Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
World
. In Breakdown, conflict and crises spiral out of control and institutions
collapse. Fortress World features an authoritarian response to the threat of
breakdown, as the world divides into a kind of global apartheid with the elite
in interconnected, protected enclaves and an impoverished majority outside.
There are also two variants of Great Transitions:
Eco-communalism
and the
New
Sustainability Paradigm
. Eco-communalism offers a bioregional, localist, participatory
democracy supported by economic autarky. Raskin and his co-authors find it difficult
to envisage a plausible path from today's globalizing trends to eco-communalism
without involving some form of Barbarization. Thus the Great Transition becomes
identified with the New Sustainability Paradigm, which would change the nature of
global civilization, encompassing global solidarity, cross-cultural interaction and
economic connectedness, while aiming for a liberating humanistic and ecological
politics rather than relying on mainly localist anarchistic-style solutions. The authors
base their scenario analysis and 'history of the future' on a detailed interpretation
of current drivers, including demographics, economics, social issues, culture,
technology, environment and governance. There are moments, 'branch points', when
opportunities arise and when development may take different directions. Leadership
for change may come from different quarters, linking and influencing change in other
areas. Globalization is presented as a process that expands categories of consciousness
and is not something that should be opposed outright, as if it is civilized, then it
offers significant new potentialities for corporations, civil society, technological
development and application, and governance. In the great transition taking place
after 2025, Raskin
et al
. suggest that a new social movement, 'the accountability
movement', will emerge, encompassing increasing numbers of business leaders
accepting the legitimacy of many social and environmental demands and leading
newly creative business initiatives to meet them. Countless global manufacturing
firms will adopt 'zero impact' goals - producing no waste, releasing no pollution,
and accepting responsibility for post-consumer product recovery and recycling. Many
corporations will have cut costs dramatically as a result and are providing affordable
basic goods, services and jobs in poor communities, which in the process creates
large new markets. Other corporations will harness nanotechnologies to produce
products using less raw materials and energy. Consequently, sustainable development
will mean a new form of ecologically based 'reindustrialization', providing the material
basis for the continuance of human civilization.
Summary
Being able to envision a future sustainable society is an important element in the
sustainable development process. Utopian thinkers and writers have wondered what
a future good society, or a good place, would be like and although it is clearly
mistaken to see utopian thinking as a guide to all things sustainable, it does certainly
free the imagination. And it is the imagination, as well as the intellect and knowledge,
that has been employed in developing sustainable communities, towns and cities
across the world. Indeed, many people have argued that the key to global sustainability
lies with the way we manage our existing urban environments and build our future
ones. The last few decades have witnessed many sustainable urban initiatives at a
variety of scales from grand new ecocities in China and in the deserts of the Middle
