The material in this lesson covers many of the fundamental considerations in sustainability. All sustainability topics are related in some way, but the topics addressed in this lesson are either integrated into many other topics, or are overarching issues that many other topics are a part of. These concepts are important to understand if you want to analyze specific issues such as water sustainability, energy sustainability, and others (those are addressed in Lesson 3), or to understand sustainability holistically.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
Please note that the quiz can only be taken once. You have unlimited time to complete it prior to the deadline and can save your progress and pick up where you left off at a later time. See the Assignments and Grading section of the syllabus [1] for tips on how to do this. Once you submit the quiz, you cannot change answers. All saved answers will automatically be submitted at the deadline if you have not submitted them.
Requirement | Submission Location |
---|---|
Lesson 2 Quiz | Modules tab > Lesson 2 |
Continue posting to the Yellowdig discussion board. | Modules tab > Lesson 2 |
OPTIONAL Extra Credit: Lesson 2 Extra Credit quiz | Modules tab > Lesson 2 |
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our HAVE A QUESTION? discussion forum located under the Discussions tab. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate. If you have a question but would like to remain anonymous to the other students, email me.
If you have something related to the material that you'd like to share, feel free to post to the Coffee Shop forum, also under the Discussions tab.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
Think about the last time you spent money on something or considered spending money on something, even if it was something small and seemingly inconsequential. Then I want you to think about why you made the decision you did. Did you spend the money or not? What was your motivation? What factor(s) did you take into consideration? I’ll do the same.
As I write this, the last thing I thought about spending money on was a small table at a used furniture store (true story). I have been needing (okay, wanting) a small table for my front porch for a little while now. I thought this table looked nice and was kind of unique. I also liked that is was a used item, and the purchase supported a non-profit organization. I considered the fact that I was on my way somewhere else and had my dog in the car and had to be able to fit the table in the car without crowding the dog too much or making it dangerous for him to be in the car. I also considered whether or not the rest of my family would like it, in particular, my wife. Of course, I also considered how much money it would cost ($10). After taking all of this into consideration, I purchased the table.
Not the most interesting story [2], I know. But this is a small illustration of the fundamental theory behind the system of economics that we’ve been using for the past 150+ years. Namely, that people make purchases based on weighing the personal costs and benefits given the information they have available to them. In a perfect world, consumers know everything about a product, the benefits they will receive from it, and how it compares to similar products. (This is generally not a reasonable set of assumptions, but that’s another story that we will address later in this course.) All of these combined add up to the private benefit - which economists call the private utility, or simply utility - of the good. They also consider the private cost, which includes at least the price, but could also include other factors such as inconvenience. This process would appear to most people to simply be common sense, and most likely this system of thought is what led you to buy or not buy whatever it is you were considering in the thought experiment above.
There is another side to this transaction. Whoever offered to sell you the good almost certainly decided on a price based at least on how they could maximize their profit (or at least make a profit). Again, this makes sense and is how most businesses run. There is a balancing act between what consumers want, what the "going price" is, how much it costs the business to procure and sell it, and so forth. Nothing wrong with being motivated at least in part by profit – if a business does not make money, they will not be in business for very long, after all! The merchant from whom I purchased the table was able to offer a very low price because the item was donated, the business was partially staffed by volunteers, it gets tax breaks from being a non-profit, and so forth.
You’re probably wondering if there is a point to all of this. Well, can you think of anything missing from this equation? Are there any costs or benefits missing from this decision-making process? Think about it, then hold that thought and watch the video below. You are required to watch the first 3:20 of the video (intro and negative externalities), as well as 5:06 - 6:22 (positive externalities). A summary of the key points can be found below. The rest of the video is optional.
Please also read this very short reading from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD [5]is an organization with representatives from 36 of the wealthier countries in the world [6], but also with some lower-income countries. You may see the term “OECD countries” in future courses and elsewhere, so this is useful to know. The OECD is also a good source of information and data.
The OECD offers a reasonably good, concise definition of externalities:
Externalities refers to situations when the effect of production or consumption of goods and services imposes costs or benefits on others which are not reflected in the prices charged for the goods and services being provided
As noted in the video, there are usually external costs and/or external benefits to transactions. External costs and benefits are borne by people or other entities that had no input on the transaction and were not fully included in the price. A negative externality occurs when an external cost occurs, and a positive externality occurs when an external benefit occurs.
Pollution is a classic example of a negative externality, as noted in the reading (and later in the video). Most pollution - particularly air pollution - is emitted without the emitter paying for any negative consequences of the pollution. These costs could be in the form of respiratory problems caused by power plant particulates, loss of beautiful vistas because of smog from car exhaust, the climate change impact of carbon dioxide from a home furnace, or any number of problems. The reading from the OECD notes that roads may have positive externalities (making it easier to get to work or school, etc.), but keep in mind that they usually have some negative externalities as well, such as air pollution, noise pollution, possibly extra traffic, and more. The point is that many of these costs and benefits happen to actors that were not involved in the decision to emit the pollutants, but that they were not compensated for (or did not have to pay for them, in the case of benefits), and were not included in the price of the good (e.g., the cost to build the road), thus making them externalities.
Dr. Paul M. Johnson of Auburn University provides a little more specificity [8] to this definition:
An externality is "a situation in which the private costs or benefits to the producers or purchasers of a good or service differs from the total social costs or benefits entailed in its production and consumption."
The narrator in the video also points this out when she says that a negative externality occurs when social cost exceeds private cost, and a positive externality occurs when the social benefit exceeds the private benefit. If an external cost is incurred by someone outside of the transaction, and that cost is fully integrated into the cost of the product, then by definition no positive or negative externality occurs. (Note that it is nearly, if not completely, impossible to fully integrate all costs and benefits into an action. But if they could be integrated, some economists still consider them externalities because they are "external" to the transaction. They would just be neither positive nor negative.)
Air pollution from a factory is considered an externality because certain costs to others that may be incurred - such as people getting sick from the pollution and missing work and paying for doctor's bills - are not paid by the factory. Even if the factory owner gets a small fine, if that fine is less than the external cost, then it is still an externality. It's difficult to imagine an external benefit to air pollution, but maybe there are people out there that enjoy asthma attacks and diminished lung capacity. (Who am I to judge?) If a state builds a road, neither all of the negative (e.g., noise and air pollution) nor the positive (e.g., decreased commute time, increased economic activity) are fully integrated into the cost of the road, and externalities abound.
Economists tend to think of externalities in dollars and cents, even if an externality does not have a direct cost. For example, let's say I play in an outdoor basketball league. I love playing basketball, but don't get a direct monetary benefit from it. What if air pollution fouls the air and makes it impossible for me to play basketball? What is the externality in dollars and cents?
In order to figure this out, my "Willingness to Pay" (WTP) would have to be determined. If it were just my teammates and me, they would ask us something to the effect of: "How much would you be willing to pay to play basketball tonight?" Of course, if you scale this up and want to know how much 1,000 people or 10,000 people would be willing to pay, you would need to perform statistical analysis. You could do the same thing for many externalities, such as political freedom, beautiful views, safe neighborhoods, etc. At any rate, it is not necessary for our purposes to always think of externalities in financial terms, but it would be if we wanted to figure out the true cost of transactions. Here is one study [9] that analyzes Willingness to Pay for environmental externalities in Spain. (Full disclosure: This is a random study that I found through a Google search. But it is a peer-reviewed study, so is legitimate research.)
Back to my table. Can you think of any externalities that may have resulted from it? It is probable that the steel, which is mostly iron [10], was mined somewhere. There may have been some chemical runoff from the mine that affected local people or wildlife. Manufacturing steel requires a lot of energy, usually from coal. This causes emissions, including carbon dioxide, that can affect local people and wildlife, and likely contributing to climate change. Even if there is a small effect on climate change, it is still an externality. Perhaps the coal mine acidified the local water supply, compromising the local fish supply. The table was probably shipped somewhere, which would have caused emissions. There are more, but you get the point. It is very important to remember that for purposes of this course, these costs are negative externalities if they are not fully integrated into the cost of making, and therefore buying the product. For example, if the company that mined the steel paid a fine equivalent to the damage from the pollution, then it was likely included in the cost. That is possible, though unlikely. If nothing else, the emissions that resulted from this whole process are almost certainly not integrated into the cost (more on this later), and so there are some externalities involved.
There are likely positive externalities as well. Perhaps the iron mining company brought jobs to the local economy, and the people earning wages spent the money on other businesses. These other businesses indirectly benefited from the mining of the iron. Perhaps the mining company built some local roads that facilitated business and allowed people to more easily visit family. Closer to home, my beautiful table is sitting on my front porch and makes my neighbors happy when they see it (I might have made that up), which is a positive externality. But if it makes them jealous, that is a negative externality (also not likely).
One more thing: As mentioned in the video, goods/actions with negative externalities are usually overproduced. This means that more of it is produced/done than is socially optimal. In other words, if there were no externalities, every impact would be reflected in the price, and less of the good/action would happen because it would be more expensive than it would be otherwise. For example, if all of the negative impacts from pollution were added to the cost of generating the pollution, then it would be more expensive to pollute, and less of it would occur. Conversely, things with positive externalities tend to be underproduced. An example of each follows:
The climate benefits of reducing fossil fuel combustion are essential sustainability considerations. However, there are many other negative externalities associated with fossil fuel use. There is increasing awareness of the negative health impacts of fossil fuel use, in particular due to PM 2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter) because they are small enough to get into lung sacs and even the bloodstream. The following are examples of recent research related to this. These are negative externalities because the costs are not included in the price of fossil fuels:
Hopefully, this makes sense to this point. Most, if not all, economic transactions have externalities, which may be positive or negative. These externalities may have a direct economic cost/benefit associated with them (e.g., hospital bill from an asthma attack that occurred because of car exhaust fumes [14]) or a non-economic cost/benefit (e.g., the sense of freedom I got while driving the car [15] that contributed to the asthma attack). These are real impacts on real people that are not included in the cost of the transactions that led to the externalities. You could probably list a few more externalities from driving, but that's really the easy part. Think about this for a minute: How would you go about quantifying the externalities? More specifically from the example above, how would you quantify the external costs of one gallon of gasoline burned in a car engine? How about the total external cost of generating electricity with a coal-fired power plant? Think about all of the complex calculations you would need to perform, and also how many assumptions you would have to make. Fortunately, I will not ask you to do that, because it goes well beyond the scope of this course. Also, this is actually a major avenue of research, and so numbers are available.
The reading below is a pretty well-balanced assessment of externalities from electricity generation. This reading is not required, but it will be very helpful to at least read the sections called "Indirect Subsidies" and "Conclusion."
There are a few important points to be gleaned from this article.
Without getting into the specifics about the causes of climate change (that will be covered in the next lesson), let's take a look at climate change as an externality. As you will see in the next lesson, if the climate continues to change, the impacts will be overwhelmingly negative. Quantifying these costs is an active area of research, but many countries - including the U.S. - have placed an "official" cost on the emission of carbon dioxide (this is used to calculate the cost of new legislation). Under the Obama administration, the U.S. federal government used a social cost of carbon (SCC) of $39 per ton [19]of carbon dioxide. (Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has proposed to lower this significantly, and the Biden Administration is proposing to increase it to $51/ton.) A 2015 study out of Stanford University [20] found that the U.S. grossly underestimated the SCC and that it should be closer to 220 dollars/ton. In 2013, major corporations integrated the cost of carbon emissions into their projects [21] (between 6 dollars and 60 dollars/ton), though they use some different considerations than SCC, and by early 2021, over 500 companies [22] worldwide had integrated SCC internally, with almost as many more planning on integrating one within the following two years.
Please note that you are not required to fully understand the calculation below, but you do need to understand how assumptions regarding SCC could impact the cost of electricity in general, as well as the implications for using natural gas vs. coal to generate electricity. This technique could be applied to anything that causes carbon dioxide emissions.
Are you wondering how much CO2 is emitted by various energy sources, so you can calculate the SCC? For example, how much would each kilowatt hour of electricity cost if the cost to society (read: externalities) were included? If you have, you've come to the right place! The carbon dioxide emissions that result from electricity generation vary significantly by energy source, so we'll start there, then apply the assumptions for actual financial cost of carbon as outlined by the two sources referred to above. Note that the information in the table below takes into consideration the average efficiency of each type of power plant (the same power plant efficiencies from Lesson 1, by the way):
What is the SCC of a kWh of bituminous coal vs. natural gas at different SCC rates (37 dollars/ton vs. 220 dollars/ton)? In other words, based on the number of pounds of CO2 are emitted when burning coal and natural gas, and assuming that the total cost to society of one ton of CO2 is either $37 or $220, how much more would we pay per kWh if these external costs were integrated into the price of that kWh?
As you can see, there is a huge difference in the social cost of electricity, based on the social cost of carbon assumption used. And also note that less carbon-intensive fuel sources would cost less than higher-intensity sources. (This is the basis of a carbon tax, by the way!)
The point of all of this discussion of different social costs of carbon is not that one calculation is better than the other, but that climate change is increasingly being recognized as having a real cost, but much of that cost will be borne in the future and is thus an externality. Even current external costs are largely borne by people that did not make the decision to pollute. This all, of course, ignores the noneconomic costs of climate change, which could be substantial.
Here is a summary of the Stanford study referred to above. It is very short and describes some of the rationale and science behind Social Cost of Carbon calculations.
Almost everything that is bought and sold has externalities. Some are more impactful than others. Externalities – negative externalities in particular – are very important considerations in sustainability. By definition, they are not included in the cost of goods. The cost of goods drives our economy, and our economy is a (and many would argue the) dominant force in society. It’s easy to see that if the dominant force in society is not accounting for all costs to society, we might have some problems. Many of the issues discussed in this and the next lesson are the results of externalities - climate change included.
There is a lot of material on this page, so here is a summary of the key points:
If the Social Cost of Carbon were included in the cost of current carbon emissions, is human-induced climate change no longer a negative externality? Would it be an externality at all?
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
Speaking of costs and benefits, in simple terms, there are two fundamental quantities a business (or individual) needs to know to determine if they are making or losing money: how much money is going into the budget (revenue) and how much is going out (expenses). If revenue exceeds expenses, then the business makes money. If costs exceed expenses, the business loses money. A business cannot lose money forever. Eventually, it will not be able to sustain itself.
The same principle applies to most natural resources in two fundamental ways:
Lesson 3 provides a lot of examples of the symptoms of overuse of natural resources, but for now, I'd like you to reiterate these two following basic truths:
Just as a business that loses more money than it makes runs a deficit, when humans overuse the capacity of the earth to replenish resources, it could be said that these places are running an ecological deficit. It stands to reason that if we could figure out our planetary capacity to generate natural resources (aka our "budget" or "revenue" of natural resources) and compare it to how much of that capacity we use (aka our "costs"), we could determine if we are losing or gaining ecological capacity. Luckily for us, some people have been working on this for the last decade or so and have come up with the concept of ecological footprint.
Watch this short (2:58 minute) video from Mathis Wackernagel, who originated the concept of ecological footprint. He is currently Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network [27], which specializes in calculating ecological footprints.
For some deeper insight into ecological footprint, read Chapter 4 of Is Sustainability Still Possible?: "Getting to One-Planet Living," by Jennie Moore and William E. Rees. (See the Modules tab for a digital copy.)
"Ecological Footprints estimate the productive ecosystem area required, on a continuous basis, by any specified population to produce the renewable resources it consumes and to assimilate its (mostly carbon) wastes."
~Jennie Moore and William Rees, "Getting to One-Planet Living", p. 40
Dr. Wackernagel sums up the goal of ecological footprint analysis by asking a simple question: "How will we be able to maintain the success (of our society) in the future?" The ecological footprint is based on the recognition that humans depend on the earth's natural resources for survival, and that our "success" is predicated on the ability of the earth to replenish natural resources through time. In the simplest terms, the question we need to answer is:
We only have one earth, and this one earth can only regenerate so many resources in a given year (produce food, filter water, pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, etc.) - this is our stock of resources. How can we use this information to determine whether or not we are overusing natural resources? In principle, it's relatively simple: If we compare the number of resources that are provided each year by the earth (one "earth") to the amount we use (our global ecological footprint), we can determine whether or not we are living within our ecological budget.
There are many implications of this, but there are two fundamental ones:
If biocapacity diminishes, eventually ecosystem collapse will occur, and ultimately societal collapse as well. This is what scientists refer to as a "very bad thing."
The bad news is that according to the Global Footprint Network, humans have been living beyond their ecological means for about 40 years now, as the chart below shows. The good news is, uh <checking notes>, well unfortunately in terms of global ecological footprint, there is very little good news. Just about every country across the world has an increasing ecological footprint [28].
The Global Footprint Network (GFN) created another way to illustrate the same phenomenon by publishing the annual "Earth Overshoot Day [30]." Earth Overshoot Day indicates the date in a given year after which humanity starts using more than a sustainable level of natural resources. As the GFN puts it: Earth Overshoot Day is when "we began to use more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year." So, an earlier Earth Overshoot Day means that we are using up our resources faster. In 2016, this happened on August 8th. Pretty sad, right? Well, unfortunately in 2017, this occurred on August 2nd, and in 2019 it was July 29th! This is not the kind of downward trend sustainability-types like yourselves want to see. For the first time since they've been keeping track, Overshoot Day moved back about four weeks (to August 22nd) in 2020, but it was at the cost of millions of deaths and countless lives ruined. And of course, it was back to July 19th in 2021.
While humans are unfortunately overusing resources on a global scale, it is not all bad news. If the natural replenishment rate of a renewable resource is known, then it is possible to harvest them at a sustainable rate. How can this be done? I want you to think about this for a minute before moving on. (Maybe take a look at Figure 2.4 for some inspiration.)
Okay, here's the oh-so-elusive secret: If you want to maintain a supply of renewable natural resources, don't harvest them any faster than they can be naturally replenished. This practice is generally referred to as the principle of sustainable yield (you might also see it referred to as "maximum sustainable yield" or "sustained yield"). This is a pretty self-descriptive term, but Encyclopaedia Britannica provides a concise definition [31]:
Sustainable yield "can in principle be maintained indefinitely because it can be supported by the regenerative capacities of the underlying natural system."
This can in theory be done for any renewable natural resource in order to maintain a steady supply over time. This is most often thought of in forest management and fisheries management but can be applied to any resource (e.g., soil, water, animal populations, plant populations). There are numerous examples of this in practice. For example, most of Sweden's forests are harvested using sustainable yield practices, and in fact, the total amount of forest has been increasing [32] since at least the 1950s. Some forest areas under U.S. federal jurisdiction are required [33]to be managed using sustainable yield practices, and the Maine lobster industry has been maintained [34]for well over 100 years because of sustainable yield practices.
Please also keep in mind that - as indicated above - the same principle applies to emissions/pollution. If pollution is emitted faster than it can be safely absorbed, it will build up in the environment and/or cause damage to the environment. Rising CO2 levels are one example of this.
Unsustainable Forest Management: Illustration showing that if you cut 3 out of 5 trees down and 1 grows back, you have 3 trees left, then if you cut 3 more down and 1 grows back, you have 1 left.
Sustained Yield Forest Management: Illustration showing that if you cut down 1 of 5 trees and 1 grows back, you have 5 trees left. Then, if you cut down one more and 1 grows back, you still have 5 trees left.
It is very important to note a few caveats regarding sustained/sustainable yield management:
How much longer can we continue to live beyond our ecological means? Unfortunately, there is no way to know. As Moore and Rees put it in the optional reading: "System collapse is a complicated process...We may actually pass through a tipping point unaware because nothing much happens at first" (p. 41). There is a phenomenon, most often used in biology/ecology, called overshoot and collapse that can help us understand some of the risks involved with overusing renewable resources and passing through such "tipping points."
This short article describes the well-documented example of overshoot and collapse on St. Matthew Island in Alaska. The rest of the article describes how this may be an analogy for humans, specifically with regard to energy. It is good food for thought.
Overshoot and collapse can occur when there is insufficient immediate or short-term feedback to prevent an organism from acting against its own self-interest. If widespread human suffering occurred because of ecological overuse and it could be proven that resource overuse was the cause, it is likely that we would try to do something about it.
Of course, suffering is happening now, some of which is due to resource scarcity, but apparently not enough for us to address it. Regardless, it is possible to use more than our allotted biocapacity and survive, at least for a while. What's scary is that no one knows exactly how long we can keep using resources at this rate without reaching a tipping point. It may be 10 years, maybe 20 years, maybe even 50 years (very unlikely). It depends on a lot of factors, but one of the main problems is that by the time we realize collapse is occurring, it may already be too late to do anything about it. That is the "collapse" part of "overshoot and collapse." On St. Matthew Island, by the time the deer started running out of lichen to eat, it was too late. Humans are of course much more resourceful than reindeer (one would hope so, anyway), but there are likely tipping points that are points of no return. Chief among these are climate change and biodiversity loss, which will both be addressed in future lessons.
If the people in a country have a bigger ecological footprint than the physical size of the country, how can they continue to survive? For example, according to Global Footprint Network data (from overshootday.org [38]):
How is this possible? In other words, how can a country or the whole world use more resources than can sustainably be provided, and still survive?
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
If you haven't done this already, the next time you hear or read an economic report, or hear a politician discuss economic policy, pay attention to how much focus is on growth. The tax cuts passed at the end of 2017 in the U.S. provide a great example of this, as do the more recent Covid relief bill. "Economic growth" was often cited as the main purpose of the tax bill, and Covid relief to a lesser extent. One of the major economic concerns expressed with regards to the Covid-19 pandemic is "contraction," i.e. negative growth. This is not an aberration! We hear the phrase "economic growth" so much that the attempt to achieve it is taken as a given. This cuts across political (Republican, Democrat, Independent, etc.) and international boundaries, by the way.
But have you ever thought about what the implications of a permanent state of economic growth are, or if it is even possible? Renowned economist Herman Daly - who, among other accolades received the prestigious Right Livelihood Award [39], aka "the alternative Nobel prize", in 1996 - provides a concise explanation of the inadequacies of the notion of "sustainable growth" in the article below.
In general, the most acceptable type of information source is peer-reviewed research, which appears in journals. There are thousands of scholarly/academic journals [40], and to be fair not all of them are regarded with equal esteem. But, by and large, if you find information in a journal, there is good reason to believe that there is at least relatively solid scientific backing behind it, and often very solid scientific basis (again, this depends somewhat on the journal).
"Peer-reviewed" means that the article was reviewed by experts in the field of research addressed in the article, i.e., the author's peers. This is usually a very rigorous process, and it is rare to find major errors in peer-reviewed research, particularly for well-regarded journals. There are some exceptions - for example, you have to be careful who funds research. Authors are supposed to disclose who funded their research (research can be very costly, if nothing else to compensate the authors), but there are instances of this not happening. Funders are not supposed to influence research outcomes. In fact, that entirely contradicts the principle of the scientific research process. But results are often open to some interpretation, and methods are never perfect, so there is room for subtle influence. For example, you may want to take energy research funded by energy companies or energy advocacy organizations with a grain of salt (i.e., really use your critical thinking skills!). This is much more important for non-peer reviewed research. This is usually oil- and/or natural gas-related - mostly because they are some of the wealthiest corporations in the world [41] and stand to gain (or lose) significantly due to changing scientific and policy understanding - but this stands for renewables as well.
All that said, peer-reviewed research is considered the best type of information to use. The article below is from the peer-reviewed journal Development. Note that many non peer-reviewed articles use peer-reviewed information as source material, which is important to consider when analyzing the reliability of the information.
Before reading the article, a short note on terminology: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the "value of all finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period" (source: Investopedia: gdp [42]). Gross National Product (GNP) is the same as GDP, but includes money made overseas by domestic residents, and does not include money made domestically by foreign residents (source: Investopedia: gnp [43]). I recommend at least watching the videos on the GDP a GNP Investopedia pages.
So, GDP is the dollar value of every new product and service bought and sold within a country's borders, plus things like government spending and net exports. Say a Chinese company sells products within the U.S.'s physical borders. All income counts toward the U.S.'s GDP, but not China's GDP. But that income does not count toward the U.S.'s GNP, instead, counting toward China's GNP. It used to be more common to use GNP, but now GDP is much more commonly used. For the purposes of this course, it is not important to spend time distinguishing between the two, but to understand that they are both measurements of overall economic activity.
Economists use GDP as a sign of general economic health, particularly whether it is growing (considered a good thing) or shrinking (not good). Another important term is GDP per capita (GDP/capita). This is a measure of GDP divided by the number of people living in a country.
There are a lot of good points made in the article, but the overarching one is:
"An economy in sustainable development...stops at a scale at which the remaining ecosystem...can continue to function and renew itself year after year" (p. 45)
This should sound very familiar! It coincides neatly with the concept of ecological footprint. (I'll leave you to think about what this means in terms of global ecological footprint, i.e. 1 earth, less than 1 earth, etc.) He describes this point (an economy in sustainable development) as the optimal scale for the economy, and that optimal scale is never addressed when discussing macroeconomics(p. 46). In other words, economists (and by extension, politicians) do not discuss the best (optimal) size of the economy, only focusing on growing it as large as possible. Think about this next time you read or hear a story regarding economic growth.
Another essential concept is that Daly is careful to point out the difference between growth (getting "bigger") and development (getting "different"). The economy and society can develop forever, but cannot grow forever. A developing economy is not stagnant, even if it is not growing. Money will change hands, services will be provided, goods will be made, etc. An economy cannot grow forever, however, because it is a subset of the earth, and is subject to the physical limitations that the earth's biocapacity provides. This is a fundamental principle that should be considered when discussing economic growth and economic sustainability, and it also aligns closely with the notion of ecological footprint.
The whole article is important, but a few other highlights I'd like to point out are:
All of the above summarizes the concept of the steady state economy.
Please watch a video (5:07) featuring Herman Daly, himself, discussing the steady state economy:
Feel free to read a description of the steady state economy, as well as a brief historical background of the concept, by the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). One thing to note that you will see in the article: Ecological Economics is a sub-field of Economics that essentially advocates for the application of the steady state economy concept (among other things). This should not be confused with Environmental Economics, which is more of a traditional Economics sub-field. Note that the "History of the Steady State Concept" section is less important than the others, but provides some good historical context.
There are a few important/interesting things I'd like to note from the reading and video:
Some other points that are important to note about the steady state economy. (This is from a reading by CASSSE that has unfortunately disappeared from the internet, but the points are important.)
Make no mistake: being on record as saying that the economy must stop growing at some point is anathema to the core of mainstream thinking about how economies should work. It will not win you many friends in the policy or economic world, and certainly won't get you elected to public office (in the U.S., anyway). But the logic is hard to argue with.
There is a burgeoning belief in the sustainability movement that not only do we need to stop focusing on economic growth as a development/policy goal, but that we actively need to seek ways to have negative growth (i.e. contract) in order to achieve sustainability goals. This is most often referred to as "degrowth." There are a lot of folks researching and making proposals on this, but there is a lot of controversy about this even among sustainability advocates. Some folks believe that technology and efficiency will solve sustainability problems (they are often referred to as technological optimists/techno-optimists or cornucopians). They often point to the possibility of "decoupling" resource use from growth. The jury is out on this, but it's not looking good for the cornucopians. While many countries have reduced emissions while growing GDP, most scientists believe it is not possibly to fully decouple environmental impact from economic growth.
This is an essential debate! The exact solution is not clear, and it will take years if not decades to figure out the best approach. But as burgeoning sustainability experts, it is helpful for you to know that degrowth may be necessary to achieve a sustainable future.
There is a lot of literature on this, but the following article provides a good overview of the current debate. They synopsize Degrowth thus: "The degrowth movement, as it’s called, argues that humanity can’t keep growing without driving humanity into climate catastrophe. The only solution, the argument goes, is an extreme transformation of our way of life — a transition away from treating economic growth as a policy priority to an acceptance of shrinking GDP as a prerequisite to saving the planet." While I strongly disagree with the phrase "save the planet" - the planet will survive, but the people and other organisms may not - the rest of the article is very good.
It should not be difficult to recognize that humans are subject to the physical constraints of planet earth. But how we make sure that we do not exceed our limit to the point of collapse (e.g., overshoot and collapse mentioned previously) is something that is debated, even by people with seemingly the same end goals. There is a branch of environmental (well, it's primarily economic) thought that is based on the power of free markets to most efficiently manage resources. This is often called free market environmentalism (FME). Those who advocate for FME believe that free markets (economic systems that are free from government regulation) are the best way to solve environmental problems. And, just as important, they believe that the government is much worse at managing resources than the market. This article from the Library of Economics and Liberty [56] (a free-market think tank) summarizes the school of thought pretty well.
As outlined in this article, this school of thought rests on three assumptions in order for markets to work for any environmental good (e.g., a forest, clean water, clean air, etc.): "Rights to each important resource must be clearly defined, easily defended against invasion, and divestible (transferable) by owners on terms agreeable to buyer and seller" (source: Library of Economics and Liberty [56]). In other words, if a piece of property has:
I would add that (4) the author (and this is typical of FME) also assumes that the owner of the property is motivated to protect the property in anticipation of future profits.
For example, if I own a lake and someone pollutes it, if the courts are just, the polluter will end up paying me because (s)he compromised my ability to enjoy my property. If these conditions are known, then the polluter, in theory, will decide not to pollute in order to avoid the extra cost. As you can see, all of this relies on using money as the motivating factor.
This is a very sound argument as long as those conditions are met, at least in terms of environmental protection. This situation, and variations of it, have been proven effective in a wide array of applications. It worked for water conservation in the Western U.S. [57] And here are a number of case studies [58] demonstrating that these principles can work.
But what if those four conditions are not met? With climate change, a fundamental question is: "Who owns the atmosphere?" (The answer: no one does.) If there is no clear ownership, the system may not work. Let's go back to my lake that got polluted, and think about a few plausible scenarios.
This article from the Property and Environment Research Center [59] - also an advocate for free market environmentalism - goes over a few of these and other examples where the system breaks down.
This is a really dense, complicated topic that would take a very long time to fully flesh out. But determining the solutions to critical energy and sustainability problems is not one of the goals of this course, however, recognizing the planet's ability to support life is. One of the main points that I want you to walk away with from this page is that our economy has physical limitations that we must adhere to. The steady state economy is a precondition for environmental sustainability. But it is useful for you to know - especially in terms of critical analysis - that there are multiple possible ways to address this goal. Many - Herman Daly among them - advocate for government policy to solve this problem. Many - like the free market environmentalists - believe that markets and private property are the answer. I am not here to say which school of thought is correct, but my belief based on the evidence is that it is somewhere in between. Perhaps this could be done by having the government cap consumption at sustainable levels and allowing the market to work from there ("cap and trade"), or by using some of Daly's suggestions regarding subsidies and taxes. Cap and trade worked well for the acid rain problem in the early 1990s, for example, and is often cited as a solution to carbon emissions [60].
There are pros and cons to each approach. Markets are really great at efficiently managing resources that can have economic value attached to them (e.g., copper, oil) but even the most devout free market believers realize that they don't always work. Externalities are a good example of this (e.g., environmental destruction from copper and oil mining, air pollution from burning gasoline). And placing an economic value on something is a double-edged sword - it can, and often does, lead to preservation because of its expense (e.g., private nature parks), but it can lead to destruction if it is not perceived as worth enough (e.g., converting rainforest into pasture land). Private ownership often leads to inequity as well, as those without means are priced out of the access to goods (private education being a prime example of this). But government is generally not good at efficiently managing resources (e.g., the federal government of the U.S.). Overall, it is very difficult to believe that the market, left to its own devices, will achieve the Steady State Economy, especially if history is any guide. This is evidenced by the fact that the global ecological footprint is already at unsustainable levels.
One of the goals of this course is to help you think critically about these issues, so my hope is that when thinking about the information presented here you do so with "clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness" as you will read in the critical thinking section at the beginning of the next lesson (source: The Foundation for Critical Thinking [61]). To do this, you must look at the evidence and use sound logic, minimizing the influence of ideology as much as possible. But as we will also go over in the critical thinking lesson, the more you know about these topics, the better you are able to make a sound critical analysis.
The following short article and web page describe somewhat competing views on this.
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
Clearly, there are a lot of ways to think about and measure whether or not we are living sustainably, and we've only scratched the surface in this course. So far, we've primarily examined how to be environmentally sustainable. But what about the other two "E's" of sustainability that were discussed in Lesson 1? If you can't remember what they are, I suggest clicking back to Lesson 1 [64] to refresh your memory.
Remember that one of the overarching goals of this course is to address issues from a humanistic perspective, which, among other things, means that we are concerned about the plight of all human life. And the discussion of equity made it clear that access to resources is an essential component of sustainability. Achieving environmental sustainability is a precondition for establishing this - humans live on the earth and need its resources to survive - but if we fail to address the quality of life of the people living on the planet, we've only won a partial victory. What good is a nice planet if all of the people on it are miserable?
If someone gave you a choice between a high or low quality of life, chances are about 100% that you'd say "high." But what actually constitutes a high quality of life?
GDP is the most oft-used metric to indicate how a country's economy is doing. But it is also widely used as a general indicator of how a country's people are doing. There is some usefulness to this, as you will see below. But GDP obscures a lot of possible problems (economic, social, environmental, etc.), and does not indicate all of the good things about a society. In short, there are some things that are good for GDP that are bad for people, and there are some things that are good for people that are not necessarily good for GDP. This problem was eloquently described by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. It is as relevant today as it was 45 years ago. Hopefully, this will give you some pause when you hear the latest GDP numbers as an indicator of how well a country is doing. Watch his speech below (2:11 minutes)
One of the major inadequacies of GDP as an indicator of how society is doing is the invisibility of household labor, which is primarily done by women. According to the OECD [71], men in the U.S. spend an average of 17.5 hours per week doing unpaid household labor, while women spend (wait for it) 28.4 hours per week! None of this is counted towards GDP. (Related note: If any parent or spouse is a "stay-at-home" mom or dad, please never say that they "don't work." They just don't get paid to work.)
This article [72] from the New York Times provides some interesting visualizations of the gender-based household labor gap across the world, and found that even at minimum wage women across the world would have made 10.9 trillion (!) dollars in 2019 alone. To provide some context, the total global GDP in 2020 was a little under 85 trillion, according to [73] the World Bank. A few other problems with GDP include:
Quality of life is another one of those terms that is thrown around liberally but has no specific definition. We all want a high quality of life, but what does that mean exactly? I am not here to settle the debate, but I do like the definition from this website [77]: Quality of life is "the extent to which people's 'happiness requirements' are met." I'd add the term "satisfaction" in there as well, as in "are people's 'satisfaction' requirements met?" The same site also notes that "[Quality of life] may be defined as subjective well-being." Nothing is universally regarded as necessary for happiness, life satisfaction, or well-being. For example, I have friends who LOVE to hunt for deer and will sit for hours in a tree stand in the freezing cold, silently waiting for one to walk by. I can think of 1,000 things that I'd rather do than that (all numbers approximate). But to them, that is an important part of their quality of life. Nothing wrong at all with that, by the way - it's just not for me.
Hunting is something that is obviously not universally required for a high quality of life. But I'm sure there are thousands, if not millions, of people who count it as important. But if you think about it, there is nothing that everybody loves to do, so it wouldn't matter which activity I used as an example. So, if we want to measure the quality of life, how do we do it?
Let's go through a quick thought experiment.
Please click on this link to fill out a short questionnaire. The answers are anonymous.
We have used the word "development" solely with respect to "sustainable development" so far, though Herman Daly addressed development to some degree. The word development is used a LOT in economics, politics, and particularly in international studies. "Development Studies" is considered its own discipline and many schools offer Development Studies degrees [81].
But how do we know if a society or country is "developed?" Or better yet, how can we compare how well "developed" one country is relative to another? You probably have heard the term "undeveloped countries" or "underdeveloped countries" used in political or economic discourse. But have you ever stopped to think what that actually means? Clearly being "undeveloped" is a bad thing, so by using that term judgment is being passed. Most commonly, it is indicative of the relative income of a country and whether or not they've embraced the modern economic system. But as RFK pointed out (and as I'm sure your surveys will attest) income is not the only thing required to make life worth living.
The World Bank [82] is an international organization whose stated goals [83] are to 1) "End extreme poverty" and 2) "Promote shared prosperity." Historically, they have done this primarily by offering loans to governments and organizations.
The World Bank figures very prominently in global economics, but their reputation is mixed, especially among sustainable development advocates. They have a tendency to provide loans with conditions that push economies in the direction they want them to go, sometimes at the expense of the people in that country. That said, they have a lot of expertise, and are a good place for economic and other data. The document below provides a good explanation of what development is and is not. Frankly, it is surprising to see such a document from the World Bank, given their historical focus on economic growth alone. But they bring up some very good points. (Note that I summarize the key points below.)
A few important points from this reading:
It should be clear by now that there are many possible factors that contribute to quality of life, or lack thereof. Back to our original question: How do we measure quality of life? For that, we need a quality of life metric. These are often referred to as development indices. Recall from Lesson 1 that it is important to be able to measure aspects of sustainability? Development indices are one aspect of this.
There are two approaches to this:
There have been many attempts to do the latter and a few that have tried to do the former. It would be impossible to research all of these, but some of the most-used and/or most useful ones are listed below. The first two (HDI and Inequality-Adjusted HDI) measure things that lead to a high quality of life, the third one (Happiness Index) attempts to measure it directly, and the fourth (Multidimensional Poverty Index) measures things that indicate a lack of quality of life. The last one(Happy Planet Index) - which is optional - is a mixture of the two plus ecological footprint.
Please note that even the best metric cannot create a full picture of development, however it is measured. Even the most "developed" country - regardless of how you define development - will have people who are living in poor conditions. Also keep in mind that this is not a comprehensive list of development indices.
The Human Development Index is the most well-known quality of life metric. It was created by the United Nations (UN), who assesses it every year. It measures three things to determine quality of life, as you will see below: living a "long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and hav(ing) a decent standard of living." The HDI scale goes from 0 (the worst possible) to 1 (the best possible).
I suggest reading the following short description and browsing the most recent HDI rankings by country.
HDI combines three indicators to evaluate the level of development in a country:
This is intended to provide a fuller picture of human development. They do recognize some inadequacies of HDI, though, as they state: "The HDI simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails. It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc." Some of this is addressed in the Inequality-Adjusted HDI, which is addressed below.
The UN also publishes Inequality-Adjusted HDI (IHDI), which takes HDI and discounts it according to how equally the individual development metrics are spread across the population. If the Inequality-Adjusted HDI is lower than a country's HDI, then there is some inequality. For example, let's say two countries both have an average life expectancy of 74 years, which means life expectancy would be the same in the HDI rankings. But if in country A the wealthy people are living much longer than the low-income folks, and in country B pretty much everyone has the same average lifespan regardless of wealth, country B would be higher on the Inequality-Adjusted HDI rankings.
The Inequality-Adjusted HDI also uses a scale of 0 to 1, with 1 being the highest. Note that all countries have some inequality, so all IHDI scores are at least a little bit lower than the HDI score for that country.
As noted by the UN, the IHDI represents "the loss to human development due to inequality." The more inequality, the more the HDI score drops when adjusted for inequality. Note that the pattern in the map below is similar to the HDI map above, but the raw values are a little bit lower.
The short reading below from the UN provides a description of IHDI.
The Sustainable Development Solutions Network [91], an organization with esteemed members from throughout the world, has published the World Happiness Report since 2012 (the 2023 version of the World Happiness Report is available [92]). This reporting effort is led in part by renowned International Development expert Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.
The World Happiness Report asks people to indicate on a scale of 0 - 10 their quality of life now and their expected quality of life in the future (see World Happiness Report details here [93], if you'd like). The basic premise behind this is that if you would like to determine how happy or satisfied someone is with their life, just ask them. This is a type of self-reported quality of life and results in a score of 0 - 10. This is sometimes referred to as the Happiness Index.
Pretty simple, right? Though it does beg some important questions. For example, if someone lives a short life with little education, but they are happy, does it matter? What about someone that has very little freedom, but is happy? What if they have almost no money, but are happy? What if others in their country lead much "better" lives, but they do not know it? I do not have the answers, but they are important questions to think about.
You may want to read the following as well.
A few things worth noting from the first reading:
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is another UN metric. The premise of the MPI based on the recognition that (lack of) income is not the only way to measure poverty. For example, if a family is above the income-based poverty level but does not have access to adequate health care or education, they are stilll "poor" in quality of life terms.
The United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) summarizes the MPI [97]thusly: "The MPI looks beyond income to understand how people experience poverty in multiple and simultaneous ways. It identifies how people are being left behind across three key dimensions: health, education and standard of living, comprising 10 indicators. People who experience deprivation in at least one third of these weighted indicators fall into the category of multidimensionally poor."
As you can see below, the MPI provides a weighted list of measurable indicators. If someone experiences at least one third (1/3) of these factors, they are considered "multidimensionally poor." For example, if a family has a child that died in the last five years(1/6 weight) and one child does not attend school up to class eight (1/6 weight), they would be multidimensionally poor (1/6 + 1/6 = 1/3). But if someone was undernourished (1/6) and they don't have electricity (1/18) and cook with wood (1/18) they would not be considered multidimensionally poor (1/6 + 1/18 + 1/18 = less than 1/3). You may be thinking that it is pretty callous to consider undernourishment alone as not enough to be poor. To be fair to the UN, they spend a lot of time helping undernourished people. (As you may remember, "zero hunger [98]" is one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.) Just because they are not "multidimensionally" poor does not mean that they are not considered worthy of assistance! It is merely an imperfect but helpful attempt to identify the most underserved populations in the world.
The reading below from the UNDP outlines findings from a recent report on MPI.
The Happy Planet index takes into account both well-being (they use the same metric as the Happiness Index), life expectancy (like the HDI), and inequality of outcomes. The higher your well-being and life expectancy, the higher your score. Inequality is expressed as a percentage, with a higher percentage meaning more equal outcomes. But what is unique about the Happy Planet Index is that it divides by the ecological footprint, so a higher ecological footprint will result in a lower score, and vice-versa. Nic Marks created this index. He describes it in the short (1:54) video below.
Read about the Happy Planet Index [101] here, including how it is calculated and its limitations. You may want to browse the data here [102]. You are welcome, but not required, to watch the TED talk.
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
What do the following terms mean, and how do they relate to social justice?: political rights/opportunities, social rights/opportunities, economic rights/opportunities.Social justice is considered by many to be a controversial topic. Go ahead and Google "social justice" and you'll probably see as many negative than positive stories and videos. However, the concept itself is actually not very controversial - it is the application (or at least proposed application) that is. There is no single definition for social justice, but take a moment to think about the definition of social justice from the National Association of Social Workers [103], who provide a good, concise definition:
Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities.
Ultimately then, social justice is about equal rights and opportunities, which is a near-universal ideal of democratic and moral societies. Not so bad, right? But let's unpack that definition a little before we move on.
First, it is important to point out that they use the word everyone. This seemingly innocuous word actually lies at the core of social justice! I'm sure you can think of many historical and contemporary examples of unequal rights being granted to groups of people. Examples abound of discrimination against people of certain ethnicities, races, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, income levels, genders, and more. Social justice requires such characteristics and qualities have no bearing on rights and opportunities.
Alright, so let's start with the easiest of the three components: political rights and opportunities. The most obvious aspect of this is having the right to vote. In the U.S., almost every citizen has the right to vote. There are exceptions to this, such as some states not allowing convicted felons to vote [104]. However, keep in mind that black American men were only granted the right in 1869 [105] (though things such as poll taxes prevented them from fully participating for decades), and women were not afforded this right until 1920 [106] (seriously!).
But just because you have the right to vote does not mean you have an equal opportunity to vote. This is an important distinction to make. A prominent example is that black Americans were not fully given the legal opportunity to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1964. And even now there is a lot of controversy surrounding what many think are efforts to suppress votes in the U.S. [107], particularly in low-income and minority communities, and particularly since the 2020 election season. Even the fact that the U.S. presidential election is held on a Tuesday (early voting notwithstanding) is pointed to as unfair to people who don't have the job flexibility to miss work. In short, if people are not given reasonably good opportunities to vote, then social injustice may be occurring.
But this is only voting! What about political power and influence in general? Perhaps the most obvious example is that the U.S. has never had a woman president and the first black (or any person of color) president was elected in 2008. Obviously, this has not occurred due to complete absence of qualified female or non-white candidates. Again, they had the right to be president but it would be hard to argue that they had an equalopportunity to do so as a white male. The influence of money in politics is an important social justice issue because generally speaking those with more money are generally granted more political power. The money spent on political lobbying alone has been more than 2 billion (yes folks, that's billion with a "b"!) dollars every year since 2003 [109]. And that does not include the money spent on advertisements and other political activity. Nowadays it costs on the order of 1 billion dollars to get elected president of the U.S., and thousands or hundreds of thousands for even local offices. All of this results in political power being at least partially tied to how much money one has. Again, this is socially unjust.
Please keep in mind that lack of political rights and opportunities is an important international issue as well. Some extreme examples include the fact that 99.7% of all eligible voters [110] voted for the North Korean Communist Party in 2015, that the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe were considered a total sham [111], and the 2017 election in Venezuela was essentially rigged [112]. Voter intimidation can be a major problem in many parts of the world, and minorities and women are barred from voting in some areas of the world.
So what is meant by having equal economic rights and opportunities? This is a little more difficult to define, but essentially it means that everyone has reasonable access to rights and opportunities that can result in economic security and stability. This does NOT mean that everyone should have equal income! But what it does mean is that who and where you are should have no bearing on your ability to achieve at least a reasonable level of economic security. It is difficult to disentangle this from social rights and opportunities because they heavily influence each other. Social rights include things like education, safe neighborhoods, health care, legal protection, access to transportation, access to healthy food, freedom to practice religion, and more.
Economic and social rights often overlap. Without adequate education, it can be difficult to obtain a good job. But if your parents don't have a good job, then it may be difficult to access good education. In the U.S. health care is obviously a big issue, as nearly 29 million Americans lacked insurance in 2019 [113], and one of the major concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic (well, in the U.S., anyway, since we are one of the few industrialized countries that ties health insurance to employment) is that tens of millions of people will lose their health insurance because of unemployment. Being unhealthy or sick can make it difficult to find and/or maintain a job, and not having a good job can reduce access to good health care (in the U.S. anyway). Job opportunities are usually more difficult to come by in low-income areas, as is access to healthy food.
Disparities in policing tactics have become an important topic recently in the U.S., and studies like this one from the Center for Policing Equity [114] indicate that statistically speaking minorities are often treated differently than others. The authors note that this supports previous research. A study in 2013 [115] found that sentences of black men were around 20% longer than those given to white men for the same crimes, and another study was done in 2017 [116] that found it was still 20%. The U.S. (and many other countries) have very fair laws on the books, yet access to high-priced lawyers often impacts outcomes.
Please note that this is in no way an indictment of individual law enforcement or legal officials, or on their professions in general. But it does indicate that social rights and opportunities are not equal across racial and socioeconomic divisions.
Of course, this is a problem in many parts of the world, some examples more blatant than others. The Economist Magazine [119] points out that women in Saudi Arabia were only allowed to become lawyers in 2012, and only in December of 2015 were they allowed to run for local office. Despite these recent rights being granted, it is still frowned upon for women to drive. They point out that banks have separate entrances for men and women, and that women are barred from certain public locations. In Russia, peaceful protesters are often intimidated [120]and/or arrested [121]. The Chinese government is known to discriminate against ethnic minorities, imprison political dissidents, and detain and harass other activists [122]. And minorities are disproportionately affected by poverty throughout the world.
This is of course not meant to be a comprehensive list, but hopefully, it provides a "feel" for what social justice and injustice entail.
Environmental justice is very closely related to social justice. It can be thought of as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies" (source: U.S. Department of Energy [123]). Things like clean air, a safe water supply, and natural areas to enjoy are not available to all. In short, environmental benefits ("goods") and burdens ("bads") are unevenly distributed. And like almost all inequality-related issues, it is the least powerful among us that are disproportionately burdened. In the U.S. the most often happens to communities of color and low income members of society in general. The short video below does a great job of illustrating this phenomenon.
Environmental Justice (4:32 minutes)
You may have caught the narrator's definition of environmental justice:
A fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens across all groups.
This sums it up quite well, though it does leave the door open for some wiggle room in what it specifically means. Take another look at the definition. Do you see anything that might be open to interpretation? How about the word "fair"? This is most definitely open to interpretation, but perhaps that is done on purpose. Similar to the economic aspect of social justice, it is not reasonable to think that everyone will have the equal access to all environmental goods and equal exposure to all environmental bads. But what we can strive for is to try to provide equal opportunities to access for everyone. The goal should be to make sure that everyone has an equal share of the environmental benefits and burdens in society. Many in the Environmental Justice movement believe that we should try to eliminate all environmental burdens, but at least they should not be dispropotionately forced upon disempowered communities
The video below, China - World's dumping ground for electronic waste (4:02 minutes) illustrates one concept related to environmental justice.
As indicated in the video, electronic waste (e-waste) contains toxic chemicals such as mercury, but can also contain dangerous chemicals such as lead and chromium, as well as fire retardants and other carcinogens. So what makes e-waste an environmental justice issue? It is not made explicit in the video, but as pointed out by the National Institutes for Health in a 2015 study: [128] "Communities with primitive, informal recycling operations tend to be populated by poor people with scarce job possibilities who are desperate to feed themselves and their families, and this primary concern overrides that for personal health and safety" (emphasis added). And this is not just a problem for China! The same authors indicate that this is also a major problem in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Ghana, and Nigeria. Think of it this way: Can you imagine a wealthy suburb allowing toxic chemicals to be released in open fields, and next to food growing operations?
Social and environmental justice issues are present all over the world, including in the U.S. It appears that some progress has been made, but that there is still some work to be done. Circling back to the beginning of this section, can you think of any reasons why social justice is a controversial issue? Recall that I indicated that the application of social justice is the main problem. Take a minute to review the injustices described, and think about how they could be remedied. It is important to point out that by their very nature, fixing social justice issues requires altering the power structure of a given area or society. When women and black Americans were given the right and opportunity to vote, it reduced the power of white males. If lobbying activity is restricted, the companies they work for would have less influence. If women are granted equal rights in Saudi Arabia, men have less influence. Additionally, most solutions require new government regulations. All of the solutions in the examples above require(d) new laws/regulations to be passed. The most likely solution to e-waste, for example, is a ban on the export of e-waste or the required (by law) responsible recycling of e-waste. And the list goes on.
There are other reasons that social and environmental justice solutions can be controversial, but these two lie at the core of the opposition.
Further complicating matters is that the root cause of many of these problems cannot easily be fixed, even with the best-intended policies. For example, urban and rural poverty - both in the U.S. and abroad - is a complex, deep-seated problem that does not have an easy solution. There is no "magic bullet" to fix them. It's difficult to blame businesses for wanting to locate in wealthier areas where people have more money to spend. And it's hard to blame people desperate for income for engaging in dangerous work like e-waste recycling. And what would happen if the e-waste was banned? What would the people who rely on those jobs do?
Finally, it is very important to note that providing equal opportunity sometimes requires what some would consider "unequal" treatment. For example, many social and environmental justice organizations provide more resources to low-income individuals than those with higher incomes. This can seem unfair to those not eligible for benefits. ("Why won't the government subsidize my housing and childcare?" "Why do I pay more taxes, just because I've made more money through my hard work?") This is a complicated issue, and I don't claim to have THE answer. I can understand why people feel that way, in particular, becaue of the (oversimplified and generally incorrect) political and social narratives they may be fed (e.g. people are poor because they don't work hard enough). But, the goal of those concerned with social/environmental justice is to provide equal opportunity for all people, and there is wide recognition that many people are born at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. In general, social justice advocates err on the side of providing extra assistance and/or helping empower all who might need help, regardless of how they got into their circumstances. We live in a VERY unequal world, and those concerned with social justice want to change that.
Charles L. Robbins said in his TEDx talk [131] that "social justice is a place where everybody's free to achieve everything that they are capable of doing...where there's an even playing field for everybody." I think it's difficult to argue against this concept, even if the application is fraught with difficulty. There are a lot of difficult questions to answer when social and environmental justice solutions are posed. But striving to achieve this justice is an important aspect of sustainability. And please keep in mind that we have barely scratched the surface regarding these issues. I recommend exploring them further, as they are prominent topics in sustainability.
Which of the 3 E's does social and environmental justice most strongly address and why?
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Read through the following statements/questions. You should be able to answer all of these after reading through the content on this page. I suggest writing or typing out your answers, but if nothing else, say them out loud to yourself.
We're on a roll [132], so let's continue with the "budget" theme. In Lesson 1, you learned that energy sources contain a certain amount of energy. In Lesson 1, you also learned that there are 3412 Btu in a kilowatt hour and ~125,000 Btu in a gallon of gasoline. But that only tells part of the story. Almost all energy sources require energy inputs in order to get them to the end user. Let's take that gallon of gas as an example. How was energy used to get that gallon of gas to you and your car? Think about where it came from and how it got there, and what happened in between, then read on.
Gas is a product of petroleum (oil). Most oil comes from the rocks in the ground (tar sands [133] notwithstanding), and this oil is accessed by drilling. Drilling requires energy, as does transporting the oil to a refinery, refining the oil to make gas, and transporting the gas to the gas station. Every step in this process requires energy. The important thing to consider is that if you can determine the amount of energy required to get that gallon of gas to you, and subtract that from the energy you get from the gas, you will have net energy.
It is important to note that it does not matter which form energy is used in this process (electricity, natural gas, oil, etc.), only how much is used. (Remember that we can calculate total energy used by converting to common units!) This "invisible" energy used prior to the end use is usually referred to as embodied energy.
Embodied energy is used for most energy sources, even renewables. For example, wind turbines and solar panels must be manufactured, their components mined or otherwise processed, then they must be installed using energy, etc. Note that embodied energy can actually be stated for just about anything - remember from Lesson 1 that most food required energy to be planted, grown, shipped, and/or processed. All of this represents embodied energy.
Net energy can be calculated as follows:
Net energy is a good start, but it can get confusing if you analyze different quantities of energy. This is because the net energy depends significantly on the end use energy amount, but that is not the whole story. Let's look at an example. On average you get about 20 times more energy out of gasoline (end use) than was put in (embodied). In other words, the embodied energy in a gallon of gas is about one-twentieth (1/20) of the end use energy (source: Hall, Lambert, and Balogh, 2014 [134]). The net energy for 1 gallon of gas would be (Math alert!):
But what if you get 10 gallons of gas?
As you can see, net energy is highly dependent upon the end use energy amount being considered. There is a huge difference between 118,750 Btu and 1,187,500 Btu, but those numbers are actually telling the same story.
You can avoid this confusion by calculating the energy return on energy invested, or EROI. EROI is defined by the Encyclopedia of Earth thusly:
Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio of the energy delivered by a process to the energy used directly and indirectly in that process.
Credit: Encyclopedia of Earth [135]
Here is the equation. (Note that "Quantity of energy supplied" is the same as end-use energy and "Quantity of energy used in supply process " is the same as embodied energy.):
Credit: Encyclopedia of Earth [135], CC BY-SA 2.5
Because it is a ratio, the end use amount does not matter, because it all balances out in the end. Let's look at the gasoline example from above using this equation:
No matter how much gasoline you analyze, you will come up with the same EROI if the assumptions are the same. As noted above, EROI is relevant to almost every energy source. The higher the EROI, the more energy you get out for every energy unit you put in. Calculating EROI often requires using a lot of assumptions, but since this is an important issue, many attempts have been made to calculate it. The article below indicates some of the complexities and uncertainty in calculating EROI, but the authors are able to arrive at general conclusions since they analyzed a number of peer-reviewed research papers on the topic.
Link to article: EROI for different fuels and the implications for society. Hall, C.A.S, Lambert, J.G., and Balogh, S.B. Energy Policy, 64, pp. 141-152 [136].
If you read the article, you should clearly see that not all barrels of oil are created equally. The figures below (from the article) indicate the average EROIs of different energy sources. Note that oil and natural gas are lumped together, because they are often extracted together. The authors are careful to point out that these values should not be taken at "face value," but that they are a good indication of the relative EROIs of different sources.
Why is EROI important? One of the main reasons is that EROI is more indicative of the true net energy benefit of various fuels than the end use. It takes about the energy from 1 barrel of oil to extract 20 actual barrels of "traditional" oil (it has an EROI of about 20:1), but the same amount of energy, when used to extract tar sands oil, results in only about 4 actual barrels. In other words, EROI indicates that you get about 5 times the amount of energy from traditional oil than from tar sand oil given the same amount of input.
A very interesting finding in the Hall, Lambert, and Balogh article is that oil discovery in the U.S. has decreased from 1000:1 in 1919 to only 5:1 in the 2010s, meaning we get 100 times less energy now than 90 years ago! (Essentially, we have extracted most of the "easy to get" oil, and do things like deep sea drilling now.) Getting ethanol from corn (recall from Lesson 1 that this is the U.S.'s primary source of biofuel) can require almost as much energy in as energy you get out, depending on how it is grown and processed.
EROI can help policymakers and others decide which energy source is a more efficient use of energy resources. In the context of this course, it is a particularly important consideration for non-renewable resources, because it indicates the net energy benefit of the sources.
One extremely important final thing to note: EROI only describes energy use. It says nothing about the other important impacts and factors. For example:
In short, EROI is only one consideration to be made.
Now that you have completed the content, I suggest going through the Learning Objectives Self-Check list at the top of the page.
Another week of content in the books! Before you relax, make sure you complete the two required assignments listed at the beginning of this lesson. This week, we went over some of the fundamental considerations that underlie sustainability. You should be able to do the following after completing the Lesson 2 activities:
We went over a lot of fairly heavy concepts this week. Hopefully, this list will help spark some memories of the content, both now and as we move forward:
You have finished Lesson 2. Check the list of requirements on the first page of this lesson and the syllabus to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed before the due date. Once you've ensured that you've completed everything, you can begin reviewing Lesson 3 (or take a break!).
Complete all activities in Lesson 2. The quiz may include a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, multiple select, ordering, matching, true/false and "essay" (in some cases these require independent research and may be quantitative). Be sure to read each question carefully.
Unless specifically instructed otherwise, the answers to all questions come from the material presented in the course lesson. Do NOT go "Googling around" to find an answer. To complete the Activity successfully, you will need to read the lesson, and all required readings, fully and carefully.
Each week, a few questions may involve research beyond the material presented in the course lesson. This "research" requirement will be made clear in the question instructions. Be sure to allow yourself time for this! You will be graded on the correctness and quality of your answers. Make your answers as orderly and clear as possible. Help me understand what you are thinking and include data where relevant.
For any other assignments (e.g., journal or discussion board), it will be helpful to look at the rubric before answering. You will see a button that allows you to view it below the assignment.
These activities are to be done individually and are to represent YOUR OWN WORK. (See Academic Integrity and Research Ethics [138] for a full description of the College's policy related to Academic Integrity and penalties for violation.)
The activities are not timed but do close at 11:59 pm EST on the due date as shown on the Course Calendar.
If you have questions about the assignment, please post them to the "HAVE A QUESTION?" Discussion Forum. I am happy to provide clarification and guidance to help you understand the material and questions. Of course, it is best to ask early.
Links
[1] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/emsc240/node/446
[2] https://giphy.com/gifs/PIIMXAjqlO9zy
[3] https://www.youtube.com/user/mjmfoodie
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC5R9WPId0s
[5] http://www.oecd.org/
[6] http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/
[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20140802122709/http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=3215
[8] http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/externality
[9] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146514001860
[10] http://www.britannica.com/technology/steel
[11] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286620724_The_External_Benefits_of_Education
[12] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/pollution-from-fossil-fuel-combustion-deadlier-than-previously-thought/
[13] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/14/air-pollution-takes-2-years-off-your-life-more-than-smoking-or-alcohol.html
[14] http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_a_e/asthma_and_its_environmental_triggers_508.pdf
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNgcYGgtf8M
[16] http://www.theenergycollective.com/schalk-cloete/264701/energy-subsidies-and-externalities
[17] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
[18] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/renewable-gross-final-energy-consumption-4/assessment-2
[19] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-social-cost-carbon
[20] http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/january/emissions-social-costs-011215.html
[21] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21591601-some-firms-are-preparing-carbon-price-would-make-big-difference-carbon-copy
[22] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-state-of-internal-carbon-pricing
[23] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11
[24] https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/
[25] https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
[26] https://www.goodfreephotos.com/vector-images/colorful-natural-tree-vector-clipart.png.php
[27] http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/
[28] http://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/
[29] https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2014
[30] http://www.overshootday.org/
[31] http://www.britannica.com/science/sustainability#ref1225911
[32] http://www.skogsstyrelsen.se/globalassets/in-english/forests-and-forestry-in-sweden_2015.pdf
[33] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/43/2601
[34] http://medium.com/@foodrepublic/how-maines-lobster-industry-is-a-model-of-sustainable-seafood-7bda7a5df6cc
[35] https://usa.oceana.org/bottom-trawling
[36] https://web.archive.org/web/20170812025258/https://www.es.ucsb.edu/faculty/lberry/classes/es100s07/MSYcrit.pdf
[37] http://www.resilience.org/stories/2003-11-22/st-matthew-island-overshoot-collapse
[38] http://www.overshootday.org/portfolio/creditor-debtor/
[39] http://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/herman-daly/
[40] http://www.academicjournals.org/journal
[41] http://www.forbes.com/global2000/list/#tab:overall
[42] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp
[43] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gnp.asp
[44] http://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
[45] http://www.clcouncil.org/our-plan/
[46] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ2aQJk5vQpCGZrRFon-0Nw
[47] https://www.youtube.com/embed/jmkw2qSpHsc
[48] https://steadystate.org/discover/definition/
[49] https://www.keepandshare.com/doc19/36908/casse-brief-gdp-and-indicators-pdf-218k?da=y
[50] https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/museum-transistors-to-transformations-brochure.html
[51] https://steadystate.org/
[52] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22408556/save-planet-shrink-economy-degrowth
[53] https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806?login=false
[54] https://theconversation.com/the-decoupling-delusion-rethinking-growth-and-sustainability-71996
[55] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065220/
[56] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FreeMarketEnvironmentalism.html
[57] https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_harmon_how_the_market_can_keep_streams_flowing?language=en
[58] https://web.archive.org/web/20180108000215/https://www.perc.org/FMEinAction
[59] https://web.archive.org/web/20180107104620/http://www.perc.org:80/articles/promise-and-problems-free-market-environmentalism
[60] https://www.edf.org/approach/markets/acid-rain
[61] http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766
[62] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/11/19/how-sad-george-monbiot-does-not-realise-that-a-steady-state-economy-is-not-a-no-growth-economy/
[63] https://steadystate.org/discover/briefing-papers/
[64] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/emsc240/node/508
[65] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0MpGT4S9Ucfq06T-z57N6sxu3lag6AR525O37lCxH9bV8sA/viewform?usp=sf_link
[66] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FWh9RjFvswYxtOy5ZH1ntNxnjsRPH3QihlFYsZS2Ehk/edit#gid=34579145
[67] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OrpMvH0gLMeJSWnKpBY7JXUOJpjqemsn85l0EDkEJM0/edit#gid=1755842469
[68] http://www.glaserprogress.org/
[69] https://www.youtube.com/user/colinatpyramid
[70] https://www.youtube.com/embed/77IdKFqXbUY
[71] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/heres-what-women-could-earn-if-household-chores-were-compensated.html
[72] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/04/opinion/women-unpaid-labor.html
[73] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
[74] https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/8/speed-ded-regner-stockholm-world-water-week
[75] https://pixabay.com/photos/water-water-winner-women-africa-3936378/
[76] https://pixabay.com/service/license/
[77] http://www.gdrc.org/uem/qol-define.html
[78] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFotLrE7CPnuKIVs9k9ldLEA-ipwUEvCHE8VQg59OTxn1lqw/viewform?usp=sf_link
[79] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GnuGm0vZ1IXRN35XsvxLV3Cf1PrYblM3dW99HE--qbE/edit?usp=sharing
[80] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/101BttqgN_hPYUVBN5C2xODhPtvLZWDpl3dtKliav8uw/edit?resourcekey#gid=1941954160
[81] https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&q=development+studies+degree&oq=development+studies+degree&gs_l=serp.3..0i67j0l3j0i22i30l6.52650.54317.0.54502.9.8.1.0.0.0.210.720.5j1j1.7.0....0...1.1.64.serp..1.8.720.q-LI9Y-uprQ
[82] http://www.worldbank.org/
[83] http://www.worldbank.org/en/about/what-we-do
[84] https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/454041468780615049/pdf/2489402nd0edition0Beyond0economic0growth.pdf
[85] http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
[86] https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2020
[87] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:JackintheBox
[88] http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/inequality-adjusted-human-development-index-ihdi
[89] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020_Inequality-Adjusted_Human_Development_Index_Map.png
[90] http://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2020
[91] http://unsdsn.org/
[92] https://worldhappiness.report/
[93] http://www.gallup.com/poll/122453/understanding-gallup-uses-cantril-scale.aspx
[94] https://worldhappiness.report/news/its-a-three-peat-finland-keeps-top-spot-as-happiest-country-in-world/
[95] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/these-are-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world/
[96] https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/WHR+22.pdf
[97] http://hdr.undp.org/en/2020-MPI
[98] https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2
[99] https://www.youtube.com/c/theneweconomics
[100] https://www.youtube.com/embed/sZPYI8BfnBs
[101] https://happyplanetindex.org/learn-about-happy-planet-index/
[102] https://happyplanetindex.org/countries/
[103] https://www.sdfoundation.org/news-events/sdf-news/what-is-social-justice/
[104] http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx
[105] http://www.aclu.org/files/VRATimeline.html?redirect=timeline-history-voting-rights-act
[106] http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=63
[107] https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
[108] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#/media/File:Lyndon_Johnson_signing_Civil_Rights_Act,_July_2,_1964.jpg
[109] https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
[110] http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/asia/north-korea-election-result/
[111] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/robert-mugabes-zimbabwe-election-victory-was-a-masterclass-in-electoral-fraud-8744348.html
[112] http://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/31/venezuela-constituent-assembly-sham
[113] https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/
[114] https://www.sentencingproject.org/policy-brief/shadow-report-to-the-united-nations-on-racial-disparities-in-sentencing-in-the-united-states/
[115] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002
[116] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/black-men-sentenced-time-white-men-crime-study/story?id=51203491
[117] http://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Poverty
[118] http://nationalequityatlas.org/
[119] http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21694406-progress-women-has-gone-reverse-under-new-king-one-step-forward-one-step
[120] https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/02/youve-been-warned-protesting-russia
[121] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37173820
[122] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34592336
[123] https://www.energy.gov/lm/services/environmental-justice/what-environmental-justice
[124] https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademymedicine
[125] https://www.youtube.com/embed/0L2xCwD5RNI
[126] https://www.youtube.com/user/gmshadowtraders
[127] https://www.youtube.com/embed/O-_ubuFhqQA
[128] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4858409/
[129] https://www.flickr.com/photos/communityeyehealth/27755848262/in/photostream/
[130] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
[131] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtroop739uU
[132] https://media.giphy.com/media/lcySndwSDLxC4eOU86/giphy.gif
[133] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/what-are-tar-sands
[134] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856
[135] http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152557/
[136] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/emsc240/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.emsc240/files/images/1-s2.0-S0301421513003856-main.pdf
[137] http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8625
[138] https://www.ems.psu.edu/undergraduate/academic-integrity/academic-integrity-undergraduates