Sustainability History Project

Lauren Wheeler wrote an interesting reflection on historian William Cronon‘s plenary talk at the 2011 American Society for Environmental History conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago. Wheeler’s reflection is titled “Reflection on Sustainability: Cronon’s 2011 ASEH Plenary Address,” and Cronon’s talk was titled “Sustainability: A Short History for the Future.”

Among other things, Wheeler has the following to say:

Cronon’s address began with an etymology lesson on the roots of the word “sustainability”; its roots in a 1972 economics dissertation on Say’s Law and its first appearance in connection to environmental and ecological issues in 1980 before the word came to dominate discourse for environmentalism and the environmentally conscious in the 1990s and early 2000s. . . . Cronon’s argument is that contrary to what the dates of first usage and rise in popular culture suggests, sustainability is no more responsible for the current popularity of environmental concern than Silent Spring was responsible for launching the environmental movement. . . . The ideas conveyed by ‘sustainability’ predate the word by decades but interest in the ideas and issues hit critical mass simultaneously with the word.

The second problem Cronon identified, which is directly connected to the first, is that sustainability is predicated on waste and the consumption of new stuff.

The third problem with sustainability Cronon identified is an inability to adequately integrate it into politics through social justice. . . . [there is a] need for politics to be integrated into discussion of sustainability to adequately bring together the trifecta of sustainability; ecology, economy, social justice.

There is on positive thing aspect of sustainability Cronon identified that is worth noting and accounts for the popularity of the word and the willingness of people who would never identify as environmentalists to throw their support behind sustainability plans and activities. Where there is an innate negativity to the message of environmentalism, a doom and gloom about the future, sustainability is positive. Sustainability promises hope through offering an image of the future that sees humans regaining a balanced relationship with their environment.

Gregory Dehler also attended Cronon’s talk, and wrote a reflection titled “William Cronon’s ‘The Riddle of Sustainability’.” Dehler writes, in part,

[Cronon noted that] The word sustain, has very deep roots, but sustainability does not. . . . Cronon then addressed why it emerged so suddenly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He concludes that there were several factors. On the political level the Republicans ceded the environment and most conservation policies to the Democrats. . . . Sustainability provides a bridge around that troublesome word [environment] and identification. . . . Second, rising concerns on global warming and the a 1987 UN report led many to look for a formula for having our cake and eating it too. Sustainability became a method to maintain prosperity while also avoiding resource depletion. It offers a very rosy scenario where it appears to be more a matter of tinkering than of really radical changes. Cronon cited Walmart’s sustainability plan as an example to keep profits while still addressing resource use.

(Jim Clifford cross-posted Wheeler’s reflection at the NiCHE website, “Sustainability, History and William Cronon.”)

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