Commentary on "Our Ecological Footprint"
So far this summer, I have had time to
read several interesting books and reports. One of the
books I decided
to read, was Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth.
The following notes
were made after reading this book.
David
Orton, July 1999
Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact
on the Earth
Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees published by
New Society Publishers, 1996
The EF is a helpful
concept useful for teaching, that shows how humans are over exploiting Nature
and
depleting on a continuous basis what
this book refers to as "nature's capital." The lifestyle of the affluent
(20% of the world's population) cannot
be achieved by the rest of the world otherwise three such planets
would be needed. Hence the emphasis
on economic growth and increasing consumerism is a recipe for
certain ecological and social disaster.
The following quotes from this book give a flavour of the position
being advanced:
If we are to
live sustainably, we must ensure that we use the essential products and processes
of nature
no more quickly than they can be renewed,
and that we discharge wastes no more quickly than they can
be absorbed. p.7
Starting from
the Brundtland definition, we argue that, conceptually, sustainability is
a simple concept:
it means living in material comfort
and peacefully with each other within the means of nature. p.32
Ecological Footprint
is the land (and water) area that would be required to support a defined
human
population and material standard indefinitely.
Glossary, p.158
The present Ecological
Footprint of a typical North American (4-5 ha) represents three times his/her
fair share of the Earth's bounty. Indeed,
if everyone on Earth lived like the average Canadian or
American, we would need at least three
such planets to live sustainably. p.13
The authors make
the point that the limits-to-growth debate of the 70's was about "non-renewable
resources",
whereas they focus on declining "renewable
natural capital" like forests, fish, clean water and soil. (See p.63)
I
guess here in Canada we could say that
industrial forestry, using the authors language, makes a renewable
"resource" non-renewable. Many ecocentrists
try to avoid using the term "resource" because it implies a
human-centered universe, that Nature
is a "resource" for human/corporate use, and the whole taken-for-granted
world view of resourcism.
Wackernagel and
Rees compare the average consumption between the US, Canada, India and the
rest of the
world in 1991. (See p.85)
Carbon dioxide emissions in tonnes per year were 15.2 (Canada), 19.5 (USA),
India (0.81) and the World 4.2. The
same range of discrepancies is shown for purchasing power, vehicles
per 100 persons, paper consumption,
fossil energy use, and fresh water withdrawal. The interesting point is
made that Australia and Canada, among
"developed" countries, consume "less than their natural income
domestically" yet it is the export
trade which is depleting overall the "natural capital stocks." (See
p.97) The
authors are also aware of class factors
within a country as influencing the Ecological Footprint. For
Canada a preliminary assessment suggests
the bottom 20 percent of the population have a Footprint of less
than three hectares, while the richest
20 percent "consume the ecological goods and services of over 12
hectares per capita." p.102
Some criticisms
Basically the Ecological
Footprint is a human-centered concept which essentially concerns human needs.
It does not incorporate an ecocentric
Earth-centered perspective - that there has to be a fundamental change
in consciousness for humans in how
they relate to the natural world - although the authors by various
comments show that they are well aware
of this. The needs of other species and their habitats are really just
footnotes in this text. I believe a
basic philosophical position for the authors is a) that to change the existing
situation- which they well describe-
then human self-interest has to be appealed to; and b) the current material
standard of living is taken as a given
in the industrialized countries. I do not share either of these two views.
Both authors are working within the
existing system and not on the outside of it.
Although there is
a critical examination of the concept of "sustainable development", in the
end this
ecologically perspective which relies
on continuing economic growth and increasing consumerism, is worked
with. The authors avoid redistribution
of wealth from the rich and say that more "development" is needed by
those on the economic bottom.
The book seems to
accept world trade and globalization as a given and the bioregional discussion
in the book
comes through as an afterthought.
In spite of the
above criticisms, I believe this book can be very useful for radical ecocentric
activists and
supporters of left biocentrism who
are trying to raise in a public way fundamental new thinking. Where I live
we have just had a provincial election
where the size of the economic deficit was quite a major issue,
"mortgaging the future" etc. One could
use such an opening to bring up the growing ecological deficit, the
fundamental concern of this book, and
how the present consumerist lifestyle and call for more economic
growth is unsustainable.
However, the basic
intellectual poverty of this book from an ecocentric perspective, is perhaps
shown in the
following quotation:
Growth is a pressing moral imperative for those whose
needs are not being
met, and industrialized
countries have not yet found ways to maintain their
standard of living,
without continued economic growth. One hopeful strategy
to deal with this
dilemma involves massive improvements in the efficiency
of economic activity
so that growth in consumption of goods and services is
"decoupled" from
growth in the use of energy and material. In theory, this
should permit an
increase in consumption to be accompanied by a decrease in
resource use. In
fact, this "dematerialization" of economic goods and
services must proceed
faster than economic growth to produce the necessary
reduction in humanity's
total load on the ecosphere. The political
attractiveness of
this approach is self-evident - it enables the rich to
maintain their high
material standards while freeing up the ecological
space needed for
the poor to increase theirs. p.144
The above is quite
distinct from the position of left biocentrism, which for example in the
Left Biocentrism
Primer notes
"The perspective
of the late German Green philosopher Rudolf Bahro is accepted that, for
world-wide sustainability, industrialized
countries need to reduce their impact upon the Earth to
about one tenth of what it is at the
present time."
****************
I care for the
phenomenon of living more than I care for the contorted belief system of
my culture.
I care for wildlife
preservation more than I care for its opposite - the technomachine and that
which
serves it. I care
most deeply of all about the failure of wildlife preservation in my lifetime.
- John Livingston, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation,
1981, p.116
Published in the on-line magazine fo the New Brunswick
Environmental Network Elements, September 1999.
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Last updated:
January 22, 2005