.umces.edu/ESDA , and www.futuresearch.net .) The purpose of the meeting was to see if a fairly diverse group of people could reach any agreement about a sustainable and desirable world.

Many community activists who know what they are AGAINST (including us), may not be so sure what they are FOR. But if we don't know what we are for, how can we tell whether we are getting there? How can we devise strategies to reach goals that we have never specified?

The Oberlin group tentatively named itself ESDA -- Envisioning a Sustainable and Desirable America. The group has invited RACHEL'S readers to join in the visioning process. The ESDA group said, "We hope you can take the time to read our vision, and offer us your comments. Would you like to live in this world? Are there elements of our vision with which you disagree? Are important pieces missing? When you are done, please send your feedback to farley@cbl.umces.edu ," the E-mail address of Josh Farley at University of Maryland.

The ESDA vision statement is organized into five parts: Worldviews, Built Capital, Natural Capital, Human Capital and Social Capital. In REHN #727 we began publishing the "Worldviews" section, which continues here:

An essential step to reaching a steady state economy is full cost accounting. We must recognize that production and consumption decisions incur environmental costs of pollution and resource depletion as well as social costs such as poverty and misery. At the very least, these costs must be accounted for in prices. The idea of full cost accounting must also be reflected in national accounts. The gross national product will be replaced by measures such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare or the Genuine Progress Indicator. (See REHN #516.) Any effective measure of sustainable economic development must also include indicators of the health of the ecosystems that sustain us.

Finally, values will outweigh technical expertise in the decision making process. No longer will policy makers pay attention to economists' mathematical analysis of whether the costs of global warming outweigh the benefits. Instead, people will recognize that complex moral and ethical values cannot be boiled down to simple equations and pure rationality. Emotion will no longer be disdained in the decision making process, but will be recognized as a fundamental component of the human psyche. Science will still be respected within its sphere, but people will recognize that that sphere does not include moral decisions of right and wrong. Technology will be a servant helping us to meet the moral and ethical ends we decide on together, not an end in itself, not a master.

Though these are some characteristics of the dominant worldview we envision in 2100, we also envision a society robust enough, productive enough and tolerant enough to allow room for a wide range of people with differing world views to live together in harmony.

II. BUILT CAPITAL

Built capital is the human made infrastructure used to meet human needs. Though technological advance over the next hundred years will have a large impact on the type of built capital we find in Sustainable and Desirable America 2100, different priorities will have had as much or even greater impact.

COMMUNITIES : Communities will be dramatically redesigned to integrate living space, community space, and work space with recreational needs and nature. Workspace includes the stores that supply our every day needs as well as production facilities for most of the goods those stores supply. People will live very close to where they work, where they shop and where they play. Communities in general will be much smaller, though specifics of community size and design are determined by local ecosystem limits.

In addition to these very practical aspects, communities will be designed as "soul satisfying spaces that resonate with our evolutionary history." Most communities will be surrounded by natural areas and incorporate parks and other green spaces (though this is a misnomer in drier parts of the country, where xeriscaping will be the norm) that will also serve as common space for community members. They will also foster social interaction and mutual dependence on community. Rather than something new, this is simply a resurgence of a millennial tradition of settlement patterns.

Because community space is abundant and well designed, private homes will in general be smaller (hence cheaper and easier to care for) though still palatial by world standards. Private lawns will virtually disappear, though lawn-like community green spaces will exist, and private gardens will abound. Private gardens in fact meet a substantial portion of community food needs.

Rapidly increasing energy costs will probably provide the initial incentive behind the unified, largely self-sufficient communities where walking and bicycle riding will effectively become the dominant forms of transportation, except in the worst weather. However, Americans will quickly discover that there were enormous benefits to such pedestrian communities. One of the biggest impacts will be simply getting people out of their cars. Walking to work, to the store, to community meeting places or to nature preserves on the outskirts of town will bring people into direct contact with the other members of the community. People walking together in the same direction naturally converse, establishing friendships, informing each other of current events, and discussing issues of relevance to the community. In fact, developing community and social capital will become one of many explicit goals for designing built capital.

Modern communities will be very healthy places for humans and other species. The invigoration of exercise and the nurturing of the human need for social interaction will replace the stress of hour-long commutes, road rage and the pollution of vehicle exhaust, improving both physical and mental health. Air quality will be very high. Many roads and parking lots will become redundant, and in their space will stand parks, streams and greenways, providing clean air, clean water, and healthy recreation, among numerous other vital ecosystem services. Dramatic reductions in impervious areas will reduce flooding and allow the land and the ecosystems it sustains to filter water, restoring the nation's waterways to health.

Of course, though the near extinction of the single occupancy vehicle will make many roads nothing more than useless pollution taking up space needed for forests and other natural areas, it will not be easy to clean up the mess. The energy costs of simply tearing up all the pavement may prove more than America can afford, and ecological restorationists will need to discover how plants can do much of this for us. Certain plants can thrive when planted directly into cracks in asphalt and others can be planted in holes dug through the roads, the roots mechanically breaking down both asphalt and concrete. Different plants will prove able to chemically break down the pollutants in the soil from both the asphalt and the vehicles that drove over it for so many years, and these will 'pave the way' (an archaic expression) for the return of native plant communities.

The huge cities of course will not disappear in one hundred years, but will be dramatically reorganized. In 2100 cities will be aggregations of smaller communities in close physical proximity, but where each community meets the housing, employment, social, recreation and shopping needs of those who live there. Natural areas will also make a big comeback in urban, and ecological restoration will play an important role in decontaminating urban brownfields. Huge cities will remain of course quite different from more isolated smaller communities, with both advantages and disadvantages. Communities within a city will still be organized in many cases on ethnic or cultural lines, so cities will provide exceptional cultural diversity and richness. There will simply not be enough land within or nearby most cities to provide all the agricultural production and raw materials for manufacture they require, and much of this must still be shipped in.

TRANSPORTATION: As already mentioned in the description of communities, single occupancy vehicles will be exceedingly rare. The dominant modes of transportation within communities will be walking and bicycling, and between communities it will be high speed rail. Public transportation will be important within communities, and will be designed not just to transport passengers but to transport goods as well, making it convenient for grocery shopping and the like. Because so many people will use public transportation, it will be abundant and extremely convenient. Rail will be common, but so will buses and taxis powered by fuel cells. Traffic will be a thing of the past, so public transportation will get people around much more quickly than private vehicles do today, at a fraction of the cost. Dramatically fewer vehicles on the roads will also cut maintenance costs to a fraction of what they are today, and new roads will be unnecessary. Some people may still own private vehicles -- hydrogen powered hyper-cars -- but these vehicles will be expensive, and their owners will pay a higher share of costs of road maintenance. Most communities will have hypercars available for rent when private transportation is absolutely required, and when not in use for driving, the hypercars may prove a clean and efficient source of electricity for those rare occasions when local solar cells are insufficient.

ENERGY: Renewable resources will meet virtually all of the nation's energy needs, the conversion from hydrocarbons facilitated by continuous increases in efficiency of energy use. Photovoltaic tiles will be ubiquitous roofing materials, and roofs alone will meet over half the nation's energy needs. Much of electricity from wind farms and solar farms will be used to create hydrogen for fuel cells. Large scale hydropower will be decreasing in importance as more and more rivers are restored to their natural states, but low impact mini-turbines will be increasingly common. In spite of the abundance of non-renewable non-polluting forms of energy, energy efficiency research will still be important, the primary goal being to reduce the area of the country covered in solar cells.

INDUSTRY: Industry will change dramatically. Industrial design will be based on closed loop systems in imitation of nature, where the waste product from one industry becomes the feedstock of the next. Wasted heat from industrial processes will be used to heat nearby homes and workspaces. When possible, industrial production will use local materials to meet local needs, and process wastes (the few that are not put to use) locally. Most industries will be locally owned as well. While these characteristics will not always maximize productive 'efficiency', the costs will outweigh the benefits. First, local production will dramatically reduce transportation costs, helping to compensate for sometimes higher production costs. Second, it will make communities directly aware of the environmental impacts of production and consumption. Costs of waste disposal will not be shifted elsewhere. Third, industries will be part of a community. Most of them will be locally owned by the workers they employ and by the people whose needs they meet. Rather than simply trying to maximize returns to shareholders, industries will strive to provide healthy, safe, secure and fulfilling working conditions for workers. Those who produce goods and those who consume them will know each other, so workers will take particular pride in the quality of what they produce. Fourth, the decentralization of the economy will mean that the economy as a whole will be much less susceptible to business cycles, increasing job stability. Fifth, an emphasis on local ownership and production for local markets will reduce the importance of trade secrets and patents -- competition will be replaced to some extent by cooperation. Finally, decreased competition will lead to a dramatic decrease in the size of the advertising industry. This means that money once spent on convincing people to buy one brand over another will be spent on making those products better, or simply not spent, making those products more affordable. [To be continued]

NOTICE In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. Environmental Research Foundation provides this electronic version of RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS free of charge even though it costs the organization considerable time and money to produce it. We would like to continue to provide this service free. You could help by making a tax-deductible contribution (anything you can afford, whether $5.00 or $500.00). Please send your tax-deductible contribution to: Environmental Research Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036. Please do not send credit card information via E-mail. For further information about making tax-deductible contributions to E.R.F. by credit card please phone us toll free at 1-888-2RACHEL, or at (410) 263-1584, or fax us at (410) 263-8944. --Peter Montague, Editor