Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
resources, which will prevent the sustainability of human society. Limits and sus-
tainability are often related to environmental limits, but even the market economy
itself seems to be unsustainable after the world economic crisis in 2008. While such
concerns about the sustainability of current development paths continue, we also
see evidence that peoples' life satisfaction and happiness has not improved in spite
of the large increases in the gross domestic product (GDP) of many countries.
In this chapter therefore, I will introduce some of work related to calculating lim-
its to resources, economic growth and society, with particular reference to previous
work on economics and ethics. I will also introduce some of the analyses which sug-
gest that the genuine purpose of technology and economy should be happiness as an
ultimate purpose, with natural capital as our ultimate means. I will introduce limits,
and four environmental indicators (ecological rucksacks, ecological footprint, fac-
tor X and Life Cycle Assessment) will be described to assist in quantifying the
environmental load of our society. The relation between economics and happiness
will then be discussed, and intermediate technology proposed by Schumacher will
be presented. Finally, I would like to introduce Cuba as an example of sustainability.
3.2
Assessing Current and Future Environment
and Resource Loads
3.2.1
Calculating Limits to Growth
Although discussion of specific limits had appeared before the 1970s (such as that
between population and food), the first comprehensive advanced analysis of a broad
range of limits was carried out by Meadows and her colleagues at MIT following a
request by the United Nations Secretary-General at the time (U Thant) to the Club
of Rome to project the future of the world. In the resulting topic (Meadows et al.
1972
) entitled “The Limits to Growth”, they calculated various futures for human
society and future changes in population, food production per capita, pollution, and
resources based on a parameter set derived from previous trends. As can be seen in
Fig.
3.1
, this future suggested that up to 2000, population, food and pollution would
increase rapidly, and resources decrease slightly, but these changes would not imply
any remarkable shift in the state of human society. However, after 2000, the model
predictions were that resources would decrease steadily; food would peak in the ear-
ly twenty-first century; pollution would continue to increase but peak around 2030
because of a contraction in industry caused by resource loss and pollution. Popula-
tion continues to grow until around mid-century, peaking at around 10 billion after
which societal collapse would lead to 3 billion dying of disease or hunger until 2100.
This early model was widely criticized for being too simplistic, but models were
updated with better data and computer modeling and updates were published in 1992
and 2004 (Meadows et al.
2004
). Despite the notable improvement in methodology
and the accuracy of input data, the overall outcome remains a collapse of the key
