Sustainability & Sustainability Research

Humans have long been used to exploiting nature for our own needs. Equipped with modern technologies, we have grown so powerful in exploiting nature that we think we can manipulate and conquer nature. We take it for granted that nature is our servant always there ready to offer her service. Until recently, as non-renewable energy resources are depleting, habitat loss due to human activities have led to many species dying out, more and more severe natural hazards are occurring as a result of climate change caused by increasing greenhouse gases, fisheries collapsed in many oceans because of over fishing, water resources have been contaminated by pollution and put a threat in human's health, industrialization and urbanization have taken so many fertile croplands that we are having difficulty feeding the increasing population, we finally realize that we have a problem, a serious problem.

 Indeed, it is time now to change our mental outlook. Nature is a place to which we belong rather than a commodity belonging to us; humans are not the master of nature but rather that we are children of nature; as all other lives on earth, we are only part of nature not the center of nature.

Whether there is a resolution of sustainability or not, we need to take sustainability seriously, we need to think and act in a sustainable way if we want humanity to continue to thrive on earth.

Besides our dependence on nature to survive, there are many other reasons that nature is important to us and we should think and live in a sustainable way.

I guess we would all agree that art (painting, poetry, music...) has profound impacts on human life and culture. From Vivaldi's Four Season, to Emerson/Thorreau's Nature/Walking, and Monet's Waterlily Pond, which was not inspired by nature?

We would never truly understand what is beautiful, what is splendid and what is awesome if we were only to hide ourselves in the grey cities. We came to realize time following the rising and setting of the sun and the rotation of seasons. We got to know space from the rolling of terrains, the bending of sea shores, and the horizon of the sky. Albert Einstein was so wise saying "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."  Nature is not only the place humanity live in but our eternal spiritual home as well.

In the modern world we live today, it is easy to get stressed and tired from everyday life. Because the important things are often not interesting and interesting things are often not important, to make a purposeful living, we have to struggle to work on important but uninteresting things and this struggle takes much energy. To get refreshed, nothing can be more effective than taking a walk in the woods, having a swim in the lake, listening birds singing in trees.

Nature has also been a wonderful teacher. Our ancestors made the first tool from stones. Barbed wires were developed after the thorny Osage orange tree. And later we leaned from birds and built air planes. Even for solutions to sustainability, we can look at the excellent model she has showed us. Janine Benyus best described what nature has indicated we should do:

"Nature runs on sunlight.

Nature uses only the energy it needs.

Nature fits form to function.

Nature recycles everything.

Nature rewards cooperation.

Nature banks on diversity.

Nature demands local expertise.

Nature curbs excesses from within.

Nature taps the power of limits."

Sustainability, of course, is not a simple subject. There are many aspects of the broad concept of sustainability: natural resources, conservation/biodiversity, land-use/land-cover change, environmental design and technologies etc.

The collapsing of fisheries, shrinking of forestry, and depleting of oils are all the problems of natural resource management. How to use renewable resources in a sustainable way, how to avoid the fast depletion of non-renewable resources, how to control the appropriate level of resource exploitation and promote efficient use of nature resources are the questions of sustainable resource management.

Significant land-use/land-cover change at global level has resulted from human activities directly or indirectly: first agriculture and then industrialization and urbanization in addition to intensified agriculture. Land-use/land-cover change has led to great habitat loss and species extinction. As the second largest source of greenhouse gas emission, land-use has a great impact on global climate change. It has also produced environmental problems such as desertification, soil erosion, water contamination, eutrophication and coastal hypoxia. Taking ecological impacts into account, preventing further shrinking of croplands, conserving biodiversity and promoting environment friendly practices are essential in sustainable land use management. 

Innovation is the solution to sustainability in the long run since there are limited natural resources. New environmental friendly technologies such as sustainable energy resources, green construction materials and more efficient ways of using resources are the key to a sustainable future. More investments and investigations are urgently needed in developing new technologies.

Green building design, sustainable landscape architecture and environment design are other important aspects of sustainable development. Creating our cultural environment in harmony with the natural environment is the very basic principle of ecological design.

Sustainability is also an issue of multiple scales: local, regional, national and global. At each scale, there are corresponding strategies dealing with sustainable development. At local community scale, strategies are more focused on transportation, housing, healthcare, jobs, equity and education. It is also important to build up and strengthen sustainable values of people. At regional scale, strategies deal with the impacts of communities and available resources on economic development in the region and coordination between the communities. At national and global scales, government policies on resource management, food, healthcare, energy and taxes are most important for sustainable development. And these levels are interdependent.

To achieve sustainability is definitely not an easy task. Multiple players have a role in this game: individuals, interests groups, corporations, and governments.

As an individual, we need to change our value system and life style. We should recognize that life quality is not a matter of material satisfaction. A quality life is a healthy, meaningful and sustainable life that enhances family values, community ties and sustainable values such as protecting ecological systems and respecting all other forms of life.

Driven by profit seeking under market mechanisms, modern business corporations do whatever increases profit and are a fundamental source of many of today's environmental problems. Since the market mechanisms are not going to change, corporations will not change their nature of maximizing profit. Only if new environmental friendly technologies are available at a low cost and they can make more money by adopting new technologies, they will do so. So innovation is the key in the long run.

Since it is not likely that corporations will adopt sustainable behaviors voluntarily when new cost-efficient technologies are still under development, governments need to take their responsibilities of regulation. Environmental groups can play a role in shaping corporations' behaviors by campaigns. Individuals can also make a difference by supporting green products. Further more, through participation, individuals can affect how governments regulate corporations and enhance the influences of interests groups on corporations. A single person's effect may be negligible, but the power of a critical mass is astonishing. If there is ever going to be a revolution of sustainability, the force will come from people.

And there is hope for sustainability only if EVERY player plays the game in a sustainable way.

Sustainability research involves in both human systems and natural systems, so it is by nature multiple disciplinary.  If we want to look at the sustainability of a community, a region, a nation or all nations, we need to know the needs, economic activities and behaviors of people. We need to know the dynamics of their natural environment. We also need to know how people and their environment interact with each other and long-term feedbacks of these interactions.  It is easy to see that such a problem can not be solved by ecology, economics, or political science alone. Scientists from multiple disciplines are necessary to look at all the parts of the system and integrate their knowledge. A holistic view is essential in sustainability research.

However, scientists from different fields come each with a different paradigm. The difficulty for collaboration is inevitable. However, along with this difficulty, there is a hidden benefit. 

Jim Burchfield got some points in saying:

"Science is more art than truth, created by people, who operate, like all of us, in a conscious and unconscious universe. Guided by 'inner voices', researchers are inspired to discovery."

"Scientists are more like artists, assembling and mixing the colors of an awesome, complex and dynamic story into a coherent picture. Data maybe the paint on their pallet that creates a picture, but, inevitably, what we see is the artists' rendition. Decisions are made at multiple steps along the way: on relevant facts; on the boundaries between what we know and don't know; and on what we care about."
            "Data are not just data. Information is always accompanied by interpretation."

William James also said that perceptions are never pure sensations but more of interpretations based on the past experiences.

So it seems that science can never be totally objective. But by doing interdisciplinary research, scientists from diverse backgrounds look at the same problem from different perspectives, exchange and cross-examine their views, knowledge and methodologies. Is it possible that the subjectivity of each scientist will at least be partially eliminated and the research as a whole becomes more objective, if not perfectly objective? I would think so.

Therefore, the collaboration of scientists from multiple disciplines is not only a necessity for sustainability research but also helps advance science to truth, the ultimate goal of science.

As a final note, nature is a complex adaptive system and humans are one of many agents in this system. We co-live and co-evolve with all other agents in nature. The space of system state is vast and which path it takes depends on the interactions between the agents. The science of complex adaptive system tells us there can be "tipping points" in such systems that make the system experience sudden state transition and the transition can be a disastrous one. James Lovelock has claimed that the world has passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilization is unlikely to survive. So what can we do? Maybe by taking a sustainable path, we can at least avoid the disastrous transition. And there is no other choice. 

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