What are the signs of moving toward sustainability? What is it that we look for as we try to track stories of people bringing their systems back within sustainable limits?
Physical Evidence of Recovery
The clearest and best evidence is, of course, that a resource has recovered to a healthy level or a pollutant has declined below some tolerable threshold. We do have some examples of these good news stories. Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting CFCs decline after international treaties limit their use. Levels of lead in children decrease following controls on its use. Fish numbers in some fisheries increase after fishers agree to limit the catch, and so on.
Of course, just as it is not easy to know when we’ve gone beyond a limit, it isn’t always possible to tell when a system is back within sustainable limits. What we may see is that the population of a fishery is now rising instead falling, the average size of trees in a forest is increasing instead of decreasing, or the concentration of a pollutant in a waterway is in decline. But, it may take the system years or decades to recover fully. And depending on how far the system has already been pushed past its limits, the turn-around in resource use may be too little too late for the health of the whole. Still, each example of reversal in the trends is worth noting, celebrating, and learning from. So we’re on the lookout for stories where a system seems to have turned in a more sustainable direction even if it may still be far from sustainable limits.
Evidence of Actions to Reverse Overshoot
Even before we see changes in the levels of resource stocks or waste streams, we can look for signs that people are taking the kinds of actions that can help bring systems back within limits. Just as there are often long time delays between the initiation of unsustainable practices and the depletion of resources or the accumulation of pollutants, we should expect delays between changes in resource use and recovery of natural systems. So in our scan of news and reports we are looking not only for changes in the health of natural systems, but also changes in the ways those systems are being used and treated by human society. In particular we are looking for seven kinds of changes identified in Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update.
Whenever we see movement in these directions — from the choices of a single family to international treaties and agreements — we can find both cause for celebration and efforts needing our support.
- Extend the planning Horizon.
Base the choice among current options much more on their long-term costs and benefits not just the results they will produce in today’s markets or tomorrow’s election. Develop the incentives, the tools, and the procedures required for the media, the market, and elections to report, respect, and be responsible for issues that unfold over decades.
- Improve the signals.
Learn more about and monitor both welfare of the human population and the conditions of local and planetary sources and sinks. Inform governments and the public as continuously and as promptly about environmental conditions as about social conditions. Include real environmental costs in economic prices; recast economic indicators like the GNP so that they do not confuse costs with benefits, or throughput with welfare, or the depreciation of natural capital with income. - Speed up response times.
Look actively for signals that indicate when the environment is stressed. Decide in advance what to do if problems appear (if possible, forecast them before they appear) and have in place the institutional and technical arrangements necessary to act effectively. Educate for flexibility and creativity, for critical thinking and the ability to redesign both physical and social systems. - Minimize the use of non-renewable resources.
Fossil fuels, fossil groundwaters, and minerals should be used only with the greatest possible efficiency, recycled when possible, and consumed only as part of a deliberate transition to renewable resources. - Prevent the erosion of renewable resources.
The productivity of soils, surface waters, and all living things, including forest, fish, and game should be protected and, as far as possible, restored and enhanced. These resources should only be harvested at the rate the can regenerate themselves. That requires information about their regeneration rates, and strong social sanctions or economic inducements against their overuse. - Use all resources with maximum efficiency.
The more human welfare can be obtained with the less throughput, the better the quality of life can be while remaining below the limits. Great efficiency gains are both technically possible an economically favorable. Higher efficiency will be essential, if the current and future world population are to be supported without inducing a collapse. - Slow and eventually stop exponential growth of population and physical capital.
There are real limits to the extent that the first five items on this list can be pursued. Therefore this last step is the most essential. It involves institutional and philosophical change and social innovation. It requires defining desirable, sustainable levels of population and industrial output. It calls for goals defined around the idea of enough rather than more. It asks, simply but profoundly, for a vision of the purpose of human existence that does not entail constant physical extension.
— Based on Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (pp. 259-60)