Models of Natural Capitalism

• RMI: What is Natural Capitalism?
  
  
• Hawken: Fundamental Assumptions of
  Natural Capitalism
  
  
• Hawken: Basic Principles of a Sustainable Economy"
  
  
• Hawken's Vision of a Restorative Economy
  
  
• A Roadmap for Natural Capitalism
  
  
• Paul Hawken: Basic Principles of a
  Restorative Economy
  
  
• Paths to Naural Capitalism
  

The Hyper Car as an Example of
Positive Change

• The Hypercar Concept
  
  
• The Growth of Hybrid Cars
  
  
• Hybrid Cars.com
  
  
• HybridCars.com: Buying Hybrid Cars

Future Scenarios for the 21st Century

• U.S. Power and Influence Will Decline,
  Global Trends 2025 report says
  
  
• National Intelligence Report: Global Trends 2025
  
  
• CIA: Global Trends 2015: Driving Factors
  helping to Shape the Future
  
  
• Predicted World by 2030 Graph:
  The Club of Rome Predictions
  
  
• How to Build Scenarios for the Future
  (4 Future Scenarios)
  
  
• CIA: Four Alternative Global Futures
  
  
• CIA: Table of Four Alternative Global Futures
  
  
• Lewis: Three Scenarios for the Future in 2030
  
  
• Ehrenfeld: Life in the New Milliennium

Global Trends in the 21st Century

• Predicted World by 2030 Graph:
  The Club of Rome Predictions
  (Pessimistic Model)
  
  
• Global Trends: The World in 2030)
  (Optimistic Model)
  
  
• Global Trends: Data for the World in 2030
  
  
• POLES: Population and Energy Use in 2030, Table
  
  
• UN FAO: World Agriculture in 2030
  
  
• UN: Population Growth in 2030
  
  
• UN: World Urbanization Prospects to 2030
  
  
• State of the World: Survival of Our Fragile Biosphere: Current Threats to the Human Future
  
  
• The Environmental Scorecard
  
  
• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
  
  
• Earth Trends: World Resources Institute

Moving toward Political Ecology?

• The Campaign for Political Ecology
  
  
• Paths to Sustainability Diagram
  
  
• Political Ecology: Core Principles Explained
  
  
• Features of a Sustainable Ecocentric Economy
  

Imagining a New American Dream?

• Center for a New American Dream
  
  
• Why a New American Dream?
  
  
• Five Fundamental Errors of Economists
  
  
• Redefining Progress
  
  
• The Center for Sustainable Design
  

The Earth Charter and the United Nations

• The Earth Charter Initiative
  
  
• The Earth Charter
  
  
• The United Nations Sustainable
  Development website
  
  
• Maps and Graphics from GEO Data Portal
  
  
• UNEP: Global Environment Outlook
  

Designing our Global Future?

• McDonough: The Next Industrial Revolution:
  The Industrial Economy (in-class)
  
  
• Lewis, Government as the Ultimate Guardian
  (in-class)
  
  
• Lewis, Why Not a Green New Deal? (in-class)
  
  
• United Nations Forecast for Earth in 2050 (in-class)
  
  
• UN Report: Ecosystems and Human Well-being
  
  
• The Titantic heading towards the Iceberg:
  Collision straigt Ahead (in-class)
  
  
• The Limits to Growth Model: 1972 to 1995 (in-class)
  
  
• Predicted World by 2030 Graph: The Club
  of Rome Predictions (Pessmistic Model)
  
  
• Club of Rome: A New Path for World Development
  
  
• Free Academic: Global Trends--The World in 2030
  (Optimistic Model)
  
  
• Paths to Sustainability (in-class)
  
  
• Paul Hawken: Basic Principles of a
  Restorative Economy (in-class)
  
  
• Hawken: A Declaration of a Sustainable Economy
  (in-class)
  
  
• Hawken, Basic Changes We Must make to
  create a Restorative Economy (in-class)
  
  
• Hawken, Dreams of a Livable Future (in-class)
  
  
• Hunter Lovins: Natural Capitalism Solutions:
  Paths to Sustainability
  
  
• McDonough, Managing the Future (in-class)
  
  
• Uncertainty, Resource Exploitation, and
  Conservation: Lessons for History (in-class)
  
  
• Four Main Reasons for the Collapse of Fisheries
  (in-class)
  
  
• Study sees Collapse of Global Fisheries
  in 45 Years (in-class)
  
  
• Global Warming could Kill Coral Reefs by 2050
  
  
• Ludwig: Recommendations for Sustainable Management (in-class)
  
  
• Lawmakers put Blame on Fannie and Freddie
  Mae (in-class)
  
  
• Orr: Having Failed to Manage Ourselves (in-class)
  
  
• Orr: Do we Consume too Much? (in-class)
  
  
• Orr: Human Ecology as a Problem of
  Ecological Design (in-class)
  
  
• Orr: Goals for Ecological Design (in-class)
  
  
• McDonough: The Next Industrial Revolution
  The Restorative Economy (in-class)
  

Predicting the Future in 2030

• Predicted World by 2030 Graph: The Club
  of Rome Predictions (Pessmistic Model)
  
  
• Free Academic: Global Trends--The World in 2030
  (Optimistic Model)
  
  
• Paths to Sustainability

Basic underlying assumptions: We have the capacity and ability to create a remarkably different economy, one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work, and true security. 2

1. Business must recognize the needs of corporations, society, and the environment. Business must judge its goals and behavior, not just from inherited definitions of profit and short-term interest, but also from the perspective of the environment and society.9

7. Larger goals of business. If businesses believe they are in business to serve people, to help solve problems, to use and employ the ingenuity of their workers to improve the lives of people around them by learning from nature that gives us life, we have a chance. Corporations must change to meet the world's needs, not the other way around. 55

24. Life and business are always moral questions.
Life is always a moral question that lies before us, dependent on o gratitude and constant struggle to cause as little suffering to all and everything around us. We must always ask what are qualities that we want in our businesses, economies, society governments, and in our larger environments. Corporations economies are means to serve larger ends, the well-being of individuals, communities, nations, and the global environment. 219

Orr,"Having Failed to Manage Ourselves"

"I do not doubt that something needs to be managed. But I would like to raise questions about what we manage and how. For would-be planet managers, it should be a matter of no small consequence that God, Gaia, or Evolution was doing the job nicely until human population technology, and economies got out of control. This leads me to think that it is humans that need managing, not the planet."

Plans to manage the earth are founded on the belief that ignorance is a solvable problem. With enough research, satellite data, and computer models we can take command of spaceship earth. There is a great deal more that we will learn about the earth, to be sure. But there are good reasons to believe that its complexity is permanently beyond our comprehension. A square meter of topsoil to a depth of several inches is teeming with life-forms that still have not been studied, much less their ecology or their relationship to the planet. The same can be said of most of the “machinery of nature.” The salient fact is not our knowledge, but our ignorance.

It is a mistake, however, to believe that we face only problems solvable by painless market adjustments and better gadgets, not dilemmas that will require wisdom, goodness, and a rationality of a higher sort. The word “hubris,” meaning overweening arrogance, is not heard much any more, but it applies to the belief that we can sufficiently understand the complexities of the earth to manage it for good purposes. It is also hubris to believe that the technologies of earth management and the process of management are neutral.

There is another approach to management expressed by Wendell Berry, who states that “we are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale.”3 His answer has nothing to do with management unless we mean self-management. He says that “we must acquire the character and the skills to live much poorer than we do. We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves.”

"How many of our global problems can be solved only by rebuilding the foundations of our culture and patterns of livelihood from the bottom up." (Orr, 160)

"It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that planet managers have made their peace with the powers that be and have joined the movement to extend human domination of nature to the fullest extent. It may be, however, that our impulse to manage that which cannot be managed, while leaving unmanaged that which could be, is the source of the problem." (Orr, 159)

"These imply potentially traumatic changes in the mindset of people used to avoiding real political issues and living at the expense of their children by not paying the costs of soil erosion, resource depletion, decimated wildlife, and wrecked ecologies. Honest bookkeeping or a dose of care would reduce the amount of stuff we buy and discard. This is, I think, why we must live “much poorer than we do.” However necessary, these changes cannot occur without an ecologically literate public willing to support them, and, I think, demand them. We may expect any number of feckless politicians and others to argue that we can technologize or grow our way out of ecological malfeasance." (Orr, 160)

"Can we manage planet earth? Don’t bet on it. But we have chance to manage ourselves by restoring a disciplined and loving relationship to our places, communities, and to the planet. Good sense is required to know what’s manageable and what’s not and to leave the latter to manage itself. The problem is not the planet. We are the problem. Throughout history, humans have steadily triumphed over all of those things that managed us: myth, superstition, religion, taboo, and above all, technological incompetence. Our task now is to replace these constraints with some combination of law, culture, and a rekindled reverence for all life. Management is then more akin to childproofing a day-care center than it is piloting “spaceship earth.” (Orr, 161-2)

Orr: Do We Consume too Much?

See: In Today's India, Status Comes with 4 Wheels

Do we consume too much? Certainly we do! In businessman and economist Paul Hawken's words:


"Americans, who have the largest material requirements in the world, each directly or indirectly use an average of 125 pounds of material every day, or about 23 tons per year... . Americans waste more than 1 million pounds per person per year. This includes: 3.5 billion pounds of carpet sent to land-fills, 25 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, and 6 billion pounds of polystyrene. Domestically, we waste 28 billion pounds of food, 300 billion pounds of organic and inorganic chemicals used for manufacturing and processing, and 700 billion pounds of hazardous waste generated by chemical production. . . . Total wastes, excluding wastewater, exceed 50 trillion pounds a year in the United States. . . . For every 100 pounds of product we manufacture in the United States, we create at least 3,200 pounds of waste. In a decade, we transform 500 trillion pounds of molecules into nonproductive solids, liquids, and gases."3


Does compulsive consumption add to the quality of our lives? Beyond some modest level, the answer is no.4 Does it satisfy our deepest longings? No; nor is it intended to do so. To the contrary, the consumer economy is designed to multiply our dissatisfactions and dependencies. In psychologist Paul Wachtel's words, "Our present stress on growth and productivity is intimately related to the decline in rootedness. Faced with the loneliness and vulnerability that come with deprivation of a securely encompassing community, we have sought to quell the vulnerability through our possessions."5

Do we feel guilty about the gluttony, avarice, greed, lust, pride, envy, and sloth that drive our addiction? A few may. But most of us, I suspect, consume mindlessly and then feel burdened by having too much stuff. Our typical response is to hold a garage sale and then take the proceeds to the mall and start all over again. Can the U.S. level of consumption be made sustainabje for all 5.8 billion humans now on the earth? Not likely. By one estimate, to do so for just the present world population would require the resources of two additional planets like the earth.6 (pp. 142-143)

If, however, we intend to build durable and sustainable communities, and if we begin with the knowledge that the world is ecologically complex, that nature does in fact have limits, that our health and that of the natural world are indissolubly linked, that we need coherent communities, and that humans are capable of transcending their self-centeredness a different design strategy emerges. For the design of a better society and healthier communities, in Vaclav Havel’s words, “We must draw our standards from the natural world, heedless of ridicule, and reaffirm its denied validity. We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.”

from Orr, "The Ecology of Giving and Consuming"

Orr, "Human Ecology as a Problem of Ecological Design

"Whatever their particular causes, environmental problems all share one fundamental trait: with rare exceptions they are unintended, unforeseen, and sometimes ironic side effects of actions arising from other intentions.1 We intend one thing and sooner or later get something very different. We intended merely to be prosperous and healthy but have inadvertently triggered a mass extinction of other species, spread pollution throughout the world, and triggered climatic change—all of which undermines our prosperity and health."
(Orr, 13)

Looking ahead, we face an imminent collision between a growing population with rising material expectations and ecological capacity. At some time in the next century, given present trends, the human population will reach or exceed 10 billion, perhaps as many as 15—20 percent of the species on earth will have disappeared forever, and the effects of climatic change will be fully apparent. This much and more is virtually certain. Feeding, housing, clothing, and educating another 4—6 billion people and providing employment for an additional 2—4 billion without wrecking the planet in the process will be a considerable challenge. Given our inability to meet basic needs of one-third of the present population, there are good reasons to doubt that we will be able to do better with the far larger population now in prospect.

"The regnant faith holds that science and technology
will find a way to meet human needs and desires without our having to make significant changes in our philosophies, politics, economics, or in the way we live." (Orr, 16)

The challenge of ecological design is more than simply an engineering problem of improving efficiency; it is the problem of reducing the rates at which we poison ourselves and damage the world. The revolution that van der Ryn and Cowan (1996) propose must first reduce the rate at which things get worse (coefficients of change) but eventually change the structure of the larger system. As Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart (1998) argue, we will need a second industrial revolution that eliminates the very concept of waste. This implies, as McDonough is fond of saying, “putting filters on our minds, not at the end of pipes.” In practice, the change McDonough proposes implies, among other things, changing manufacturing systems to eliminate the use of toxic and cancer-causing materials and developing closed-loop systems that deliver “products of service,” not products that are eventually discarded to air, water, and landfills.

"Ecological design, in other words, is the careful meshing of human purposes with the larger patterns and flows of the natural world and the study of those patterns and flows to inform human actions (Orr 1994, 104)."

As creatures more ignorant than knowledgeable, what principles can safely guide our actions over the long term? There is no operating manual for planet Earth, so we will have to write our own as a set of design principles. Ecological design, however, is not so much about how to make things as about how to make things that fit gracefully over long periods of time in a particular ecological, social, and cultural context. Industrial societies, in contrast, work under the conviction that “if brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using enough of it.” But when humans have designed with ecology in mind, there is greater harmony between intentions and the particular places in which those intentions are played out that preserves diversity both cultural and biological; utilizes current solar income; creates little or no waste; accounts for all costs; and respects larger cultural and social patterns. (Orr, 20)

"A real design revolution will have to transform human intentions and the larger political, economic, and institutional structure that permitted ecological degradation in the first place. A second impediment to an ecological design revolution is simply the scale of change required in the next few decades. All nations, but starting with the wealthiest, will have to:

Goals for Ecological Design

• Improve energy efficiency by a factor of 5 - 10

• Rapidly develop renewable sources of energy

• Reduce the amount of materials per unit of output
by a factor of 5 - 10

• Preserve biological diversity now being lost everywhere

• Restore degraded ecosystems

• Redesign transportation systems and urban areas

• Institute sustainable practices of agriculture and forestry

• Reduce population growth and eventually total population levels

• Redistribute resources fairly within and between generations

• Develop more accurate indicators of prosperity, well-being, health, and security.


To avoid catastrophe, all of these steps must be well under way within the next few decades. Given the scale and extent of the changes required, this is a transition for which there is no historical precedent. The century ahead will test, not just our ingenuity, but our foresight, wisdom, and sense of humanity as well." (Orr, 23)

"The success of ecological design will depend on our ability to cultivate a deeper sense of connection and obligation without which few people will be willing to make even obvious and rational changes in time to make much difference. We will have to reckon with the power of denial, both individual and collective, to block change. We must reckon with the fact that we will never be intelligent enough to understand the full consequences of our actions, some of which will be paradoxical and some evil." (Orr, 23)

It follows that ecological design is not so much an individual art practiced by individual designers as it is an ongoing negotiation between a community and the ecology of particular places. Good design results in communities in which feedback between action and subsequent correction is rapid, people are held accountable for their actions, functional redundancy is high, and control is decentralized. In a well-designed community, people would know quickly what’s happening, and if they don’t like it, they know who can be held accountable and can change it. Such things are possible only where livelihood, food, fuel, and recreation are, to a great extent, derived locally; where people have control over their own economies; and where the pathologies of large-scale administration are minimal. Moreover, being situated in a place for generations provides long memory of the place and hence of its ecological possibilities and limits. There is a kind of long-term learning process that grows from the intimate experience of a place over time.

"Ecological design is the art that reconnects us as sensuous creatures evolved over millions of years to a beautiful world. That world does not need to be remade but rather revealed. To do that, we do not need research as much as the rediscovery of old and forgotten things. We do not need more economic growth as much as we need to re-learn the ancient lesson of generosity, as trustees for a moment between those who preceded us and those who will follow. Our greatest needs have nothing to do with the possession of things but rather with heart, wisdom, thankfulness, and generosity of spirit. And these virtues are part of larger ecologies that embrace spirit, body, and mind—the beginning of design." (Orr, 32)

McDonough, Managing the Future

(See MBDC: Executive Overview and

McDonough: Ford Rouge Dearborn Truck Plant)

"UNDERWOOD: Why do we need a new industrial revolution?

MCDONOUGH: The Industrial Revolution as a whole was not designed. It took shape gradually as industrialists and engineers figured out how to make things. The result is that we put billions of pounds of toxic materials in the air, water and soil every year and generate gigantic amounts of waste. If our goal is to destroy the world—to produce global warming and toxicity and endocrine disruption—we're doing great. But if the goal isn't global warming, what is? I want to crank the wheel of industry in a different direction to produce a world of abundance and good design—a delightful, safe world that our children can play in. "

"Not all products lend themselves to that.

Most manufacturers take resources out of the ground and convert them to products that are designed to be thrown away or incinerated within months. We call these "cradle to grave" product flows. Our answer to that is "cradle to cradle" design. Everything is re-used—either returned to the soil as non-toxic "biological nutrients" that will biodegrade safely, or returned to industry as "technical nutrients" that can be infinitely recycled. Aluminum is a technical nutrient. It takes tremendous energy to make, but it's easy to recapture and reuse. Since 1880, the human species has made 660 million tons of it. We still know where 440 million tons are today."

"How do paper products like magazines fit into this picture?

Why take something as exquisite as a tree and knock it down? Trees make oxygen, sequester carbon, distill water, build soils, convert solar energy to fuel, change colors with the seasons, create microclimates and provide habitat.

My book "Cradle to Cradle," which I wrote with Michael Braungart, is printed on pages made of plastic resins and inorganic fillers that are infinitely recyclable. They're too heavy, but we're working with companies now to develop lightweight plastic papers. We have safe, lightweight inks designed to float off the paper in a bath of 180 degrees—hotter than you would encounter under normal circumstances. We can recapture the inks and reuse them without adding chlorine and dioxins to the environment. And the pages are clean, smooth and white."

"Given that industry today fits your definition of anti-life, why aren't you fighting for stricter environmental regulations?

If coal plants release mercury—and mercury is a neurotoxin that damages children's brains—then reducing the amount of mercury in emissions doesn't stop that. It just says, "We'll tell you at what rate you can dispense death." Being less bad is not being good. Our idea is to make production so clean, there's nothing bad left to regulate. This is extremely interesting to people of all political persuasions—those who love the environment and those who want commerce free of regulation."

"What are you doing in China?

The China Housing Industry Association has the responsibility for building housing for 400 million people in the next 12 years. We're working with them to design seven new cities. We're identifying building materials of the future, such as a new polystyrene from BASF [with no noxious chemicals]. It can be used to build walls that are strong, lightweight and superinsulating. The building can be heated and cooled for next to nothing. And it's silent. If there are 13 people in the apartment upstairs, you won't hear them."

"Is it practical to put farms on roofs?

Traditional roofs aren't practical. They degrade from thermal shock and ultraviolet radiation and have to be replaced in 20 years. For the Gap's corporate campus in San Bruno, Calif., we planted a "green roof" of ancient grasses. The roof now damps the sounds of jets from the San Francisco airport. It absorbs storm water, which is important because they have serious issues with storm water there. It makes oxygen, provides habitat, and it's beautiful. We also made a green roof for Ford Motor Co.'s River Rouge plant. It saved Ford millions of dollars in storm-water equipment. "

"Your ideas are really catching on.

It's an amazing moment in history. We also have two huge new projects in England—working with the cities of Greenwich and Wembley. The developer, Adrian Wyatt, has asked us to conceive the meta-framework for the project.

We won't get everything right the first time. Change requires experimentation. But no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. Our job is to dream—and to make those dreams happen. "

Let's look at the essay, "Uncertainty, Resource Exploitation, and Conservation: Lessons for History," by scientists Donald Ludwig, Ray Hilborn, and Carl Walters in the April 2, 1993, Science. This is a study of efforts to manage fisheries for maximum sustained yield. The remarkable thing about their study is that it agrees with the larger arguments made by David Orr in his own essay, "Having Failed to Manage Ourselves, We Will Now Manage the Planet: An Opinion from the Back Forty." But Ludwig et al. are respected scientists. These three scientists are arguing in the most respected science journal in the world that scientists and science and technology can't be relied on to manage the Earth to create maximum sustainable yields for human society. This is an amazing conclusion for these scientists to make. Historically, science has supported modern industrial culture's faith in science, technology, and human understanding to increase human domination and control over nature.

Ludwig et al. base their argument on a review of the literature on efforts to manage fisheries for maximum sustained yields. They draw on these studies to support their larger arguments about the inability of science to provide human society the understanding it needs to sustainably use or sustainably develop any complex biological resource. Even though scientists, industry spokesmen, government officials, and resource industry workers have claimed they are sustainably using resources such as fisheries they have often been deceiving themselves and deceiving the larger public. Ludwig et al. conclude that as a result "resources are inevitably overexploited, often to the point of collapse or extinction for four main reasons:

Four Main Reasons for Collapse of Fisheries

1. Wealth or the promotion of wealth generates political and social power that is used to promote unlimited exploitation of resources.

2. Scientific understanding and consensus is hampered by the lack of controls and replicates, so that each new problem involves learning about a new system.

3. The complexity of the underlying biological and physical systems precludes a reductionistic approach to management. Optimum levels of management must be determined by trial and error.

4. Large levels of natural variability mask the effects of overexploitation. Initial overexploitation is not detectable until it is severe and often irreversible.

These are depressing and quite severe conclusions. Let's now look at their arguments to see if these scientists can back them up. After concluding that governments and industry has been unable to manage fisheries for maximum sustained yield, Ludwig et al. now try to explain why. If we are going to create sustainable societies and economies, we must first understand why are present efforts to manage the Earth are failing.

Ludwig et al. begin by arguing that the larger the initial fish stocks, the greater the economic and political pressure for "unlimited exploitation." Governments and industries will even hire their "own scientists" to support their unsustainable exploitation of a fishery. After the creation of a successful and profitable fishing industry by ruthlessly exploiting the fishing stocks, economic interests will pressure governments to support their continued exploitation and destruction of the fishery, arguing that to stop the fishing now and preserve the fishery will be too cost jobs and hurt a profitable industry. Fearing the short-term political costs of closing the fishery and preserving the fish stocks, governments will often subsidize and support the fishing industry in its overharvesting of the fishery. A good example of this is when government scientists warned that the California sardine fishery was being overfished. The fishing industry then hired their own scientists to argue that it was "virtually impossible to overfish a pelagic species." And because of industry pressure, the state and federal government ignored the warnings of their own scientists. As a result, the California sardine fishery crashed because of overfishing. Ludwig et al. conclude from this that sustainable management of resources is less a scientific than a political and economic decision. As long as government and industry focus on short-term profits and political gain, management of resources for sustained yield will be nearly impossible.

Ludwig et al. now introduce a second major problem. The tremendous scale and size of most fisheries make it impossible for scientists to do "controlled and replicated experiments" that will allow them to determine what the sustainable yield of the fishery is. First of all, the only way to determine the health of the fishery is to control and monitor the entire fishery. Because of political pressure, industry will not allow scientists to limit their catch in order to determine the health of the fishery. In addition, even if industry accepted scientific efforts to limit their catches, the fishery is so large that these limits could not be enforced. In the case of the California sardine industry, both American and large Asian and Russian fishing fleets engaged in virtually uncontrolled and unmonitored fishing. As a result, scientists could not be sure how many fish are being taken and how many fish remain in the fishery.

Ludwig et al. also argue that the complexity of the fishery environments makes it very hard to determine what the sustained yield is. First of all, scientists could only determine the sustained yield of the fishery by studying it over a much larger time scale than they are able to do. In order to rule out subtle changes in water temperature, ocean currents, changes in fertility of fish and plant stocks, weather and air temperature changes, and changes in species diversity and competition in the fishery, scientists would have to have data on the fishery for at least a couple of thousand years. But even with thousands of years of scientific data on the fishery, scientists still could not fully understand the complexity of the fishery. Because of complexity and chaos in
large-scale biological systems, scientists can never be sure that they have studied and understand all the variables that affect the health and size of the fishery. Economic and political interests will refuse to limit exploitation of fisheries, arguing that the scientists don't have all the data they need to determine what the sustained yield is. Ludwig et al. conclude that often "large levels of natural variability [in the fish stock] mask the effects of overexploitation. Initial overexploitation is not detectable until it is severe and often irreversible." Thus, because of economic and political pressure, and lack of full scientific understanding, fisheries are overexploited and destroyed.

Finally, Ludwig et al. argue that even when scientists have solid historical and scientific evidence that resources and fisheries are being overexploited, economic and political interests refuse to stop exploiting the resource until it is destroyed. For example, we know that historically the Sumer civilization destroyed itself because they tried to heavily irrigate their desert farmlands. This irrigation led to salt build-up and the eventual destruction of the soil's fertility. The scientists concluded from this that heavy irrigation in desert and arid lands will soon lead to the destruction of the soil. But despite this knowledge, and scientific warning about the heavy use of irrigation in dry arid California farmlands, economic and political interests are subsidizing and supporting massive irrigation projects in Southern California. Despite solid scientific evidence and warning and even the historical example of a collapsed civilization, California farm interests are persisting in their efforts to irrigate the desert, which will only lead to the destruction of soil fertility and farms.

Some students charged that Ludwig et al. are very pessimistic. If their analysis is correct, our modern industrial civilization will not stop its destruction of global resource systems until it has destroyed the ability of the Earth to support its complex, expanding, resource-intensive global civilization. But this is not the conclusion that Ludwig et al. come to. They conclude by laying out five basic principles of effective management of resource systems such as fisheries:

Recommendations for Sustainable Management

1. Include human motivation and responses as part
of the system to be studied and managed. The shortsightedness and greed of humans underlie difficulties in management of resources.

2. Act before scientific consensus is achieved. The complexity, scale, and historical nature of resource systems makes scientific consensus and perfect understanding impossible.

3. Rely on scientists to recognize problems, but not to remedy them. In other words, science can provide the limited information about the costs and benefits of exploiting and preserving a resource system, but government and the general public must weigh the costs and benefits. Science can inform us about the risks, but the public must decide on a course of action based on that information.

4. Distrust claims of sustainability. Because past resource exploitation has seldom been sustainable, any new plan that involves claims of sustainability should be suspect. More often than not, economic and political interests claim their use of a resource is sustainable when it is clearly not; they will even go so far to hire scientists to back up their deceptive claims and lies.

5. Confront uncertainty. Once we free ourselves from the illusion that science or technology can provide a solution to resource or conservation problems, appropriate action becomes possible. The following are the basics principles of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty:

a. Consider a variety of plausible hypotheses about the world.

b. Consider a variety of possible strategies.

c. Favor actions that are robust to uncertainties.

d. Hedge and limit your actions.

e. Favor actions that are informative and provide feedback.

f. Probe and experiment to better understand the limits.

g. Monitor results.

h. Update assessments and modify policy accordingly

i. Favor actions that are reversible

On the basis of the above recommendation, Ludwig et al. conclude that "resource problems are not really environmental problems. They are human problems that we have created at many times and in many places, under a variety of political, social, and economic systems." I believe that this is the larger conclusion that David Orr comes to in his book, Ecological Literacy (1992) .

In his argument that humans can't manage the Earth, Orr quotes Wendell Berry: "We are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale." In addition to not having the knowledge and understanding to manage the Earth, Orr also argues that human evil and greed, limits to human ability to understand what is good, and the limits on human willingness to do good are also crucial factors in understanding why human efforts to manage the Earth are failing. It is precisely because of these above limits to the human ability to manage the Earth, Orr concludes, that we should rethink the question: Instead of managing the Earth, maybe we should better manage ourselves. He argues that we need "to restore a sense of belonging to a larger order and community." Instead of thinking we are separate from and above the natural world, capable of controlling and dominating it for human profit and well-being, Orr argues that we should come to understand ourselves as interdependent parts in a dynamic, complex, living biosphere, whose health and well-being in the end determines our success and even our very survival as a species.

But some students still insisted that Ludwig et al. and Orr were too pessimistic. If their analysis was correct, our modern industrial civilization might be doomed to destroy itself. However, I believe they are simply laying out the larger human challenges we face. If we can't limit our exploitation of the Earth, and limit our efforts to control and subdue nature, then we may undermine our civilization. But how do we know we can't? If scientists can't understand the complexity of resource systems such as fisheries, how can we conclude that we can understand the equally complex nature of human societies? The larger question really is this: How will our present global industrial civilization adapt to the growing environmental threats to its future?

Club of Rome Predicted World 2030

Let's look at a graphic model predicting what will happen in the future if our modern industrial society refuses to adapt to and try to solve the major environmental challenges it faces. (See Predicted World by 2030 Graph: The Club of Rome Predictions site.) This graph predicts that if we continue doing what we are doing today, and fail to adapt and change our ways, then our global civilization will collapse in the year 2030 because of overpopulation, destruction of resources, pollution, increasing demands on shrinking resource bases, declining industrial output caused by resource shortages and energy shortages, and decreasing life expectancy caused by pollution and increasing scarcity of resources. If you think Ludwig et al. and Orr are pessimistic, this Club of Rome prediction is really pessimistic. This graph assumes, like some of the students seem to, that our global industrial civilization will not change its ways and quickly walk up to the edge of a cliff and jump over. But do human beings and human societies really do this? Are we really bullheaded enough, short-sighted enough, and stupid enough to continue what we're doing until we destroy our civilization and the human future? I don't think so. But, of course, this is yet to be proved! We know that past civilizations have collapsed, such as the Mayans and the Romans. However, this time if our civilization collapses it will do so with the full warning and understanding of the causes of its collapse. This would be truly a tragic mistake.