The road towards Sustainability

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Lecture 2. The road toward 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
What we live on?
Paradigms of sustainability
The road to sustainability

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Lecture 2. The road toward 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.
Daly, H. and Farley J. Ecological Economics. Principles and applications. – Washington: Island Press, 2004. – 454 p.
WEF, 2012. More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency Report. Industry agenda
Meadows D. et al. Limits to Growth, - 1972.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4. What we live on?
Natural resources and exergy

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
General comments
Each ecosystem has to be supplied with energy & matter;
Without such a supply there is a dead matter;
Societal systems are supplied according to the same principles as a natural systems;
There is demand for water, food, metals, oil, fuels, etc.

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.1. Criteria of natural resources assessment
In order for a quantity of matter in the ecosystem to be classified as natural resource such five criteria must be fulfilled:
Availability;
Technology;
Access;
Economic efficiency;
Environment (ecology).

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.2. Political and social conditions as a further criteria
Knowledge;
Public opinion;
Scale (World Economic Forum, 2012: we leave in era of scaling) .
We must all think globally and act locally.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Pre-analytical View of Ecological Economics (Farley et al, 2005)

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Optimal Scale (1)
Empty World
Economy
Matter
Energy
Matter
Energy
Recycle
Ecosystem
Solar energy
Heat
Economic services

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Optimal Scale (2)
Full World
Economy
Matter
Energy
Matter
Energy
Recycle
Solar energy
Heat
Economic services

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.3. The complexity
of the energy realm (sphere)
Holistic fashion for considering
(sources, production, distribution, use, impacts)
Human ecology: multidimensional point of view;
Study of energy as a clue (розгадка) to measures for conservation
Complexity, caused by:
humans themselves, their knowledge, attitudes and habits;
Differences between individuals and groups.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.3. The complexity
of the energy realm (sphere) (2)
Every living species has own model for obtaining matter and energy from the surrounding system;
Struggle for life is basically a struggle for matter and energy;
Food supply to humans is a part of the energy supply to whole society!??
Affluent societies are full of ‘energy slaves’ (100 per person);

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.3. The complexity of the energy realm (3)
Baltic region: structure of energy consumption (1997)

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.4. Energy Growth in Scandinavia
5 % per year over a period of 200 years;
Exponential growth – a doubling time of 15 years;
A remarkable changes in the growth patterns:
1973 - world oil market price raised by a factor of four;
1979 - world oil market price raised by a factor of three;
Oil consumption per person drastically DECREASE from four m3 in 1973 to two m3 now (nuclear power);
Industrialized countries reduced oil consumption;
Instead poor countries have some increment.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.5. The Principles of Energy Supply
The energy concept was discovered by J.P.Joule and others in 1840;
Basic laws in thermodynamics in the following decades;
Energy was defined as a quantity concept;
Without attention to the quality of energy;
But only high enough quality energy makes an ‘energy source’!

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.5. The Principles of Energy Supply (2)
The first law in thermodynamics:
the quantity of energy is always preserved!

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.5. The Principles of Energy Supply (3)
The high quality energy makes an ‘energy source’, meet the system’s demand;
All processes in the system are maintained at the cost of degradation of the quality of energy;
In the end there is only low-temperature heat left. It appears as background energy which is engulfed in the surrounding ecosystem (поглинута);
All ecosystems are loaded by background energy, even in dead state.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.6. Exergy
The word was created in 1953 by German engineer Z.Rant;
reflect quality of energy as well as quantity;
It can be defined only with reference to a system in question and its environment;
Hence this is ideal model for environmental energy discussion.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.6. Exergy (2)
The maintenance theory
The system A contains some agent (both living species or working machine)
It is in perpetual interaction with its environment A0;
Without maintenance, the processes in system A will cease – ‘heat death’ or ‘thermodynamic equilibrium’ of system A and environment A0.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.6. Exergy (3)
The maintenance theory
The second law in thermodynamics:
These changes are irreversible:
Exegy is consumed, .....................Energy is dissipated.
High entropy
Low entropy

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.6. Exergy (4)
Exergy is the name of such energy that can be utilized as an energy source;
Exergy is the most important ingredient in the supply flow to a system;
Exergy defines a content of structure and structuring capability that can cause growth, organization, development, evolution, sustenance or maintenance of life or other activities.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
4.7. The principle of recycling
The conservation law of thermodynamics:
Atomic matter and energy can stay in their locations or flow from one system to another but can never disappear.
.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5. Paradigms of sustainability

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Essence
of Sustainable Development
“Sustainable Development meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”.
(Brundtland Report, 1987)
Development – is a qualitative concept incorporating ideas about improvement and including cultural, social as well as economic dimensions (getting ‘better’).
Growth implying quantitative expansion only (getting ‘bigger’).
Inter- and intra-generational equity. Resource distribution.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Sustainable Development aimed
“To maximize simultaneously the biological systems goals (generic diversity, resistance, biological productivity), economic systems goals (satisfaction of basic needs, enhancement of equity, increasing useful goods and services), and social system goals (cultural diversity, institutional sustainability, social justice, participation)”.
(Barbier, 1987)

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Sustainable Development involves
Economic efficiency;
Environmental integrity;
Social justice.

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Lecture 2. The road toward 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 Constanza (1992)

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.2. Paradigms of Sustainability (example, pattern)
Uncertainties are fundamental to policy decisions;
Causal relations unknown;
Hence, two type of uncertainty in decision-making:
Incomplete knowledge of dose-effect relations;
Differing appraisals of the natural environment or robustness and fragility of nature.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.2. Paradigms of Sustainability (2) ‘define the corners of the playing field’ (Latestein, 1994)
Utilizing paradigm – impacts of human activity on the environment can be absorbed, risks are small, technology is self-regulatory and will change within certain limits;
Saving paradigm – the environment has a limited absorbing capacity hence mankind must adjust to lower level of consumption;
Managing paradigm – nature is vulnerable and solution is technologies that adapt to the environmental conditions, as consumption levels cannot be drastically altered;
Preserving paradigm – nature is very fragile; society is very flexible hence behavioral changes should be made.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.2. Paradigms of Sustainability (3) (Orr, 1992)
Technological sustainability:
Each problem has a technological answer or market solution;
Understanding and manipulating of environmental processes;
Economic growth is essential;
Ecological sustainability:
Transition to post-modern world;
Acquire skills to live much more poorly then we do;
Moral improvement;
‘a systematic effort to restore and preserve traditional knowledge of the land and its function’ (Orr, 1994)

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.3. Carrying capacity, ecological equilibrium and Plimsoll lines
Carrying capacity (of an area of land in connection with human populations and societies) is usually expressed as the largest population which can be maintained on it in ecological equilibrium (given the prevailing method of resource exploitation);
(Wilkinson, 1973)
Plimsoll lines ‘helps us to keep the economic scale within ecological carrying capacity’ (Daly, 1988).
Plimsoll lines (painted on the hull) indicate the maximum loading capacity of a ship. Depend on salinity of water, weather conditions etc.

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
Headline Indicators of Sustainability
Ecological footprint;
Green GDP (gross domestic product);
Genuine Savings Index;
Living planet index.

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.4. Ecological footprint
the total area that each population uses for all categories of consumption and waste discharge.
Reflect the ecological deficit or global overshoot (excessive use of land or and water areas).
Ecological footprint of industrialized countries many times greater then in developing countries.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability

08/11/2023
Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.5. Environmental utilization space
(Siebert, 1982)
the usable dynamic space of the environment bounded by various Plimsoll lines and having three dimensions:
depletion of resources;
degree of pollution;
loss of naturalness in the physical environment.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
5.6. Co-evolution and the ‘patchwork guilt’
(Norgaard, 1994)
.
Co-evolution between cultural and ecological systems;
A co-evolutionary paradigm;
Restoring and preserving traditional knowledge and natural resources use.

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
6. The road to sustainability
Establishing an international agenda
Common sea resources
Environmental movement and UN (R.Carson (1962), S.Oden (1967) etc.)
The Club of Rome: “Limits to Growth” by D.Meadows et al, 1972
UN Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972;
UN Conference on Environment and Development, Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992;
UN Johannesburg Summit, 2002;
Earth Summit 2012: Vision, Cooperation, Transformation

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Lecture 2. The road toward sustainability
OBJECTIVES:
Securing Political Commitment to Sustainable Development
Assessing Progress Towards Internationally Agreed Commitments
New and Emerging Challenges
THEMES
Green Economy in the context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development
Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development
http://www.earthsummit2012.org