The Breakthrough Institute: The Trouble with "Sustainability"

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The Trouble with "Sustainability"

Posted by Michael Shellenberger on September 15, 2009 at 10:42 PM
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Dear Friend,

Last Saturday, a truly great American died. Norman Borlaug, known throughout the world as the father of the green revolution, was 95. A farm boy from Iowa, Borlaug revolutionized modern agriculture by developing new seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers that exponentially increased agricultural yields and today sustain more than 6 billion of us globally.

One of the great stains on the modern environmental movement was its opposition to Borlaug's work. Stanford professors Paul Ehrlich and current White House science adviser John Holdren famously argued in the late 1960s that halting food aid and sterilization would be more humane than new agricultural technologies. In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson warned that pesticides would be humankind's downfall. And many prominent environmental groups remain largely hostile to Borlaug's work, for which he won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.

There's little doubt that chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been abused. But to focus exclusively on the unintended consequences of those technologies while ignoring the extraordinary accomplishments of a revolution that virtually ended famine and malnourishment in most parts of the world is ingratitude at its worst. And Borlaug's innovations, along with those of other agricultural pioneers who came before him, did more than save lives.

If you make your living today doing something other than agricultural labor, as virtually all of us do, you can thank Norman Borlaug, and thousands of others like him, for the innovations that make such lives possible. Three hundred years ago, when virtually the entire human population devoted its labors to growing enough food to sustain themselves, such lives would have been unimaginable.

Yet, even in Borlaug's death, some environmentalists today ask whether or not modern agricultural technologies are "sustainable." But since when did we evaluate technologies for whether or not they lasted forever? We don't, thank god, use the same machines or agricultural practices of our grandparents much less our Neolithic ancestors. The existence of technologies that allow us to feed a growing global population while liberating almost all of us from backbreaking agricultural labor is something we should celebrate - and improve.

Recently, two friends of Breakthrough, Colin Beaven and Adam Werbach, have come out with books that raise their own questions about the meaning of sustainability. Colin's book "No Impact Man" (Farrar 2009) is about a year-long experiment that he and his family undertook to massively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. For Colin, sustainability is more about achieving personal fulfillment non-materialistically than it is about reducing emissions and waste. He describes the journey from being an environmental scold, berating his wife and himself for basic acts of consumption, to merrily proselytizing for community-building, through charades with neighbors to Sunday strolls to biking to work.

So often environmental books demonize our high-technology lifestyles as "unsustainable" without any expression of gratitude for the kind of comfortable lives these technologies allow us to have. For this reason, the best part of the book is when Colin and his wife attempt to hand-wash their clothes. It turns out to be hugely time-consuming and difficult. They quickly -- and justifiably -- abandon the effort to use the laundry machine in their apartment basement.

Adam's book, "Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto" (Harvard Business Press, 2009), calls on firms to go beyond easy fixes like carbon offsets to embrace larger changes of continuous innovation and creative efforts to improve the quality of life for their employees. Adam became controversial after working for Wal-Mart. But what few people know is that his work there was about broadening the definition of sustainability to include Personal Sustainability Programs for employees, all while advocating that firms look beyond themselves to the larger world of policy and politics. A single firm cannot decide to pay much more for clean energy, for example, or else it will suffer a competitive disadvantage. Rather, it must engage in the larger world of business, policy, and politics to support society-wide innovation in how we generate energy and recycle materials.

In our view, these new books by Adam and Colin are reminders that we should have gratitude and even awe in our modern technologies -- from hybrid seeds to washing machines -- and to the shared investments in innovation that made them possible. This gratitude should motivate us to make investments in the next generation of technologies to power our civilization in ways that allow our species to thrive while also protecting, creating, and nourishing those nonhuman animals and systems upon which we depend.

All of this may lead us to question the elevation of sustainability as the principle that purports to organize ecological thought and action. The response by Borlaug to imminent famine was not to sustain natural systems but rather change them. This is what humans have done since time immemorial and it is precisely this adaptive and innovative spirit that has indeed sustained us.

-Michael and Ted

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Filed under: Adaptation , New Social Contract

TrackBacks (0) 5 COMMENTS:

Michael-

Thanks for the kind words for Dr. Borlaug's work. Certainly, there is little doubt that he is a hero when you tally all the human lives that the green revolution bettered, and weigh them against the consequences of changing our direction of development toward modern assisted, monocultural agriculture. And it is at the very least, naive for the environmental movement to demonize modern technology (on the internet, and in offset printed books, no less!)

But the real issue that your email -- and frankly, the entire platform that you and Ted stand on -- neglect to mention that while individual technologies never remain standard for very long, they tend to build on one another. Dr. Borlaug originally set forward a method of farming using synthetic compounds which greatly improved yields, and minimized labor inputs. That might, in and of itself, have had few negative impacts on the world biosphere. However, we set our global sights on developing future technologies which evolved from that first concept. We are now living among Norman's great, great, grandchildren; farms which lose billions of pounds of soil every year, breed resistant bacteria and viruses, and are implicated in cultural collapse from the Midwest to Maharashtra.

More troubling than this, however, is the reluctance of big agriculture to deviate from this path (See Monsanto's recent New Yorker Ad; They aren't thinking "Use new technologies on small, local farms."). The truth is, the path, not the technology, is unsustainable. Literally, it is impossible to continue propping up a massive global food system by using up limited resources like soil and fossil fuels, or inputting persistently toxic chemicals like chlorophosphates. And, since the path is what we are really talking about here -- Dr. Borlaug is called "The Father of the Green Revolution" because he birthed a movement, a persistent way of thinking that manifested itself in a train of technological developments -- then I think "Unsustainable" is rightly applied, whether the people saying it are grateful or ungrateful for their situation.

Gratitude and awareness are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to imply ("So often environmental books demonize our high-technology lifestyles as "unsustainable" without any expression of gratitude..."), and should never be divorced from one another. In fact, it is the appreciation of what we have now that makes me work to find ways to promise it to my children, and to theirs. Only when someone acknowledges that something is precious, do they wish to sustain it.

Michael, you, Ted, and The Breakthrough Institute have traded heavily on the backwardness of the environmental movement in your rise to prominence, and it seems like this is another example of it. After being on the mailing list since 2003, I have seen lots of great promotion of projects to increase wind power, boost recycling, empower R&D in green technologies, and other worthy causes. But I can't help wondering, just as the Environmental movement is weak, because it complains (on which I couldn't agree with you more), isn't Breakaway doomed because it is only working toward "more better stuff, right now" without a comprehensive plan for what an endpoint might be?

If I'm wrong, and there is a goal in mind, then I (and I'm sure many other subscribers) would love to hear it. However, if that goal isn't to be able to provide for human comfort for this generation, and subsequent generations, without putting our offspring through trials we're not comfortable with (which, I hate to tell you, is what many environmentalists think of as "Sustainability"), then Breakthrough is less interesting than I (And probably Time Magazine) thought.

Thanks again for the reminder of Dr. Borlaug, and his hopeful, if as yet unfulfilled, wish for the world.

Cheers,
-Dominic

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Dominic Muren
Editor: Humblefacture.com

Posted by: Dominic Muren at September 16, 2009 1:26 AM

Dominic:

FAO reports that the one billion people in the world are hungry. The increase is not because of declining yields but rather the global economic recession. The percentage of hungry people in the developing world has consistently declined, from 37 percent in 1970 (a couple of years after Ehrlich and Holdren were calling for halting food aid to starving nations) to 17 percent in 2007.

In response, FAO advocates �core investments in agriculture so that smallholder farmers have access not only to seeds and fertilisers but to tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets." I couldn�t find any mention of organics anywhere as a solution to the challenge of increasing food production 70 percent by 2050 to deal with the coming 2.3 billion person population (one-third) increase between now and then.

FAO notes that while the coming population increase seems large, it�s less of an increase than we saw over the last four decades. While it raises urgency about rising hunger rates, FAO overall seems very optimistic that humans can meet rising demand higher yields from cropping intensity and expanded irrigated farmland. FAO specifically addresses the question of whether all of this is sustainable. FAO says it is. FAO says crop yields are still increasing, just not at the same rate as in past decades. They estimate an annual growth rate of 0.8% annually instead of 1.7%. �Overall,� FAO says, �it is fair to say that although there are a number of countries (in particular in the Near East/North Africa and South Asia) that have reached or are about to reach the limits of land available, on a global scale there are still sufficient land resources to feed the world population for the foreseeable future, provided the investments required to develop these resources are made and the neglect of recent decades in the agricultural research and development effort is reversed.�

FAO sees the solution as technological � The potential to raise crop yields (even with existing technology) seems considerable. Provided the appropriate socio-economic incentives are in place, there are still ample �bridgeable� gaps in yield (i.e. the difference between agro-ecologically attainable and actual yields) that could be exploited. Fears that yields (e.g. for rice) are reaching a plateau do not seem warranted (except in a few very special instances).�

FAO says that when it comes to helping the poor, the solution isn�t so much economic growth as the growth of the agricultural sector. Crosscountry analysis shows that overall GDP growth originating in agriculture is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country�s population as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors.�

FAO says that the best scenario is not for the continuation of subsistence farming by small farmers but the opposite: �In ideal conditions, the result is a transition from many, small subsistence producers to fewer and larger commercial farmers and a new equilibrium with fewer farmers, more non-farm employment and larger farm operations overall.� Policymakers should help small farmers to transition to a new line of work, FAO suggests, for humanitarian reasons.

In other words, according to the FAO, the solution to global hunger is agricultural expansion, technologies to increase yields, larger not smaller farms, and urbanization. FAO is suggesting that these are the elements of sustainable agriculture. FAO proceeds to warn that after solving hunger, governments need to worry about not increasing obesity.

I had expected FAO to be against biotechnology. Quite the contrary. FAO sees them as having great promise and is in favor of their use, as long as they are informed by an assessment of the risks, which they note should be the case for all agricultural technologies, including, I imagine, organic agriculture. FAO argues for greater investment in research so the benefits of biotech don�t just accrue to the wealthy.

There is a special FAO section on organics. It suggests that organics can increase or decrease yields, depending on the circumstances. It never suggests that organics is the best way to deal either with hunger or sustainability questions, but suggests it might be a good approach is some places for some crops. Sounds sensible.

The FAO explicitly says the current food system is sustainable, even if it has unintended consequences such as nitrogen run-off, pesticide exposure, and obesity. There�s no doubt that these consequences will result in untimely deaths, including from heart disease and cancer. The research on exposure to toxins shows that there is a complex gene-environment relationship; multiple exposures may very well be contributing to a rise in cancer rates and other disease. But the point of our email was reinforced by what I read at the FAO. Life expectancy worldwide is rising � the net change is overwhelmingly positive. Hunger is on a long-term decline. Yields are increasing and will continue to increase, even if the rate of increase is slowing. Urbanization and the education of women is on the rise, and fertility is on decline.

All of this is really wonderful news, but we shouldn�t become complacent. We need to develop new technologies that allow us to farm in ways that increase yields so we don�t have to turn forests into farmland, and so we can eliminate hunger sooner rather than later. We also need to improve the quality of our foods so that we can reduce obesity and heart disease. Other research seems to suggest that public investment in ag R&D is important precisely so we can create agricultural technologies that allow us to reduce fossil fuel and pesticide inputs. That seems like a recipe for human change to allow for our nonhuman ecosystems to continue to play a similar role they have played since the Neolithic revolution. I see no evidence that are food system is at risk of collapse, which is precisely what Rachel Carson a great deal other leading green thinkers have suggested we are at risk of.

You imply that there's something wrong with our being critical of the environmental or 'sustainability' movements. It seems to me that critique is an important element of progressive social change.

Posted by: Michael Shellenberger at September 24, 2009 1:09 PM

Michael-

Thanks for the very in-depth reply. I think I understand your basic points:

*FAO indicates that production, while declining in it's rate of increase, seems to be on pace to meet demands of a growing world.

*FAO suggests that the best way to do this is develop new AG technologies and push toward more centralized production for higher efficiencies.

Most importantly, "The FAO explicitly says the current food system is sustainable, even if it has unintended consequences such as nitrogen run-off, pesticide exposure, and obesity."

I'm not sure where you got this impression, or the quote that I included above, but it's just not true. Granted, the FAO does not advocate a hard-core organic stance (and frankly, neither do I), but they do advocate farming methods which are substantially different than modern intensive farming (first advocated by Dr. Borlaug).

In this press release, the FAO states:

"Conservation Agriculture reaches yields comparable with modern intensive agriculture but in a sustainable way," FAO stressed. "Yields tend to increase over the years with yield variations decreasing."

"Conservation Agriculture" as referenced here is a system of crop rotation, soil reinforcement, and nitrogen-fixer utilization which minimizes the soil, pesticide, and petroleum costs of farming.

As I said originally, "Literally, it is impossible to continue propping up a massive global food system by using up limited resources like soil and fossil fuels, or inputting persistently toxic chemicals like chlorophosphates." This is the modern intensive crop production method employed in the US, not the Conservation Agriculture advocated by FAO. This is the system that Monsanto is advertising, which cannot be kept running without a continuous supply of cheap oil and midwest topsoil.

Hunger is a massive, global problem. Obesity is a serious developed-world problem. High-income environmentalist naysayers constantly standing in the way of technological innovation for better agriculture is a lesser problem, but definitely an issue, sure.

But that the people leading the charge of R&D are under or mis-informed about the current state of the developmental path they are pushing, may be the biggest problem of all.

Working toward a future using bad guidance usually results in your next big problem being what you thought you wanted in the first place.

Posted by: Dominic Muren at September 25, 2009 1:16 AM

Dominic,

The information I got was pulled from the FAO web site. The publication name is "Global Agriculture Toward 2050," and it was prepared for the FAO Hunger meeting in Rome next month.

The FAO document you cited advocates no-till agriculture as "conservation agriculture." It does not advocate a return to small scale organic farming.

Indeed, it concludes, "Conservation agriculture is not organic farming, but both could be combined, FAO emphazised. In Conservation Agriculture, farm chemicals, including fertilizer and herbicides are carefully applied. Over the years, however, quantities tend to decline."

In other words, FAO's description of conservation agriculture is the improvement of the industrial agricultural path we are on. Sounds sensible.

Michael

Posted by: Michael Shellenberger at September 28, 2009 7:01 AM

Norman Borlaug made an enormous contribution to feeding the world and very worthy of your tribute here... but I'm sure he would not agree with agribusiness giants like Monsanto being held responsible for feeding the world.

Centralized BIG agriculture requires carbon-intensive transportation and also displaces people from worthwhile employment into non-essential employment. We live in a world where BIG agriculture and BIG manufacture have little need for people thanks to mechanization. I'm all in favour of mechanization but the reality is we've pushed ourselves out of productive work and into unproductive work. Having no productive work to do - a real job - people take to selling "stuff" and services that are not really required. With no productive work people begin to create needs in the minds of others - not meet existing needs - we engage in push marketing. Here's an extreme example... a farm laborer is displaced so he becomes a telemarketer, annoying people and trying to sell junk to others. Consumerism is given a foothold. Rampant consumption and non-essential trade is unsustainable and it is trashing our planet much faster and more unnecessarily than food production.

A vote for BIG agriculture is also a vote for corporatization. Big agriculture is responsible for unsustainable export/import madness where one country like the UK exports thousands of litres of milk, while at the same time, importing thousands of litres of milk. There are dozens more examples where corporate agriculture simply trashes common sense.

Relocalization, fostering self-sufficient communities using modern high tech methods and cultivars appropriately can make small scale agriculture truly sustainable.

Thanks for a thought provoking piece.

Posted by: Darcy Drayton at July 26, 2010 2:39 AM

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