Class 23: Natural Capitalism CofC Fall 2011

 “To meet the challenge of maintaining the [stability of the] Holocene state, we propose a framework based on 'planetary boundaries'. “  “Many subsystems of Earth react in a nonlinear, often abrupt, way, and are particularly sensitive around threshold levels of certain key variables. If these thresholds are crossed, then important subsystems, such as a monsoon system, could shift into a new state, often with deleterious or potentially even disastrous consequences for humans.”

 The boundaries represent a new approach to defining biophysical preconditions for human development.  3 Branches of Scientific Inquiry  Ecol Economics: essential role of the life-support properties of the environment for human wellbeing  Glob Env Change & Sust Sci: understanding essential Earth processes, including human actions  Resilience: links to complex dynamics and self-regulation of living systems, emphasizing thresholds and shifts between states  “The evidence so far suggests that, as long as the thresholds are not crossed, humanity has the freedom to pursue long-term social and economic development.”

 “But it’s not necessary, or probably even very useful, to design the perfect size or shape of a community; it’s enough to say that, for reasons of ecological sustainability and human satisfaction, our systems and economies have gotten too large, and that we need to start building them back down. What we need is a new trajectory, toward the smaller and more local.”  Rethink our relationship to commodities, and community property  Local communication, local energy production, and renewed economic production (and local currency??)  Decentralizing governance and minimizing econ interference and subsidies  “could it be that this modernity, this hyper-individuality is a phase through which humans need to pass before they can figure out its limitations?”

 Comparison of China (unfettered growth) with other counter models.  Movement from rural spaces of relative autonomy to urban shanty towns  Can the world live like Americans and be built on China’s model for unfettered growth?  Europeans are more communitarian…use half US energy, live smaller scales and are generally happier.  Move to local economies, with local communications, and farmer’s markets

 McKibben: Deep EconomyDeep Economy

 Problem: resource extraction/use, using nature as a limitless resource, and externalizing waste and pollution  We have a “broken economic compass” (market is chalk full of distortions and perverse incentives)  Result: leads to environmental degradation and depletion of resource that ultimately negatively affects social/human systems  Solution: Reverse logic  Nature is scarce, people are abundant (away from limitless nature and scarce labor)  How?: Change system of production to address production- consumption cycle (away from cradle to grave) and address waste at all stages of the process. Engage a “Whole Systems Approach.” Do this by mimicking ecological system.  Result: “Abundance by design”  replenishing nature’s reserves

 1. Increase resource productivity  “radically reduce the throughput in the system”  2. Biomimicry – mirror ecological systems in design  Change what is in the throughput (i.e. the materials themselves)  3. Shift away from production of goods to flow of service and value (using #1 and #2)  Key: synergistic incentives between production and consumption (not perverse)  Keep your stuff and sell the service  4. Reinvest in environment (natural capital streams)

 Berkeley Lecture: Trade and Natural CapitalismTrade and Natural Capitalism  Roundtable Rocky Mtn Inst: Natural CapitalismNatural Capitalism  Visions of Sustainable Future (10m) Visions of Sustainable Future