Economic Sustainability: What Is This?

By Robin Huffman, BEC Advocacy Director

Consider the source, follow the money, trust and verify, and respect gets respect – key truisms for advocates working for a more sustainable way of life.

It seems most people and companies (companies actually are not people) want to be on the sustainable side of living. This is the moral high ground, and it makes sense. Who would say, "Let's use our resources up, so that there is nothing left for future generations?" Many now recognize that we are over-fishing, over-polluting, and over-exploiting resources, even renewable ones, rapidly. Economic systems all over the world are on edge, and people are looking for the next new market, knowing that we need to turn to a green economy, a green way of life.

A so-called green economy is being invented and reinvented for a world with nearly 7 billion people and a rate of growth that is entirely unsustainable. How many now recognize that the current 6.7 billion humans living as we do is entirely unsustainable? Even in the relatively sparsely populated United States, at 307 million, our coastlines are "dead zones" from anthropogenic pollution. The 37 million in California have nearly choked the salmon out of our coasts, rivers, and creeks. We are dying from cancers, just recently realizing the extent to which our systemic use of chemical-laden inventions intended to improve our lives are killing us. To sustain a population of 7 billion people we need our chemical fertilizers, pesticides, medicines, and power. Our planet held around 3 billion humans half a century ago, the year I was born (and like most, I appreciate being born). Human cultures have been keeping up with human demands, more or less, and I wonder what's next: an imminent massive die-off by combinations of disease and war and famine and dehydration accompanied by mass extinctions, a sustainable stabilization at somewhere around 10 billion as the United Nations think tankers and others hopefully predict by about 2050, a comfortable return 3 billion in the next half century (no recognized think tank is making that prediction), or what? An economic balance with the environment and communities is necessary for the survival of human populations.

A big question for our local communities is how to attain sustainable economic development, also known as a green economy. In the general plan updates, Chico says we want it, and Butte County says we want it, but what will living be like in a sustainable economy? What is this?

Is there a limit to the size of a sustainable economy? Are supplies and demands limited?

Whatever else it is, sustainable economic development measures all the costs and counts all the values in determining an economic balance with the environment and people. We need to know what aspects of the environment are worth to us and how much the total cost of a project or product will be in order to decide if we will buy. The environment has only recently been considered part of the equation of the cost of a project or a measure of its benefit. On a scale of 1-10, how happy would a project or product make us, and it is worth the cost to the environment? We need projects and products that improve the environment so human byproducts biodegrade. Complete cost analysis provides for a sustainable economy and must become part of the general plan going forward.

Measuring true costs is a vital economic perspective in advocating for the protection of our land, air, and water. In working for economic sustainability, the aforementioned truisms can help get the job done.

From the Summer 2010 issue of the Environmental News.