Sustainability Science Textbook 2nd Edition

Bert J.M. de Vries

Chapter 22024-03-06T17:00:41+00:00

CHAPTER 2

Sustainability Science: Context and Content

Keywords

View of Nature Sustainability science SDGs

Test your understanding of this chapter by reviewing the study questions below.

Answer:

[personal answer]

Answer:

The first change came with the side-effects of industrialization, initially and notably in the form of air and water pollution. Pollutants damage natural ecosystems and ‘Nature’ has limited means to absorb them (at least without adverse consequences for human life). Gradually, the spatial and time scales at which these side-effects were observed and discussed became longer (‘global concerns’).

Secondly, Nature became increasingly seen and (re)discovered as an essential ingredient of human well-being in a broad sense: physical health and mentally and spiritually. It manifests in scientific branches like environmental ethics, renewed interest in views on Nature in non-western cultures and appreciation of Nature’s complexity in science.

Answer:

  • Without using (formal-scientific) models, a discussion on future food production can follow different assumptions and beliefs (with rough similarities to worldviews):
  • Yields can still increase significantly, so food output will continue to increase, follow population growth; [A1 – exponential growth]
  • Existing agriculture will be confronted with severe externalities (water shortages, soil pollution, climate change and others) and food output will decline; [A2 – exponential decline]
  • Preservation of biodiversity and switching to extensive agriculture will cause a decline in available land; food output will be stabilized by prudent policies to reduce demand, improve distribution and limit waste and pollution; [B2 – no/logistic growth to sustainable level]
  • Preservation and extensification are needed but fail; food output can be maintained but suffers from instabilities and inequalities [B1 – no/logistic decline].

Answer:

One point of critique is that the SDGs do insufficiently account for interconnections, which can or does make some goals mutually antagonistic and/or irreconcilable. Look for concrete examples yourself.

Another point of critique is that the SDGs express the Modernity worldview. Goals are largely phrased against a background of economic growth and more efficient technology and there is no or limited consideration of other ingredients of the good life such as community life, arts and religion. There is also unaddressed tension between the confidence in markets on the one and the crucial role for states on the other hand.

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