okay, 1st up...
why is sustainability good? heard someone quizzing yvette cooper on the radio this morning & he said something like "assuming you believe in sustainability..."
So what are the arguments for & against sustainability? Is it just as good to create something cheap and easily reproducible as something long term & lasting. For instance would we not have as much problem replacing infrastructure if everything we built had a shelf-life of a couple of decades, say, and we planned & budgeted to replace?
posted by Whittso at 4:08 pm
11 Comments:
Well, this is where we start is it? Let's start as we mean to go on then. If you want to discuss the arguments for sustainability you need to tell me what you think sustainability is. It's a word used by everyone from Friends of the Earth to Esso to the UK Government.
One website definition I found is "The ability to provide for the needs of the world's current population without damaging the ability of future generations to provide for themselves. When a process is sustainable, it can be carried out over and over without negative environmental effects or impossibly high costs to anyone involved."
Do you agree with that? Do you have your own definition? tyell me what you think it is and then we can discuss whether it works.
Wed Jun 13, 03:36:00 pm 2007
Hmm - I think that's too techy a definition. I would say in common parlance that something sustainable is something that can -well - be sustained - i.e. somethign that can be carried on?
Wed Jun 13, 08:01:00 pm 2007
.... and to further elaborate on my points here... nothing is sustainable. I mean, to quote that bloke from echo & the bunnymen "nothing ever lasts forever". So why not make things disposable? Is there a principled objection, or is it merely the path of least resource use. And if then, you could demonstrably build e.g. roads with a 5 year lifespan, that you could replace more cheaply than roads with a 30 year lifespan... why not?
Mon Jul 09, 12:19:00 pm 2007
And when I say cheaply I mean conserving energy and resources, not money.
Cos obviously that wouldn't convince you.
Mon Jul 09, 12:28:00 pm 2007
I'd have thought it was quite obvious why you shouldn't make everything disposable. There are 6 billion people in the world, rising to 9 billion within the next few decades. Many countries are "developing" and turning to or aiming for a more Western style of development, which is very resource intensive. The production of disposable goods on a mass scale has a number of huge problems:
1) It creates vast amounts of waste and whether or not this is biodegradable waste, it still needs to stored somewhere. This would lead to a huge increase in landfill and incineration, both of which create climate gases (methane and CO2 respectively) as well as causing serious litter problems in nearby areas - something that is far more acute in poor countries.
2) The endless production of things to replace the things that have just been disposed of would require a huge increase in the use of raw materials and chemicals. To do this on a bigger and more global scale would mean the trashing of more and more areas of the world to be able to provide the necessary areas to produce the raw materials along with the mass industrialisation of farming on a bigger scale, again to produce the raw materials. The need to produce more and more plastics, components and all the rest would require a greater use of chemicals and so the increase in chemical plants with the resulting increase in toxic gases and residual waste.
3) The creation of disposable everything means that there would be a huge and increasing increase in transport to move these goods around, meaning more road building and, crucially, more CO2 emissions.
4) It is highly unlikely that this system of "disposing of everything and getting a new one" would be sustainable on a global scale. In other words, as the population increases and more and more countries become more "developed" it will become harder and harder, and eventually impossible, to provide this sort of system to everyone, since the world can only produce so much - the world has limits. So ultimately it's a system that favours the rich.
Yes, personally there is a principled objection to that kind of basic disgusting waste but the arguments above are the ones that are crucial.
Mon Jul 09, 01:09:00 pm 2007
well...
Ok, an actual example. But not a very good one. In India drinks for people travelling by train used to be provided in rough clay (or pottery or something cups) that when you finish with you smash on the ground. No litter effectively, as it's something made of mud, and the ground is made of mud.
It is useful to have something disposable here as the in-transit nature of what you are eating/drinking means you probably won't be returning whatever receptacle, plus it's more hygenic. These cups are gradually being replaced with plastic cups - which while intended to be disposable DO get reused a few times and are creating problems of litter & spreading disease as they are reused / cleaned with dirty water.
Mon Jul 09, 01:33:00 pm 2007
But more systematically.
- I'm not talking about making EVERYTHING disposable. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be ruled out as being occasionally the most environmental solution.
re: 1) - something designed for temporary use could be easily recyclable / rebuildable. E.g. glass bottles.
re: 2) - but this is my point - in cases where it takes less use of energy and more easily replaceable materials to make more of something with a shorter lifespan, that's not a bad thing.
re: 3) not if it could be made in situ.
re: 4) applies just as much to things with a long life span. It's about best use of what resources we have.
And while I'm at it, why does disposable have to mean plastic? Which is the implication of some of your points.
Mon Jul 09, 01:40:00 pm 2007
But that doesn't really answer any of the major points above does it. That's just one specific example. We can chuck specific examples at each other all day but it's the key arguments that need addressing.
Plus, to be honest the problem there strikes me as being the fact that people are disposing of something that could be re-used by the user (clay cups) and re-using something that should be disposed of (plastic cups). Feels the wrong way around to me.
Cups of drinks on trains is not in itself a major issue. The answer is probably to make them out of recycled material that can then be recycled again. But like I say, this is a specific.
Mon Jul 09, 01:42:00 pm 2007
OK, so what we're getting down to is a discussion about necessity. Some things are necessary. Warmth, food, shelter, some form of transport (debatable that one, but in our world, probably the case). And to put it more in to the frame of the Western World, perhaps we could add access to information too. Of course there's a big thick line between necessity and luxury (like music for example) but some things are undoubtedly necessary.
Then there are the things that are undoubtedly luxury, by which I mean definitely not a necessity, like a cup of coffee on a train, a bag of crisps, a plastic toy in a cracker, a razor, fashion and so on.
Now, if we were (and this is theoretical only) to concentrate on ensuring that everyone in the world were to have the necessities first, before allowing anyone to have the luxuries, then we could ensure that those necessities were produced and made available in the appropriate ways for eah item, to ensure that the resources and energy used for production were at least cost. On occasions that could be disposable items.
However, when it comes to luxury, we get to the issue of mass consumption of unnecessary items, more and more as we get richer and richer. This produces waste, by its very definition. If the world's population were at the level where all necessities were provided to all people then that waste would not be such an issue in the sense of depriving people of necessary goods so that others can live the good life (as is the case with the production of some food stuffs for example). However it would still be the use of resources, including, quite often, the use of land (and destruction of land), mass industrialisation of processes and systems to allow for their production and the resulting energy use and so emissions that result. All of this for the production of unnecessary goods.
So what we're really saying is that we should always go for the least energy and resource intensive answer, which we both agree on. And that the key issue is the provision of necessities first, which I think we also agree with.
If you are proposing that all goods could be produced locally for local markets then that's a great idea of course, and one I support, of course. It means getting rid of modern capitalism and replacing it with a far more regimented and localised system too though. I don't think it can happen with 9 billion people. Ultimately the problem with the world and the threats that are faced by the environment are the simple fact that there are too many people. Perhaps they can all be sustained if we go for the minimal resource and energy approach to the production and provision of neccesities only though. Is that what you're saying.
Mon Jul 09, 02:28:00 pm 2007
hello...
Ok...
Right well..
1) necessity vs luxury - I don't think this is a useful distinction but I think that may be a whole new area & have started a new thread on that.
2) Definitions - ok - what I actually seem to be talking about is not sustainability it is longevity. I still don't think longevity is necessarily a good thing. Although in practice it is usually more sustainable to design or build something for the long term, it is not intrinsic I think. And longevity brings its own problems - arguably some of the biggest environmental issues in the UK are down to outdated infrastructure. For instance our transport network (rail), and our housing. If we planned for improvements in technology and built in space for expansion or replacement reasonably easily that would probably be sensible. Also I think an element of disposability is not necessarily a bad thing environmentally, although it may usually be so. My Indian clay cups are one example, but another is... well... leaves. All organisms, including humans, leave a lot of litter behind. That only becomes a problem when it exceeds the ability of the eco-system to process it, before that it is essential. If we take this principle on board then building in disposability may not be a problem.
3) Sustainability - as I said I'm not sure there is any such thing. Everything decays, everything tends to chaos and heat death. Whether we use stuff up or not it ages and fails. But clearly we should be taking the path of MOST sustainability - i.e. never using a resource that we can't reasonably expect to be replaced. We could choose to ignore effects that won't hit us in the next 10 millennia for instance, as being most likely irrelevant.
Sun Jul 15, 09:35:00 pm 2007
Oh - and enforcing local production for local markets - no not convinced on that one either. That may need a post of its own as well...
And while I am a little apocalyptic about climate change (we're probably all doomed) I don't think it's because we couldn't sustain something reasonably modern and interesting and with a certain amount of waste and luxury. I think its because changing our habits on the timescale and extent that climate change requires is the biggest challenge we've ever faced as a species.
Sun Jul 15, 09:40:00 pm 2007
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