Sustainability History Project

Below are more student reflections on the second reading response assignment of the summer term. See the post On Sustainability, Spring 2010 (pt. 2 of 2) for the details of this assignment and the citation to Gibson’s article; at the end of this post are citations for the articles that students chose as their second reading. Also, see the post In response to Bonevac, “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” for reflections specifically on Daniel Bonevac’s article in Academic Questions 23:1 (March 2010), 84-101.

(Part 1 of this term’s reading responses on sustainability here.)

Sustainability as Indoctrination

In response to Bob Jickling’s article “Studying Sustainable Development,” one student writes that “Sustainable development should strive to avoid this [indoctrination] by its very foundation – if it is an open process, it should always be subject to critical examination and evaluation, so that it can be adapted to changing environments and local cultures, and so that it does become lost in ideology.” Great point. Let us be ever-mindful of this possibility, and be not afraid to speak up if we see this happening.

On Measuring & Assessing Sustainability

In comparing Gibson with the Croal et al. article, one student wrote “What engaged me the most about the two papers was the amount of thoroughness in explaining the process of the most basic environmental assessment.” I find such thoroughness helpful to those of us who seek to engage with the materials, either in support of it or to critique it. The authors have given us something intellectually solid in which to sink our (figurative) teeth. This is part of what I mean when I assert that sustainability can mean something definitive, that it can be much more than greenwashing or puffery.

This student also asks, “If the assessment process is one the most important tenets of sustainability[, and a key goal] is that all policies, plans, and programs are to be democratic, why do the authors recommend that there should be a single decision-maker at the center of the whole process?” This a good question that I responded to with another question: How do we balance the democratic process with the need, sometimes, of prompt and definitive action?

On the Compatibility of Capitalism & Sustainability

One student asks:

“Gibson and Huang/Xia both talked about the effects of sustainability being only one of many aspects that decision makers look at in the process and both call for that to change, but neither really offer ideas about how to go about it. How do you change something that is so rooted in our way of life? Can capitalism survive such a change; do we even want it to?”

My reply to these questions and comments was this is quite a complex conundrum, and it seems overwhelming at the large scale. However, let’s keep this conundrum in mind as we increasingly focus on Portland-area groups and individuals engaged in one or another part of this issue, because it is at the local level where we can limit and refine our questions, and, from this viewpoint, begin to see some answers.

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Student Sources:

Daniel Bonevac. “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” Academic Questions 23:1 (March 2010), 84-101.

Peter Croal, Robert B. Gibson, Charles Alton, Susie Brownlie, and Erin Windibank. “A Decision-Maker’s Tool for Sustainability-Centred Strategic Environmental Assessment,” Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management 12:1 (2008), 1-36.

G.H Huang, and J. Xia. “Barriers to Sustainable water-quality management.” Journal of Environmental Management 61:1 (2001), 1-23.

Bob Jickling, “Studying Sustainable Development: Problems and Possibilities,” Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 19:3 (Summer 1994), 231-240.

L. T. Weaver and S. Beckerleg, “Is Health a Sustainable state? A village study in the Gambia,” Lancet 22:341 (May 1993), 1327-1330.

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