The road towards sustainability

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Sustainable Baltic Region
one of the first courses
developed by Baltic University Program (Uppsala University, 1997).
Lyudmyla D. Zahvoyska,
Department of Ecological Economics

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Друкувати з примітками!
Безмовна весна . Керсон

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Lecture 1.
The Road towards Sustainability. A historical perspective
Sustainable Baltic Region course.
Baltic University Program

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The Road towards Sustainability
Islands – global lessons from micro-worlds
The environmental dilemma – a history of scientists and social constructions
Baltic region eco-strategies
Paradigms of sustainability

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Literature
The Road towards Sustainability. A historical perspective. S.Sorling (Ed.) – Uppsala: BUP, 1997. – 48 p.
Программа действий. Повестка дня на 21 век и другие документы конференции в Рио-де-Жанейро в популярном изложении / Сост.: М.Китинг. – Женева: Центр «За наше общее будущее», 1993. – 70 с.
Дейлі Г. Поза зростанням. Економічна теорія сталого розвитку. – К.: Інтелсфера, 2002. – 312 с.
Ґор А. Земля у рівновазі. Екологія і людський дух. – К.: Інтелсфера, 2001.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Islands – global lessons
from micro-worlds

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 1. Easter Island (1)
1722 - Dutch admiral Roggeveen
a few thousand people;
miserable state;
constant wars among themselves;
50 years later – James Cook
fast diminishing number of inhabitants;
But: the Polynesian marvels – almost 7-meter stone sculptures (600) are well known in the world!!!

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
How it could happened?!
How these wretched creatures have produced such marvels?!
Clive Pointing. A Green History of the World. – London: Penguin, 1991

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 1. Easter Island (3)
Pointing, 1991
First Polynesians – 20-30 persons;
Uncomplicated island ecosystem
(30 types of plants, a couple of kinds of lizards,
plus some fish);
The humans brought a species of hen, sweet potato;
Community grew to 7 thousand people.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 1. Easter Island (4)
Pointing, 1991
Community grew to 7 thousand people;
First clans were formed;
People spent their energy on arts, ceremonies and mnemothechniqs;
Cult of birds;
Worshipping ancestors (поклоніння предкам);
Cult sites, sculpture;
Wooden roads;
Ceremonies competition;
Intensive forest cutting.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 1. Easter Island (5)
Pointing, 1991
Intensive forest cutting resulted in:
no fishing (no boats),
soil erosion,
no harvest and food;
in a 100 years population decreased by 50 %;
The speed of these changes prove several hundreds sculptures which are still lying around near quarry in different stages of completion.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 1. Easter Island (5)
Intensive forest cutting resulted in:
no fishing (no boats),
soil erosion,
no harvest and food;
in a 100 years population decreased by 50 %;
The speed of these changes prove several hundreds sculptures which are still lying around near quarry in different stages of completion.
The decisive factor was
Self-destructive behavior

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 2. Hawaii (1)
Alfred Crosby. Ecological imperialism, 1986
1778 – James Cook arrived in Hawaii:
Strongly isolated island:
96% of plants live only there;
The only generic (widespread) mammal is a species of bat;
Flourishing Polynesians community
But they also went through a disaster;
The decisive factor was diseases, caused by changing lifestyle:
leaving traditional areas;
cutting sandal trees, which were used as currency in trade.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 2. Hawaii (2)
A.Crosby, 1994
Epidemic disease (lack of immunological protection);
Population decline in order of 75-95 %;
Europeans brought disease to a virgin soils.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Case 3. Cape Verde, New Zealand Lindskog & Delaite, 1996
Absence of local population;
Vast and luscious forests;
Abundance of streams;
Portuguese brought domesticated animals (goats !)
Green islands became barren, stripped and droughts.
(безплідні, голі і засушливі)

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Lessons from Micro-World
Several stories about relationships between man and his changed environment;
Dismal environmental encounters between Europeans and biota of ocean islands;
XVIII-XIX centuries - an early conservation movement;
Investigating connection between environmental decay (especially deforestation) and climate change;
Global role of tropical ecosystems;
Place of human greed and selfishness (жадібність та егоїзм).

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Exclusions in Dismal Island Experience
Successful colonization of Iceland by Norsemen;
Aboriginals of North America managed to resist European colonizations;
Local population of Greenland was ultimately better suited to climate circumstances then Norsemen.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
TED program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IESYMFtLIis

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
2. The environmental dilemma – a history of scientists and social constructions

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Early societies
and environmental impact
Environmental problems have always been a part of human condition:
Hunting;
Agriculture with irrigation;
Gathering;
Landscape intrusion;
Handicraft (ремесло).

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
What is an environmental problem?
A tricky concept
In all places in all times we face with human impacts;
In yesterday conditions today’s problems don’t look as a problem.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Establishment
of Environmental Problems
Several levels;
The physical level - where detrimental phenomena occur and can be recorded or measured;
The description of environmental change as a “problem” is an interpretation by contemporary scientists (environmentalists, historians, archeologists).

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The role of science and scientists
On intellectual level problem is discovered and depicted, but not demanded by society, for instance:
Bad quality of air in London (Evelyn, 1661);
Mechanism of soil erosion in Alps (Fabre,);
Nature of river floods (G.Marsh, 1864);
Principles of eutrophication (E.Naumann, early XX c);
Large-scale acidification (S.Oden, 1967).

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
It is not enough to create knowledge!
“Political infrastructure” was needed
Construction of environmental agenda is a social process;
It takes social interests, social movements, concerned citizens and alarming scientists;
S.Oden was heard because in the 1960s an environmental agenda had been formed due to Rachel Carson (‘Silent Spring’), Georg Borgstrom et.al.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Importance of environmental agenda: Examples of environmental science stories
H.Ahlmann discovered melting glaciers in Arctic (Sweden, first half of XX century);
S. Arrhenius described mechanism of global warming, linked rising annual temperature to human activities. Greenhouse theory (Sweden, 1896);
G.Callendar set links between the burning of fossil fuels and rising annual temperature (Great Britain, 1938);
But they did not see this phenomena as an environmental problem. Why?
Because society did not recognize it. It was not ‘hot’ question.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The environmental paradigm
Arose when local, scattered and isolated in time and place problems obtained such single unifying characteristic as:
‘they were problems of man’s relation with his environment’.
How long did it take? In case of London it took 700 years!!!
The environmental paradigm was a powerful interpretative tool that was now put into hands and minds of journalists, politicians, scientists, citizens.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The environmental agenda
as a social process
The environmental problematique is maturing as a social phenomena;
It entangled in more sectors of society;
Environmental issues become a part of everyday life of virtually every citizen;
Institutions are built;
Legislation is being reinforced;
Policy is widening;
Scientist could serve a discoverer, a teacher, an advisor, a responsible intellectual.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
4. Paradigms of sustainability

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Essence
of Sustainable Development
“Sustainable Development meets the needs of present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”.
(Brundtland Report)

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Sustainable Development involves
Economic efficiency;
Environmental integrity;
Social justice.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Subsystems (pillars) of sustainability:
Biological, economic, and social
Sustainability is a relationship between dynamic human economic systems and dynamic but slower ecological systems, in which:
Human life can develop indefinitely;
Human individuals can flourish;
Human culture can develop and
Effects of human activities remain within bounds so as not to destroy the diversity, complexity and functioning of the ecological life-support system.
Robert Costanza (1992)

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Середній дохід
Відсоток дуже щасливих людей
IEE, НЛТУ України
Сталий розвиток і ПТО
14.12.11, м. Львів, #
Дуже щасливі люди
Середній дохід

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
Планетарні межі порушені:
втрата біорізноманіття;
зміна клімату;
нагромадження азоту в природних системах.

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The Quadruple Squeeze
(Rockström and Karlberg, 2010)
Зростання чисельності населення, дилема 20/80
Клімат:
дилема 550/450/350
Екосистеми:дилема
60% втрати
Несподіванки,
дилема 99/1

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SBR. Lecture 1. The road towards sustainability
The Road towards Sustainability
Islands – global lessons from micro-worlds
The environmental dilemma – a history of scientists and social constructions
Baltic region eco-strategies
Paradigms of sustainability