May 7, 2009 Discussion Materials (draft)

“Sustainable Development Dilemma”

By the Woosh Team – 1st IDEAS Family

(supervised by Thompson & Thomson Co.)

An Oil Spill in Mexico

Good for the Economy? You betcha. Where best: U.S., Mexico, or Ecuador?

A wildfire in Laguna Beach

Do you think these people are hoping their homes will burn downTo help boost the local economy?

Tropical forest area

Are we satisfy with this progressive development ?

Less than 50% out of 1950

Total Borneo tropical

Forest Area

Development

consequences on

watershed managem

ent in urbanized

area

MAN-LAND-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION MODEL

ECONOMY PEOPLE

Human Activity

environment

Ecosystem Encroachment

resources

Impact on people

Waste, pollution, and dissipative use

Ecosystem services

Encroachment: to take more than is right, usual, or acceptable

Pressures on ecosystem

Economic subsystem

Population subsystem

Goods & services labor

Human subsystem

Environmental compartment

Ecosystem

impacts impacts

Environmental subsystem

STATEPRESSURE

Resource Depletion

Pollution

Natural Feedbacks

Societal Response

Human System Feedback

RESPONSE

A New Dichotomy: Economic vs Ecological SustainableWhere are we? Is growth sustainable?

Where to? Paranoia to Partnership

Environmental degradation and

resource depletion

Increasing Income disparity

Poverty and Marginalization

Population size and growth

Economic volume and pattern

Technological choice

Governance Environmental quality

Values, desires and aspirations

Structure of Power Knowledge and Understanding

Human Needs Long Term Ecological Processes

Critical trend

Proximate trend

Ultimate trend

Sustainable Development “Development that meets the needs of the present

generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.”

This simple definition /sentence has spawned research industries, international debates, and considerable

attention. A formal, explicit, and practical definition of ‘sustainable’has yet to be identified. Nonetheless,Bruntlandmust be credited for causing a profound

shift in the collective consciousness of the human race for coining such a phrase.

This area is devoted to the study of whole systems.

Nature is a whole system. But also an economy, a family, a company, a community, or many other things, can be looked at as whole systems. A whole system view would include all the factors involved and examine how they relate to each other and how they work as a whole. To deal with a whole system we can't leave anything out as irrelevant. Intuition is as important as rationality, we must address both scientific and artistic approaches, both material and spiritual needs, the small as well as the big, what we feel as well as what we think, what we perceive as well as what we imagine.

Whole systems are dynamic, they change they move, they develop. Frozen pictures of how things are supposed to be might do us no good, we need to deal with the live systems, whichever surprising directions that might take us in.

There is no one authority in the field of whole systems. Luckily nobody has monopolized it by putting it into a standard curriculum defining what it IS. So, we all have the opportunity to discover together what whole systems are about.

SOCIALPerspectives

ECONOMICPerspectives

ENVIRONMENTAL

Perspectives

• Human Rights• Peace and human security• Gender equality• Cultural diversity & intercultural understanding• Health•HIV/AIDS•Governance

• Natural resources (water, energy, agriculture, biodiversity)• Climate Change• Rural Development• Sustainable urbanization• Disaster prevention and mitigation

• Poverty reduction• Corporate responsibility and accountability• Market economy

Economic: the production of goods and servicesSocial : the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of lifeEnvironmental: the conservation and prudent management of natural resources

Sustainable Development:Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (“Our Common Future”, the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1997)

Institutions capacity has significant role in driving Sustainable Development progress achievement

Institutions capacity consist of:a.Formal: government, business entity, etc.b.In-formal: NGO and public, etc.