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Part I
Energy, complexity, and livelihood
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Positioning the Earth against the vast darkness of space, Carl Sagan asked us to âLook again at that dot. Thatâs here. Thatâs home. Thatâs usâ (1994). The tiny pixel-image of the Earth sent back by Voyager 1 intimates a potentially devastating insignificance. But against the unfolding dynamics of what evolutionist Jacques Monod referred to as âchance and necessityâ, the same disconcerting frame also testifies to an almost incredible degree of serendipity.
On the one hand, we are each only a tiny blip within a micro-fraction of a vast and aloof universe. On the other hand, we are the outcome of an infinitesimally improbable string of complex, interconnected events. Recognizing the cosmic felicity of âGoldilocks conditionsâ that make possible the spiralling complexity of life on Earth and our capacity to understand our place in the order of things, it is beholden on our species to revel in our cosmic good luck and to extend our run for as long as possible. Most fundamentally, this means recognizing the limits of our luck. We are dependent on those Goldilocks conditions at every scale, from the structure of the universe to our local biosphereâs operating conditions. We will never be able to affect the âcosmological constantâ, but the reality of the Anthropocene is that humanity has become a significant driver of geochemical and biological evolution. In this context, âextending our runâ means actively steering human impacts to keep the metabolism of the biosphere within operating parameters consistent with those Goldilocks conditions. More concretely, this means managing our economy and society to sustain the complexity and diversity of life on Earth and the systemâs potential for continuing evolution into the deep future. This is a monumental and sobering problem. Over the past 150 years, humanity has tested its luck. The short-term positive outcomes of our careering trajectory of growth make it hard to stop. It is not just the material outcomes that are addictive â our cell phones, cars, and homes â but also freedom. Over recent centuries, growth has created the conditions for unprecedented individual social and spatial mobility, a condition that Bauman refers to as âliquid modernityâ and foundational for cherished visions of freedom, social and political rights, personal autonomy, and progress. The ecological crisis associated with the âgreat accelerationâ is a wicked problem precisely because it is linked so internally and inextricably with real and non-negotiable improvements in the material and civil well-being of people on every continent (Pinker 2018).
âThe individualâ is something about which we talk a great deal in this book. Just as we live in an age of specialization in which the world is fragmented into ever smaller parts of an increasingly complex whole, modern life effects an equally corrosive fragmentation of social relations. There is an internal relation between the rationalizing logic of science, which aspires to provide a universal explanatory framework, and the atomizing impact of the disembedded markets, which push to make everything fungible and commensurable, and which construe social life as the mechanical aggregation of individual transactions. Economic, educational, legal, and even family systems centre around the individualâs success, rather than the household, let alone the community. The rights, liberty, and sovereignty of the modern individual is both the measure and telos of Western liberal thought â a taken-for-granted axiom of societal organization.
Moreover, from this point of departure, innumerable actors and institutions work tirelessly to buttress the society of individuals (Elias and Kilminster 1991) and promote equity of opportunity and circumstance.
These are ostensibly noble goals. The desire of ordinary people to live a maximally happy life seems an incontrovertible common sense and a starting point for most modern (utilitarian, relativist, emotivist, and deontological) ethical theories. But the emphasis on individuals is very problematic. From a historical-sociological perspective, privileging the modern Cartesian individual limits the political-economic imaginary and upholds colonial legacies. Elias likened this âclosed individualâ (Homo clausus) to Rodinâs âthinking statueâ. The disembedded, mobile individual (Bauman 2000, 200; Elias and Kilminster 1991; Polanyi 1944) intimated by the Homo economicus of economic theory texts and game theory is a thoroughly modern. Elias contrasted the contemporary H. clausus fixation with individual autonomy, as it manifests in the law, philosophy, ethical theories, economic institutions, and education, with Homines aperti â pluralities of interdependent, open individuals. Whether construed in deontological, utilitarian, or social contractual terms, the priority accorded to autonomy necessarily narrows the anthropological options for re-organizing society, removing from consideration examples from the historical past, the anthropological present as well as hypothetical future arrangements predicated on nested and interdependent units, attachments, and patterns of mutual identification. Reductionist individualist approaches to empowering people have had dire consequences precisely because they subordinate social and psychological restraint to an ontology of freedom and self-actualization (Quilley 2009) and also leads to very real material consequences of ongoing colonial violence.
Environmentalists have called for restraint for nearly half a decade. In 1972, Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972) presented clear and compelling data warning that the Earth would not support âbusiness as usualâ growth and development for much longer. The Global North ignored these warnings mainly because the social compact that had secured both the class and geopolitical peace since World War II depended on both fiscal transfers from a growing economy (Quilley 2017) and a cycle of consumerism linking mass production and mass consumption (Boyer and Saillard 2005). Likewise, the imperatives of development and priorities of a massive, emerging middle class (in countries such as India, China and, more latterly, Nigeria and Kenya) made any notion of limits a political anathema in the Global South. In 1982, a middle way, the saving grace of âsustainable developmentâ was presented to the world by the World Commission on Environment and Development (World Commission on Environment and Development 1982). Predicated on cooperative global governance and rapid technical change, this eco-modernist charter for green growth envisaged a sustainable future by 2000 and beyond. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, it did not work. It emphasized development as a critical motivator for future goals and as an alternative to fundamental behavioural changes.
After a decade of international conferences and legislative assemblies (Elliott 2004), the year 2000 came and went, and no environmental politic was able to gain significant and widespread traction. Regarding climate and emissions control, the Kyoto Protocol (1997, 2005) and more recently the Paris Agreement (2016) provided a focus for optimism. But at each stage, systemic political dependence on growth has proved to be unmovable. By design, sustainable development had not challenged the modern commitment to progress and development through growth. But in the end, the constant threat of what Habermas described as a âlegitimation crisisâ (Boyer and Saillard 2005; Habermas 1975) ensured that sustainable growth differed little from simple growth, allowing for widespread adoption and movement towards corporate greenwashing and eco-branding strategies that give the impression for paradigmatic change while only delivering new opportunities for product development and dissemination. In this context, corporate, state, and non-governmental organization (NGO) actors combined actively to obscure the underlying reality of biophysical limits.
Despite this manifest failure, sustainable development will continue to be the mainstream framework for policy as the term has traction precisely because it is vague. Glossing over unavoidable trade-offs, sustainable development combines liberal ideals of intergenerational equity, social justice, and individual liberty alongside ecological protection and economic growth (Dryzek 2005, 145). Rather than an activating cause for concern, it has morphed into a vague catch-all term for economic and technological innovation compatible with environmental integrity (Mol, Sonnenfeld, and Spaargaren 2009).
Despite the overwhelming practical hegemony of the growth agenda, some academic institutions continue to focus on biophysical limits. One of the most influential contributions comes from the Stockholm Resilience Center in their work on planetary boundaries (Rockstrom et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015). The concept of âplanetary boundariesâ draws attention to critical Earth system parameters â for example, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater use, carbon emissions â arguing that failure to respect will result in catastrophic global environmental change. Although highly influential, the approach is firmly rooted in biophysical sciences and does little to incorporate social or cultural dimensions of limit to growth. In response, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) were developed to integrate social well-being alongside these biophysical growth boundaries.
The UN SDGs are a set of goals and targets agreed to ...
