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Myth

This essay draws on concepts and arguments developed in previous analysis (Rull, 2009, 2010th, b, c) to defend the so-called sustainable development is not only the best option for conservation of Nature but it is not feasible, in terms of ecological, economic and even physical. In short: It is a myth. In fact, it is a call for reflection, before taking some personal views and / or professional, implicitly considered as "politically correct" (or trendy, which is to be the same), face the problem of human progress and Nature conservation. This paper should be regarded as a personal opinion, which aims to promote discussion.

Unsustainable development


From a global environmental perspective, the idea of \u200b\u200bsustainable development is totally unsustainable. The model most extreme capitalist development does not account for the so-called natural capital and is considered inexhaustible nature as something to be exploited without limit. It is what is called "weak sustainability" (weak sustainability).
By contrast, the "strong sustainability" (strong sustainability) yes that considers natural resources as something to take care to not exhaust or degrade (Neumayer, 2003). Proponents of the first option, which currently dominates our world, measuring the development of indicators as gross as the accumulation of capital or total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the indicator that is used to hierarchically ordered by their countries stage of development and make a list of countries that choose to international economic policy, or "developed" (G8 and the like), as opposed to those who are "developing", among other euphemisms. Proponents of strong sustainability, however, defines sustainable development as one that ensures that each generation leaves to the next production base, which includes both reproducible capital (infrastructure, machinery, communications, etc.) as the natural-at least as great as that she has inherited (Dasgupta, 2010). However, the impossibility of unlimited growth in a system with limited resources makes both are utopian ideas of sustainability.

Indeed, the natural and reproducible capital are directly interdependent, so that any increase in the first end, sooner or later, for decimating the second, either in the form of reduction, contamination or accumulation of debris (Rull, 2010b). After reaching the capacity of the Earth, insistence on a growth model of this type may result in a collapse. The question is how close or far we are in that capacity. According Rockström et al. (2009), humanity and violated three of the nine boundaries that are considered critical, as are the rates of climate change and biodiversity loss, and interference with the nitrogen cycle, which determines their progressive accumulation in the biosphere. The latest estimates indicate that to continue growing at current rates and would need 1.2 planets like ours (WWF, 2008) and this will worsen in coming decades.

A New Green Revolution?

It is estimated that by 2050 the Earth's human population will be about 9 billion people, so feed them all adequately is proposed as one of the most important problems of today (Ash et al, 2010; Butler, 2010) . To this end, we propose a new green revolution, this time globally, in which science and technology play a key role through improvements in crop breeding and genetic modifications that increase efficiency and reduce photosynthetic the need for fertilizers, development of new methods of controlling pests, diseases and weed control, improved farming practices that reduce emissions greenhouse gas (mostly methane); innovations for improving fisheries and aquaculture techniques, new developments in nanotechnology, genomics and electronics to optimize the use of agricultural resources, changes in diet and reducing meat consumption and dairy products, and development of alternative sources of proteins. (The Royal Society, 2009; Beddington, 2010, Godfray et al, 2010).

At first glance, this option seems highly laudable, due to high philanthropic, but a more detailed analysis is not necessarily so, not even for humanity. First, it is well known that hunger in the world, at least at present, there is a problem of lack of resources of the planet, but the socio-economic imbalance created by the model supercapitalism that after the recent fiasco socialist has strengthened as a global development model par excellence. For example, before 2005, it is estimated that there were 850 million undernourished people in the world, a figure that increased to 75 million in just two years due to rising prices of wheat and maize, only for market reasons (Beddington , 2010). That is, hunger is not so much a problem of overpopulation as intra-generational injustice. Organizations such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank are responsible to maintain this situation of inequality and domination of the rich economies without the United Nations Organization was created precisely to ensure, inter alia, international security and human rights can do nothing for being too subservient to the designs of the capital and the market (Pelletier, 2010).

On the other hand, if we let ourselves be carried away by the proposed new green revolution to solve the problem in the next 40 years, we run the risk of accelerating the degradation of the planet and, probably worse, create the precedent that there is always something to squeeze, besides giving rise to the illusion that growth is always possible, and that just a new green revolution to drive a further increase in population (Rull, 2010b). In the end, it would be a planet that we would become a large farmhouse built exclusively for human development, not just remnants of what was once called Nature. From that point, any thoughts of further development would be almost impossible. This item is not as far as we think. A recent study shows that between 1700 and 2000 the terrestrial biosphere was a critical transition from a predominantly natural state to another mainly anthropogenic reaching the critical point of 50% in the twentieth century. Since then, most are predominantly anthropogenic biomes, a trend that will continue to grow in the future (Ellis et al., 2010).
The only areas that still remain in a more or less natural state are the deserts and the poles, for obvious reasons but, if you find something out of profit (economic, of course) to reverse the situation.

Emerging Alternatives:

On Earth, the unlimited growth of population and GDP is utopian and at some point there will stop. The limit defined by the natural capital, which ultimately is the origin of any production system (there is nothing that we get out of Nature), no matter what the economic paradigm in vogue. There are already some alternatives such as the so-called "zero growth" (steady state economy) or "decline" (degrowth) (Lawn, 2010, Schneider et al., 2010). Both are based on the principles of the "green economy" (Ecological Economics), which highlights the importance of interactions between economy and environment, as well as the biophysical laws that restrict human development. The basic principle is thermodynamic: The amount of energy in a closed system is constant and degrades any useful energy transformation making entropy.
All economic activities produce this kind of energy degradation which ends in waste and pollution, so the earth's capacity to provide materials and energy for human development is limited (Pelletier, 2010). Proponents believe that the decrease of human progress is possible without economic growth and offer a fair decline in production and consumption can promote human welfare and improving environmental conditions locally and globally, short and long term (Schneider et al. 2010). According to them, there is a recession or economic downturn or a return to pastoral societies. Today, this movement is structured from a theoretical point of view and also with concrete practical proposals (Martinez-Alier et al., 2010), and will have to follow developments in the near future.

In conclusion

In short, sustainable development is a fallacy. Or guarantee the conservation of nature and is a real possibility for human progress medium and long term. In fact, all intended to maintain sustainable development is development itself under supercapitalism principles of market economy and consumerism (Rull, 2010C). Although it is hard to accept, any conservation of biodiversity, saving energy, pollution or waste management, recycling, remediation, etc.. conducted under this utopian model of growth, is intended to keep and that is as scheduled. They are all mitigation activities to make up the visible damage and thus understood that the development is not seen as something so counterproductive that is, what it is to "change everything so that nothing will change. " Unfortunately, many good intentions get caught in this trap. Scientists and technologists have been called to act as leaders in this endeavor, using their work and creativity to find the appropriate solutions (Beddington, 2010). However, a feature that should distinguish science from other activities is independent of any social system, economic, political, ideological or religious (Rull, 2010a), so you should think hard about the attitude we take, not only by the underlying ideological implications, but also for the possible future consequences. It is not alleviate the most obvious consequences of a viable development model, now disguised by the term magic "sustainable", which transforms any proposal politically correct, but to replace it. It is time for economic creativity, but not just for a change of lifestyle habits to more "green" or "green" as it is fashionable to speak, but to a profound change in the global political and economic order.
The capitalist model is exhausted and depleted the planet if we continue (Speth, 2009), directly or indirectly, for the sake of the myth of sustainability.

The myth of sustainable development - V.

RULL Institut Botanic de Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB), Psg. Migdia s / n, 08038 Barcelona

Collectanea Botanica (Barcelona), vol. 29 (2010): 103-109