Tapping Unusual Quarters: a personal view by Andrew
Teller, ENS society manager
Unsustainable sustainability
Quite frankly, if there are two words I cannot
stand, they are the ubiquitous “sustainable” and “sustainability”.
Every report and every newspaper or magazine article that purports
to deal with the future of our planet is peppered with references
to these two words. They have acquired such a capacity for triggering
positive knee-jerk reactions from any audience that no issue,
however loosely connected to the environment, can be discussed
without invoking them. Even the nuclear industry has fallen prey
to their fashionable appeal. They have become the ultimate paradigm
of politically correct thinking.
The reason for the wrath which the “S-words”
awake in me is twofold. Firstly, I object to the most commonly
applied definition of sustainability. Secondly, I object to the
wrong way that they are used in practice, regardless of the definition
applied. Let me approach these two issues in the reverse order.
Since the poor use that is often made of the S-words is not critically
dependent upon their definition, I shall leave the more important
issue of definition to the end.
There are two main ways in which the S-words
are misused. The first one is using the word “sustainable”
as if it is a synonym for lasting, which is not the same thing
at all. I once saw the phrase “sustainable international
relations” coined somewhere. Whatever next, will “sustainable
friendship” soon become an accepted concept too?
The second common misuse of an S-word is the
habit of confusing “sustainability” with the very
slow depletion of resources. So, for instance, geothermal energy
is often wrongly branded as being “sustainable.” This
is simply not true. The truth is that geothermal energy is used
on such a small scale that its supply is not actually affected.
However, the same could be said for oil had its consumption level
remained the same as that in 1850. While using geothermal energy
sources wherever economically feasible is to be commended, calling
the process “sustainable” does not exactly encourage
clarity. Anyway, enough of these complaints - complaints that
are motivated by the engineer’s instinctive need for accuracy.
Let’s go back to the problem of definition.
The most commonly understood and applied definition
of the S-words is based on the definition of the concept of sustainable
development that was provided by the Brundtland Commission. That
definition is as follows: “development that meets the needs
of the present generation without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.”
This laudable attempt at reconciling the idea
of development with the fair use of natural resources (at attempt
at squaring the circle, perhaps?) unfortunately ends up looking
like another classic example of fuzzy thinking. If we think beyond
our children’s generation and that of our grand-children,
how can we possibly assess, with any degree of accuracy, what
more distant generations are likely to require to meet their needs?
Even if we could, how could we predict with justifiable confidence
that what we have put in place to enable them to solve what we
have perceived as their likely future needs will actually correspond
with reality? Will our prediction of their needs be consistent
with the technology that they will have at their disposal? Clearly,
the Brundtland definition rests on a static vision of an evolving
world. It encourages one to think of an unlimited future in terms
of the present. It will no doubt seem obvious to everyone that
the validity of this definition of sustainable development diminishes,
inevitably, the more distant the future we focus on. But this
is not the end of the story. The Brundtland definition leads us
naturally to consider the concepts of renewable and non-renewable
energies/resources. Prof. A. Voss observes that “On the
one hand the use of renewable energy, e.g. of solar energy, also
always goes hand in hand with a claim on non-renewable resources,
e.g. of non-energetic resources and materials which are also in
scarce supply. And, on the other hand, it would mean that non-renewable
resources may not be used at all – not even by future generations1.”
Sustainable development, as defined above, does not provide us
with useful guidelines for helping us to understand what renewable
and non-renewable energies and resources are. We should stop paying
lip service to a concept that does not withstand scrutiny.
Criticism is all well and good as long as it
is constructive. A counter-proposal is clearly needed. Firstly,
in most cases, we could probably dispense with the S-words altogether
and thus avoid the perils of Euro-babble. Secondly, a better definition
is needed if we want to emphasize our desire to manage the planet’s
resources sensibly. But which definition should we choose? Let’s
first recall the guiding principles that should help us in such
circumstances:
-
We must commit ourselves to using natural
resources reasonably, which in most cases means as cost-effectively
as possible (life-cycle analyses provide us with the required
decision-making tool for achieve this goal
-
We must acknowledge that our capacity for
predicting the needs of future generations is severely limited;
we would be deluding ourselves if we pretended to be able
to guess the needs that will arise in, say, three centuries.
The time scale for action must be limited if the needs that
we identify are to stand the slightest chance of being accurate
-
We must rely on the ability of science and
technology to provide answers to mankind’s needs. This
might look like an act of faith to some, but this is exactly
what has happened in the past and current trends don’t
give us any reason to fear a sudden reversal
Interestingly enough, these three principles
should be easily grasped by the public. The first principle is
uncontroversial. The results of a recent public enquiry on radioactive
waste that was commissioned by the French Industry Minister2
indicate that the public would largely agree with the other two.
The unsatisfactory concept of sustainability
could, therefore, be replaced by a more modest but effective one.
I support and recommend the wording used by the NEA in its latest
report on waste management3 in which
it applies the term “stepwise adaptation”. Similarly,
sustainable goals would be replaced by “stepwise adaptive”
goals. These terms would remind us that the decisions we take
have a limited shelf- life and that they will have to be adapted
to evolving needs and tools, both of which change in a way that
we cannot anticipate. Environmental matters are simply too important
to permit the continued use of fuzzy concepts that are applied
to help us address them.
-
A. Voss, LCA and External
Costs in Comparative Assessment of Electricity Chains - Decision
Support for Sustainable Electricity Provision? In Proceedings
of an IEA/NEA workshop on Externalities and Energy Policy:
The Life Cycle Analysis Approach (pp. 163-181) Paris, France,
15 – 16 November 2001 (can be downloaded from the NEA
web site) [Note of the Editor: even the title of this excellent
report could not do without a S-word!]
-
P. d’Iribarne, Les Français
et les déchets nucléaires, Rapport au Ministre
Délégué à l’Industrie, April
2005 (in French).
-
Stepwise Approach to Decision Making for
Long-term Radioactive Waste Management, NEA no 4429, 2004
(can also be downloaded from the NEA web site)
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