Beyond Sustainability

This article is arguing that sustainability as a concept is fatally flawed in that it implies a depressing zero-sum worldview and is reliant on an atomistic/monosolution approach to resource use. As an example of a differnt approach where abundance is more in view: "People in Morocco have struggled to find a way to keep their native
argan forests from disappearing under the relentless pressure of firewood
harvesting. The key has been to find value-added uses for the tree that give
people a stake in its survival. Researchers first found that they could
extract an oil for use in cooking and traditional medicine. Exports to Europe
followed. But they now know that the tree contains more than this. It offers
extraction residues that have value! as anti-microbial agents and antioxidants.
The potential is just unfolding."

How come the confidence in abundance?
"A typical coffee business uses 0.2 percent of the coffee bean to
produce a cup of coffee. This means 99.8 percent of the coffee bush becomes
'waste'.
When we make a so-called green detergent from palm oil, we use only
5 percent of the biomass from the plantation; the rest is treated as waste.
When we ferment barley and hops to make beer, we take out only 8
percent of the sugars. the rest is treated as waste; the same for the proteins
and fibers.
Something less than 3 percent of the original Btu value of a lump
of coal makes it out as usable light in our lamps, similarly low percentages
exist for energy conversion in transportation and industry.
Studies show that between a half and three-fourths of the materials
used in our industrial economy are generated and treated as waste before ever
entering the economy. They are not seen or treated as commodities and aren~t
valued as such."

I think that this shadows the arguments of Amory and Lovins in 'Natural Capitalism'. Certainly the basic premise seems to me sound: if we can circulate atoms well enough then atoms parallel money where velocity of circulation in effect increases money supply. Proper recycling and mechanisms for encouraging multiple resource use create an abundance. It is worth recalling, for example that rainforest soils are typically quite poor, but the ecosystem is good at leveraging effective resource use to produce a very rich environment. I think that's right.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Beyond Sustainability: