What are your Country's Top Ten Sustianability Issues?

Lynn,

This one is so easy it's almost not fair... I live in the US. ;-) Kidding aside, as the owner of a socially responsible design & communications business in the US, this is what I perceive to be the top ten, in no particular order:
1.) lifestyle (family/work/life balance), extremely unsustainable in this country
2.) use & protection of our natural resources (although we're starting to see real improvements)
3.) unsustainable attitudes (especially those of teens and young adults, supported in large part by parental absence and excessive material wealth and options)
4.) unsustainable education, especially on the elementary and high school level
5.) persistence of corporate ego and greed
6.) political sustainability is practically non existent here... our internal and foreign policies are highly toxic for us and the rest of the world
7.) water resources (agriculture, industry, personal use, water cycles in the current changing climate)
8.) climate change, of course (and everything that's implied by or tied into it, from business and society to politics and science)
9.) biodiversity -- our relationship with the flora and fauna of our country, the way we interact with them, treat them (in the case of animals, as pets, resources for farming etc, as well as food, especially the poultry/meat and fishing industries)
10.) transportation/energy -- our continued use of large automobiles, SUVs, trucks, lack of decent public transportation systems, wrong attitudes on the part of the public (why walk when I can drive? I can't be bothered to walk.)

Good luck on the presentation -- I'm curious whether it will be online anywhere?

Birgitte Rasine

Great list, but I would add a lack of connection to the natural world (it may just be a clarification of one of your points - #3 perhaps). I think that Americans that never escape the cocoon of their cars & homes and get all of their connection to the world filtered through the TV screen will have trouble being motivated to make changes to save the natural world that is their life support system.

Thanks & Adios,
CJD

Carol J. Dollard, P.E., LEED AP
Utility Engineer
[email protected]

My own perception on top sustainability challenges (in South Africa):
* getting 'sustainability' high on the agenda, when attention and fiscal focus is inevitably so strong on HIV/AIDS, on poverty alleviation and on crime
* persuading the bulk of affluent people (of which there are many) in our country to recognize that they have significant impacts on sustainability and that it is not 'they' (the poor/marginalized) who create most of our pollution. Achieving broad-based recognition that consumption has direct environmental impacts.
* that new mindset changes are needed to address our significant environmental problems (eg. traffic congestion) and that a 'business as usual' approach will lead to . well, business (and issues) as usual!
* recognizing that 'sustainability' need not be the antithesis of 'development'
* water for all in a water-scarce country
* adopting sustainable energies when our coal is so cheap
* enabling the poor/marginalized to survive on a continent that, according to the IPCC reports, will be significantly negatively impacted by climate change
* ensuring that our 'golden goose' - our fantastic natural biodiversity - is conserved and maintained despite threats from many quarters to remaining eco-systems
* capacitating authorities to correctly implement our (in many cases) best practice environmental legislation and educating our public that with environmental rights come environmental responsibilities
* achieving the Polokwane Declaration's goals, especially that of zero waste by 2020 http://www.environment.gov.za/ProjProg/WasteMgmt/Polokwane_declare.htm
* the need for new communication technologies which do not create the dangerous Electro Magnetic Fields generated by current wireless technologies (the proliferation of which EMFs is an under-recognised threat to health of people, plants and animals).

SUE BELLINGER
Phone +27 11 463 4902

I share the view that symptom and cause can become confused, but cause-effect-cause thinking will lead to the ground eventually. However it may be that what looks like a cause is indeed a symptom of somthing deeper. Except that the root cause is, on occasion, not accessible except through addressing the symptoms. That may well be the dilemna with Jack Santa Barbara's three core sustainability issues. I would like to refine his third one, lack of a compelling vision of what sustainable society looks like. Surely it's not a lack, there have been many over the centuries, and lots recently. Herman Daly for just one springs to mind. These compelling visions, (not utopias), however doable, threaten and even attack the privileges of whoever is the elite. Indeed that is the definition of the 'elite'. Hence compelling visions that work for substantially all humanity, and arguably all lifeforms, run up against the definitive limit of self-interest of those in power. I started to write this thinking that the issue is not 'lack of' but 'adoption of' a compelling sustainable vision, by a large majority. In other words, a communication problem. (how quaint!) But consider the resistance to such a vision, or set of visions (I'm partial to the permaculture version myself). Surely that is the obstacle, not the lack of vision. When Jack says there are very deep cultural issues to overcome to manifest a shift in paradigm from growth to steady state, he is pedalling softly, imo. What are culture issues but the distinctions of privilege and entitlements among society's classes? If that is so, then this is about the politics of change, to whit, the haves, have some-want mores (Bush's constituency) and the have-nots.

Ian in Burlington
Sustainable Burlington Citizens Group
http://burlingtoncan.relocalize.net

I also think that Birgitte has covered most of the USA list, but I have a couple additions/modifications:
1. The American Dream - Regarding the home and lifestyle - to live in the suburbs with a single family home, white picket fence etc. - which leads to suburban sprawl and the un-sustainable car-centered culture. (See The Center for the New American dream... http://www.newdream.org)
2. Racism and the lack of jobs for urban low income residents - which causes crime and feeds the white flight to the suburbs and the lack of desire to live in more sustainable urban dense environments.
3. The use of public funds to subsidize corporate welfare with unsustainable practices such as: certain ways of harvesting of natural resources, crop practices that are heavy on petroleum-based fertilizers such as corn, and keeping the costs of non-renewable and nuclear energy low.

Peter Schultze-Allen

Environmental Analyst
City of Emeryville
1333 Park Ave 94608
510-596-3728
fax 596-4389

What a great question! As a US citizen, owner of an energy auditing company and as a pragmatist I think that the following are sustainability challenges:
1. Maintaining a cohesive political base -- too much fragmentation, difficulty in common-cause agreement
2. The tax code -- particularly for huge corporations. (eg GE doesn't pay corporate tax)
3. Freshwater water management
4. Clearly defined goals and priorities of/for sustainability (see #1)
5. Public land usage
6. Prudent natural resource consumption
7. Addiction to automobiles (I'm guilty of this)
8. Incorporating best practices/bucking the status quo (as a home rater, I can assure you that there are design and labor practices in the US housing market that are older than Madonna)
9. Deploying renewable energy
10. Developing messaging that isn't condescending or antagonistic

Jim

Good one Jim. I say put #10 at #1 and you maybe have the crux of the matter. If we communicated with consideration and empathy within ourselves we may begin to get things done in the 'right' order in conjunction with our fellow man and be come sustainable, as in supportive of others in their endeavours, managing the land, water and other natural resources equitably, even caring about the 'have nots' as well as the 'haves', from a humane and loving perspective. As was stated elsewhere, or similar: what we do to others we do to ourselves and vice versa.

Kind regards,
Paul

Aloha,

This has been an interesting conversation! Though Hawaii is, of course, part of the US, we have some unique sustainability issues when compared to the rest of the country. So this is my perspective from Hawaii, not the US.
1. Availability and diversity of local food (Currently more than 80% of our food is shipped in from elsewhere.)
2. Availability of alternative fuels (Currently we depend heavily on gasoline and other oil products, which is all shipped in from elsewhere.)
3. Availability of alternative power sources (Anyone who is "on the grid" here is utilizing fossil fuels; our Hawaiian Electric Company touts its electricity-producing trash-burning program as its contribution to "sustainable" energy production.)
4. Land use (Land, the most valuable asset on an island, is being gobbled up by multinationals for multi-million-dollar condominiums and homes, exclusive hotels and resorts, and shopping development. Meanwhile sacred sites are being destroyed, people are forced out of homes as their property taxes become unaffordable, and land formerly used for agriculture is paved.)
5. Water use (We have very limited groundwater, and water rights issues dominate community-development discussions; yet housing development and other growth continues.)
6. Ocean management (A sustainable future for Hawaii must utilize the local food source of fish, yet our fish stocks have declined by 75% over the last 100 years. Meanwhile, commercial and recreational fishing interests with support from the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council lobbies heavily for limited to no restrictions to fishing.)
7. Transportation (As the most isolated land mass on the planet and a vacation destination, people are utilizing unsustainable practices every time they leave the state or come to the state.)
8. Global warming and its effects on all of the above
9. Justice (This involves all of the above, especially in regards to the rights of the host culture of native Hawaiians and their disenfranchisement through the history of overthrow and colonization here.)
10. Private and political will and involvement throughout all sectors There are a couple of ongoing public conversations here about sustainability, with public meetings and focus groups asking the same question about Hawaii's top sustainability challenges and possible solutions: http://hawaii2050.org/ http://www.sustainablehawaii.hawaii.edu/index.html

Enjoy,
Debbie Gowensmith

Hawaii Program Director
Community Conservation Network
212 Merchant Street, Suite 200
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
+1-808-528-3700 (phone)
+1-808-528-3701 (fax)

Hi

I thought I'd chip in from Australia with a diverse bunch of sustainability issues, some of which are symptoms and some of which are causes: - A dominant social fabric based around economic consumption and growth - Water - a continent getting hotter and drier being stretched by persisting with water-intensive industries - A political ethos that "we will do whatever it takes to act on global warming - as long as it does not require any sacrifice of relentless economic growth as that may be unpopular to my voter base because I have trained them to respond to fear stimulus" - A car-worshipping culture - preferably big and fast - A lack of education on how to make decisions through values rather than ego - Urban sprawl leading to higher demands on energy and transport infrastructure - A persistent campaign to discredit the viability of renewable energy - A society addicted to working and playing hard and fast - when a sustainable lifestyle is best supported by slowing down and reflecting - An economy greatly dependent on digging up "resources" from the ground - The degradation of the Great Barrier Reef Would love to hear other opinions on Australia's top ten!

Tim Cotter

AWAKE
56 Bloomfield Rd, Ascot Vale,
Melbourne, VIC 3032, Australia
Tel: (+61 3) 9370 0273
Fax: (+61 3) 9370 0276
Mobile: (+61) 0404 212 903
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.awake.com.au

Hi to all,

The following links are worth a look. Here is the link on "Australian Householders' Attitudes to Greenhouse Issues" published by the Australian Greenhouse Office. http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/local/publications/literature-review2.html#bibliography And a report by the NSW EPA on "Who cares about the Environment in 2006". http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/whocares/whocares2006.htm

Peter Jennings
current student studying Masters of Environmental Management at the University of New South Wales.

Hi

I've been following this discussion with interest and would recommend colleagues to take a look at work undertaken by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) in the UK http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/ (look for the publications tab and download the 'I Will if You Will' report) and by Defra (UK Govt Dept of Environment) http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/sustainable/index.htm who are working on these issues. The SDC report breaks sustainability into 4 key areas, homes (energy and waste), transport, food, and leisure and tourism. A fifth area ahs also been identified, finance and investment. Defra are using a social marketing approach to develop behaviour goals (for businesses and the public), some of which are immediately achievable (e.g. waste less food) and get a very good response from the public as the benefits to the individual are immediately apparent. Others are more stretching (e.g. reduce non-essential short haul flights), which most are not yet ready to embrace. By understanding the audience through segmentation, exploring these behaviour goals through qualititative research and fully involving NGO's and other partners throughout this process we are working towards identifying not only which behaviours have the biggest impact from a carbon or other sustainability point of view, but also towards thinking about how willing people are and how able they are, to take action on these behaviour goals. Perhaps the most useful theoretical processing that we have taken on board is the 'Contemplation of change' model (called many other things too). See for example:
1. http://www.comminit.com/changetheories/ctheories/changetheories-56.html
2. "Communicating Behavior Change" - The World Bank, 1996, by Cecilia Cabanero-Verzosa
3. Prochaska, DiClemente and Norcross (1992).

Rachel Muckle

Research Fellow
Environmental Psychology Research Group
Department of Psychology
University of Surrey Guildford GU2 7XH
#44 (0) 1483 686861
www.surrey.ac.uk/psychology/EPRG

World:
1. Maintaining healthy natural habitats.

Rod Miller

Senior Environmental Specialist
City of Folsom Hazmat Division
50 Natoma St. Folsom, CA 95630
[email protected]
www.folsomhazmat.com
Land: 916-355-8361
Cell: 916-439-0445
Fax: 916-355-8351

Tim as a fellow Australian... You are dead right

Kellie Ruane

Walking Projects Officer
Shire of Melton
T 9747 7210
F 9747 7399
M 0409 568 633
E [email protected]
A: Mon - Th 8.30am - 5.30pm

Hey everyone:

A few weeks ago, there was a great inquiry as to what the top 10 sustainability challenges/opportunities may be for the fsb subscribers. I volunteered my take as an American, and I included a note about how there is opportunity to reform the tax code in America. I included a mention that GE does not pay taxes. I need to apologize to the list. GE does pay taxes. My opinion was informed by a passage I read in Bushwacked by Molly Ivins. Of course there are loopholes and incentives in the tax code. (The loopholes and incentives are not mistakes, and often they are well paid for by the entities which benefit from them.) But in the interest of fairness and accuracy, this email needed to be shared.

Best,
Jim