1. The Science of Sustainability NEW SCIENCE, OLD CONCERNS
Alon Shepon

2. outline

3. Easter Island An island.
hundreds of statues (Moai) and platforms (ahu) erected from quarries ( AD).
Pollen records show an existence of a forest declining in the last millennia.
Inhabited by ~900 AD. By barren with ~2000 inhabitants.
What were the reasons for the civilization's collapse?

4. Sustainability
Brundtland commision (UNED, 1983): [sustainable development… as meeting] “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.“
Officially introduced at the World Congress "Challenges of a Changing Earth 2001" in Amsterdam by the International Council for Science.
Its an interdisciplinary science of natural sciences, economy, engineering, humanities, ethics and more.
It aims at providing ways to reduce human impact and align it with the Earth’s carrying capacity.

5. Brief history of footprints
Malthus (1798) "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio...“ ,Malthus T.R An essay on the principle of population.
Tragedy of the Commons – Hardin (1962)
Limits to Growth (1972) – World3 dynamic system model
Vitousek et al. (1986) humanity’s appropriation of the biosphere
Rees and Wackernagel (1994)
Ecosystem Millennium report (2005)
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (2008)

6. Sustainable jargon
Natural capital, carrying capacity (biocapacity), overshoot, ecosystem services, soft, and hard sustainability
Kuznets curves

7. Food System
Population has doubled in the last 50 years. ~ 9 billion by 2050.
Increase in population and food consumption per capita  doubling (or even tripling) of food demand by 2050.
~1 billion people are hungry, >1 billion over fed, overweight.
Arable land increase 1.2->1.5 billion ha from ; Grain production has doubled.
Doubling of food production either doubling of land or double in yield
~1/3 of the world's cropland abandoned during the past 40 due to erosion.
USA food system: 50% of total land, 80% of fresh water, and 17% of fossil fuel.
Can humanity achieve sustainable food production systems at the beginning of the 21st Century?
Population crash: prospects for famine in the twenty first century, C. Shade and D. Pimentel Environ Dev Sustain,2009.
Food Security: The challenge of feeding 9 billion people, Godfay et al, Science, Vol 327, 2010
Sustainability of meat based and planr based diets and the environment, D. Pimentel and M. Pimentel, Am J Clin Nutr,
Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits, Pimentel et al, 1995, Science 267

8. Ecological economy
Dynamics and co-evolution between the human economy and natural systems.
Develop sustainable systems
Open vs. Closed systems, subsets and wholes.
Well-being and growth.
Learning from ecosystems.

9. Ethics Ecocentrism vs. Anthropocentrism
Ecosystem valuation, resource distribution
Substitutability of natural
resources

10. Industry Linear design and thought – cradle to grave
Life Cycle Analysis

12. Material flow Analysis and Net Energy Analysis
cradle2cradle
Material flow Analysis and Net Energy Analysis
Energy return on investment
Emergy

13. Sustainable indicators
Qualitative tools to assess sustainability
There exist many indicators, ecological, economical, social or a combination of them.
Let’s explore one of them: the ecological footprint
- It transforms human impact into 6 land types
- aggregates it into global hectares.

15. Sum Up A cycle, cyclic, stable over time
A biomimcry concept  implement in human systems
Transects all human disciplines
Aligning the ecological footprint with Earth’s carrying capacity.

16. More info
Please visit our website for more info and summaries:
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