Green and Quality Life Through Research

William G. Padolina 15 May 2013

May I express my thanks to the Philippine Society for Educational Research and Evaluation (PSERE) for this kind invitation to share with you a few thoughts about how we can manage our human activities in a way that will not cause damage to our environment. My special thanks to Dr. Teresa Perez, President of PSERE for extending this rare privilege to address your 21st Annual Conference. The theme that you have selected for this years meeting is a most important one because the environment has far reaching impact on how we are able to function as productive citizens of this planet. I understand that the objectives of this conference are as follows: 1. To provide a forum for the discussion of the interface of research as vehicle for conservation and sustainable development; 2. To give value to the role that an institutions research productivity plays in the attainment of sustainable development; 3. To encourage collaborative research among the PSERE-member institutions. I wish to extend my best wishes for the successful realization of these laudable objectives.

The Concept of Sustainability The concept of sustainability became a prominent development goal when the report entitled Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission and Environment and Development was issued in 1987.

In essence, the report defines sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. However, included in the definition are two important points that are not mentioned often but are quite material to the context of the definition. They are:

the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

It is lamentable that in almost all occasions, these points are not discussed and the intention to address poverty is often missed or conveniently omitted. Sometimes I wonder whether such omission is used to justify the lifestyles that the rich and the famous lead and to be callous to the need to confront the growing divide between the rich and the poor.

At the outset, it is important for us to realize a few general insights that observers have noted in the discussions and debate about sustainability. First is that when we produce from nature, we change nature. Thus any agricultural activity including organic agriculture and other extractive activities such as mining, fossil fuel extraction, and geothermal wells will definitely change the environment where such activity is being conducted and possibly even have impact on a wider scale. In this regard, experts on the environment say there is really no pristine spot in our planet anymore. The second point deals with the fact that human beings are distributed throughout our planet and there are no preferential niches for human beings unlike certain plants and animals. Therefore, as a ubiquitous part of the ecosystem of our planet Earth, human beings can induce changes almost anywhere.

The third point is concerned with the issue of whether humanity will be stewards or exploiters of the environment or both. This is truly difficult to resolve especially when resource constraints force people and communities to look for ways to earn a livelihood.

This is most evident in urban centers blighted spots are on the increase and the environmental services are not able to cope such that basic services are stressed and compromised. It is clear that the impact of rapid population growth on the utilization of the finite resources of this planet earth speaks eloquently of the need to review our strategies for development. The difficulties we encounter in the management of our wastes behoove us to exercise more restraint lest we cause irreparable damage to the environment. Our inability to provide health care to our expanding population is evidenced by the fact that even now tens of thousands of children still die of malnutrition every day. We are increasingly finding it difficult to cope with new diseases, such as AIDS, which continue to affect the productivity of communities. Criminality and deviant behavior disrupt otherwise peaceful societies and diminishes their ability for high performance.

Kofi Annan explains this growing malaise in the turn of events as being due to our "paying too much attention to commercial interests and not enough to social, cultural or environmental ones."

The Brundtland Commission definition was the start of what many still consider as an elusive development paradigm that is not only anchored on economic or material progress but cognizant of the finiteness of the earth's resources which set limits to environmental effects of development.

Sustainable development is a notion that has been discussed widely. In fact one can hardly find an individual who is opposed to it. But today, twenty-six years after the concept of sustainable development was brought to the fore, it still remains a vague and imprecise concept.

Robert Solow, the 1987 Nobel Laureate in Economics, believes that the notion of sustainability is about "society's obligation to the future, a moral one people are supposed to have for future generations." However, Solow argues that one "cannot be

morally beholden to something that is not feasible. "Thus," he further argues, "to leave the world as we found it in detail, that's glib but essentially unfeasible."

It is the well-being of future generations, Solow argues, that will make the concept of sustainability reasonable and useful. "It is an obligation to conduct ourselves so that we leave to the future the option or the capacity to be as well-off as we are." But because the future is difficult to extrapolate, it is extremely hard to make anything precise out of this definition.

Since sustainability is such as important concern, we cannot just beg the question and leave it unattended. We are advised by Solow that "in thinking about sustainability, the resources that are used up and those left behind, as well as the sort of world left behind--including the built environment, productive capacity (plant and equipment), and technological knowledge must be taken into account."

Solow argues that "technological knowledge" or knowledge as a whole is a vital to sustainability.

It has been suggested that the technical knowledge referred to by Prof. Solow would include knowledge about the earths ability to regenerate itself and kno wledge about the earths capacity to absorb waste. To my mind, we can only claim that our activities are part of sustainable development if we can establish that they are in synchrony with the biogeochemical cycles that regenerate our planet such as the carbon cycle. An understanding of how these cycles are perturbed by mans activities would be a great contribution towards how we should manage the environment. For example, we should be able to calculate the rate of water extraction and replenishment in our aquifers; consider the optimum rates of replacing soil nutrients extracted by crops, rigorously study and inventory our biodiversity and how our conservation programs are in harmony with the Earths cycles.

In addition to increasing our understanding of the various biogeochemical cycles that operate in our planet, it is also important to determine the capacity of our planet to absorb waste. For example, we often cite the virtue of biodegradability without considering the possibility that the products of degradation could be more toxic than the material being degraded. The capacity of the earth to absorb the wastes that human activity generates is not yet well understood.

Thus we need to use technology and the modern tools of science to deepen our understanding on how we should manage sustainability. It is also imperative that the knowledge, the know-how, the software, so to speak, will also be fully and freely available as a public good.

Agenda for Sustainable Development

Since the release of the report of the Brundtland Commission, much debate and discussion have taken place. The cassandras as they are called in Westing (1990) maintain that the earth has an intrinsically limited carrying capacity, and interpret population explosion and environmental degradation as intractable catastrophes that will happen unless draconian limitations are imposed on reproduction. The cornucopians (Meyer & Turner, 1992), by contrast, have portrayed global carrying capacity as (perhaps limitlessly) expandable by technological innovation that leads to the development of new sources of energy, new foods grown without soil, new urban villages all paralleled by a decline in the general importance of physical goods and resources for a rising standard of living. The cornucopians underscore the continuing acceleration in the rate of new discovery, and hold to ridicule the track record of past doomsayers.

The polar character of the debate between the cassandras and the cornucopians has produced a search for a third way a search led by a group we call navigators. Seeking to chart a course that mediates between continued growth and preservation of the world ecosystem, the navigators promote a new global humanism by offering a cautious optimism under the flag of sustainable development. The world clock may be at the eleventh hour, the navigators argue, but it is not too late to arrest global warming, preserve the rain forests, protect endangered species, and make cities habitable.

An Action Plan Bearing in mind the two vital concepts on sustainability conceived by the Brundtland Commission which are to give priority in addressing the essential needs of the worlds poor and to recognize the limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization, I would like to suggest the following action plan for consideration in this conference:

Systems monitoring. It is now imperative that methods be developed to provide information on how ecosystems are responding to various stresses especially as they relate to the ability of the earth to regenerate itself and to the capacity of the earth to absorb waste. There is a need to develop practical onsite real time monitoring methods which will detect biological, physical, chemical changes onsite using robust instrumentation, preferably telemetered to a central data processing facility. This should eventually serve as an early warning system to determine critical states and allow for the appropriate real time intervention to be initiated. Population Policy and Management. The imbalance created by rapid population growth and dwindling resources has been cited as one of the major causes of the degradation of our environment. Any strategy that ignores or diminishes population management as a necessary component of environmental protection will be ineffective and weak. Accelerate biodiversity studies. The identification and inventory of our biota must be done with a higher sense of urgency. It has been the impression of many observers

that the rate at which we are able to catalogue our biota has been too slow such that we have, in many ways, been overtaken by events. Unfortunately, there is a worldwide shortage of qualified people who are trained to participate in biodiversity studies. Systematists, for example, are a dying breed and efforts must be exerted to quickly replenish their ranks so that we may still be able to record and describe whatever is left. Intensify Conservation Programs. Conservation programs in all fronts must be strengthened and intensified especially in the use of power, water, and the land. Aside from our traditional approaches of minimizing wastage, we should include approaches that will control our urge to consume, or control our wants. Minimizing wastage and controlling our wants must be the twin goals of all conservation programs. Develop Clear and Precise Standards for Sustainability Practices. The criteria for considering a particular activity as sustainable must be developed in all aspects of human activity. Farming activities and manufacturing processes must now be closely monitored to determine whether they are sustainable or not. ISO 14000 is a step in that direction and must be continuously refined. Focus on water. It is about time that all knowledge about management of water resources be put together and reviewed. We are continuously reminded of the possibility that control of water resources will be a potential source of conflict in the future. The need to formulate a national water use plan is urgent. We are informed that on a global scale, the increase in the use of fresh water between 1950 and 1990 was more than double the rate of population growth and that agriculture has been using five times more water than in 1900, industry, twenty-six times compared to 1900 and domestic use, eighteen times.

Formulate or Update a National Land Use Plan. Again, it is imperative that terrestrial resources be properly managed towards sustainable productivity. The conversion of precious farmlands for industrial or residential uses threatens the capacities of nations to produce enough food for its population. Furthermore, a national land use plan will lay the basis for properly locating waste disposal sites.

Systems Thinking and Good Governance Systems thinking is essential for us to understand sustainability. The complexity of the environment and the many factors that interact to makes it necessary to train our students to recognize relationships, connectedness and context. Without this skill, we will be in danger of moving down the slippery slope and reach the point of irreversibility. Systems thinking allows us to understand the interrelations and interdependence of components that form the complex array of the environment including the social units, their composition and relation with the environment. Systems thinking is based on System Dynamics which was created by Prof. Jay Forrester in the mid-1950s. If we accept that development could be redefined in terms of the capacity to generate, acquire, disseminate, and use knowledge both modern and traditional, then it is important that higher education institutions participate actively in promoting knowledge as a source of empowerment. For indeed, knowledge is power and power is knowledge. Our ability to manage the emerging complex issues as humanity embarks on a course towards sustainable development can only be assured if we have access to the knowledge base necessary to address the problems at the moment they are needed. Timely intervention is the name of the game and access to the quality information for guidance is the key to timely action. As Dr. Ron Nichols of the New York Academy of Sciences (1997) says: To be successful one must show profound originality, but one must adhere to the highest standards of evidence and inference. Without the discipline to follow those standards, to resist the clamor for shortcuts, the dreams remain empty. Frequently, though, the public does not readily discriminate between wishful novelty and proven advance Quality control is what has earned for science its special claims to knowledge. Our national effort towards poverty alleviation needs, among others, trained people who are familiar with the frontiers of new knowledge and can help assess the potentials of new processes and technologies. Nations must possess the capacity to identify and

absorb especially the emerging technologies which are the most solid instruments for human development. Sustainable development also requires good governance, for nations and institutions, public or private managed based on a commitment to serve common good. The suggested action plan needs intensive use of systems thinking to confront complexity and avoid the temptation to simplify the complex and miss the path that will lead to a solution. Hargroves and Smith in 2005 identified the significant attributes of good governance, one that environmentalizes development and among others, is transparent and systematic with risk and uncertainty, integrates economic, social and environmental goals in policy formulation, and provides opportunities for community participation. Conclusion In conclusion, we are now witness to the increasing frequency of extreme weather conditions which are attributed to climate change. We have been in the drivers seat for a long time, but we simply did not have the tools to generate the knowledge that was necessary to manage the assaults to our environment and we were not brave enough to face what former US Vice-President Albert Gore call as the inconvenient truth. These extreme weather conditions cannot be held back by even the best manager in this planet and not even if we try to relive our romantic Paleolithic past. We need lots of systems thinking and good governance to guide us to make hard choices and to coordinate our action. Again, my thanks to PSERE for this opportunity to share my views and hope that we shall all work together to assure the Filipino and humanity, of a society that is not only productive but also just and free. Thank you.