Chapter 1. Deep Sustainability—The Essentials
How can we meet the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future? This is the essential question of sustainability. Any society that can’t meet at least the basic human needs of everyone without leaving equal or better opportunities for those of future generations is simply not sustainable. It may persist for a time but it can’t continue indefinitely into the future.
Everything of use to humans, including everything of economic value, ultimately must come from the earth, and beyond self-sufficiency, must come by way of human relationships or society. If the usefulness or value of the resources of the earth and society are persistently degraded and depleted, as has been and continues to be the case today, there will be no means of sustaining nature, society, or the economy to meet the needs of future generations. Furthermore, even the basic needs of many people of the world, if not most, are not even being met today.
The challenges of sustainability cannot be met by simply using existing natural and human resources more efficiently. Nor can sustainability be achieved by substituting renewable for non-renewable resources. Furthermore, implementation of resource efficiency and substitution strategies are too often limited to those situations that increase profits as well as enhance sustainability. Opportunities exist for doing well financially by doing good for society and nature, but they are too few and too limited. Resource efficiency and substitution motivated by economic incentives, while necessary, are simply not sufficient. Sustainability will require looking deeper, beyond the current shallow or instrumental approach to sustainability, i.e. beyond using efficiency and substitution as a means of sustaining profitability and economic growth.
Deep sustainability addresses the root causes of unsustainability. It addresses the ethical, philosophical, and spiritual roots of human well-being that must sustain the ecological, social, and economic integrity of human relationships with each other and with nature. Humanity has gone astray from its path of purpose during centuries of spiritual neglect, misuse, and abuse – in its continuing quest for never-ending economic growth and ever-greater economic wealth.
Continual investments in the renewal and regeneration of nature and society are essential for ecological, social, and economic sustainability. Healthy natural ecosystems are capable of renewing and regenerating themselves using the continual inflow of new solar energy—if they are allowed to do so. Human societies and economies can function sustainably as integral components of the Earth’s natural ecosystem—if they are willing to do so. Unfortunately, today’s dominant paradigms or ways of thinking are in direct conflict with the requisites for sustainable natural ecosystems, societies, and economies.
Deep sustainability requires new ways of thinking, knowing, learning, and being in the world: ways that are essential for authentic human progress toward a new and better world – beyond economic sustainability to sustainable prosperity and progress. Deep sustainability is rooted in a fundamentally different worldview. Sustainable lifestyles, communities, economies, societies, and ecosystems all emerge and grow, by nature, from the roots of deep sustainability.[1]
The Worldview of Deep Sustainability
Perspectives of sustainability, of both advocates and skeptics, are based on specific assumptions about how the world works. The conventional or dominant worldview, implicit if not explicit, is that the world is an inexhaustible source of natural resources for human use. Ecological limits are but temporary obstacles to be overcome with new mechanical, chemical, biological, and digital technologies. The Earth and everything on it function according to the same basic principles as sophisticated machines or computers and can be manipulated or programmed to meet the needs and wants of humans.
These mechanistic systems of production can be reduced or separated into their component parts to gain an understanding of how they function. Systems problems can be solved by repairing or replacing faulty parts or by replacing systems that become worn out or obsolete. The productivity of the Earth’s resources is limited only by human imagination and creativity. As resources become increasingly scarce, they become more valuable, which provides the economic motivation needed to develop new technologies capable of repairing, replacing, and rebuilding systems capable of sustaining resource productivity indefinitely into the future.
Those who hold the worldview of shallow or instrumental sustainability view the Earth’s resources and their potential productivity not as limitless but as limited or finite. They see the earth functioning not as a machine or computer but as a complex natural ecosystem upon which we humans are ultimately dependent. These complex living systems are inseparable and cannot be reduced to their component parts without losing the essence of systems as wholes. New technologies can allow humans to use the resources of the Earth more efficiently and to replace some natural resources with manufactured substitutes but cannot remove the ultimate resource constraints or limits of nature. In other words, humans can continue to manipulate nature to better meet their needs, but the sustainability of human life on Earth ultimately depends on the ability of humans to learn to live within the finite limits or ecological capacity of nature.
The worldview of deep sustainability views the whole of the Earth as a living organism that is made up of a diversity of other living organisms and ecosystems. Humans and human organizations and communities are component parts—as are the non-human organisms, organizations, and communities that occupy the Earth. Everything on Earth, living and nonliving, is integrally interconnected with and inseparable from everything else on Earth. We can never do just one thing. Every action causes unintended reactions—in addition to those initially anticipated or intended.
Living systems have emergent properties that are not contained in any of their component parts but emerge from the complex relationships among the parts—relationships that are dynamic and evolving. Life is an emergent property of the dynamic relationships among the diverse components of the human body. As mentioned previously, there is a natural hierarchy among nature, society, and individuals. The purpose of lower levels is derived from higher levels and the potential of higher levels is dependent on lower levels. The sustainability of human life on Earth depends on the willingness and ability of humans and humanity to find their place and fulfill their purpose within the higher order—self in harmony with society, society in harmony with nature.
Deep sustainability is concerned not only with the questions of the basic nature of the World in which we live but also the nature of us, ourselves—as individual earthly human beings. The conventional or dominant worldview is that we are cerebral or thinking beings. To quote the Enlightenment philosopher, Des Cartes, “I think, therefore I am.”[i] When we think of having a body, it’s the mind that perceives or senses our body and thus thinks our body into existence. The conventional worldview is that communities are nothing more than collections of individual human beings. Relationships are significant only to the extent that they affect individuals. Individuals can be as happy, or as sad, as they make up their minds to be. This kind of thinking leads to the belief that given adequate incentives or motivation, the collection of human minds is capable of solving any problem we might create and finding substitutes for any resource we might deplete or permanently damage.
The worldview of shallow sustainability recognizes that we are social as well as mental and physical beings Families, communities, and societies are more than collections of individuals. We not only think but we also feel and care about others, including the other living and nonliving things on the Earth. Relationships have values beyond those experienced as individuals. This leads to be belief that we must consider the well-being of others, including those of future generations, as well as ourselves.
However, those who hold a shallow sustainability worldview share a faith in human ingenuity with the contemporary worldview. They trust science to define the Earth’s ecological limits and believe that new technologies can provide the means of living well within those limits. They see these ecological limits as defining ethical relationships with nature rather than as one factor in deciding how they should live. Their concern for the future of humanity, regardless of the consequences for other living and nonliving things on the Earth, takes priority over any sense of moral or ethical responsibility as caretakers of the Earth. They focus on meeting the needs of the future while showing little understanding or compassion for the multitudes whose needs are not being met today. They rely on the economy for the rewards of sustainable living rather than accept their rewards as responsible members of human society and the Earth’s integral community.
The worldview of deep sustainability recognizes, honors, and prioritizes the spiritual dimension of self. The spiritual dimension of self emerges from its interconnectedness with the deepest level of reality—the level of unity, order—oneness with God. Answers to the questions of sustainability must come from beyond the physical, mental, and social self. We are physical, mental, and spiritual beings. Our relationships with each other and with the earth are spiritual as well as social and physical. The essence of who we are is an emergent property. Our self is not present in the separate dimensions but arises from the relationships among the physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of our being. Our relationships may affect us physically, mentally, or spiritually, but their ultimate effect is on the whole of our being.
Our emergent self has a body, mind, and spirit or soul. Lacking any one of these dimensions, we do not exist—at least not as fully human beings. The spirit or soul is our connection to the higher order or universal whole of which we are a part and from which we gain our sense of purpose. This leads to the belief or understanding that our individual well-being is intrinsically and inescapably interdependent with the well-being of the other living and non-living things of the Earth. The sustainability of human life on Earth depends on our willingness and ability to accept our uniquely human rewards and responsibilities as both members and caretakers of the Earth’s integrally interconnected community.
As explained in the paper, Deep Sustainability; The Essentials, these differences among the conventional, shallow, and deep sustainability perspectives of how the world works and of our place within it affect virtually every aspect of our lives. They result in different ways of knowing or understanding what is happening around us and what is likely or unlikely to unfold in the future. This in turn leads to different ways of learning and teaching which tend to augment, reinforce, or challenge our existing beliefs. These different worldviews become translated into different motivations for individual and collective actions and different means for carrying out intentions--including different day-to-day decisions and support for different government policies.
The differences among conventional, shallow, and deep perspectives of sustainability ultimately will lead to different consequences. The conventional worldview of sustainability is ultimately dependent on the ability of science to develop new technologies capable of doing more and more while using less and less until humans become able to meet their needs and wants without using or permanently damaging any of the resources of the earth. Buckminster Fuller referred to this as ephemeralization: doing "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing."[ii] Ephemeralization may or may not be possible but it seems illogical and irresponsible to bet the future of humanity on its possibility. This belief system is probably too naïve and idealistic to qualify as a religion.
A world dominated by the worldview of shallow sustainability might succeed in slowing the rate of resource depletion and mitigating some of the permanent damage to resource productivity. The basic flaw in shallow sustainability, however, is its myopic focus on human well-being, specifically on the other things of the earth as resources to be used by humans rather than mutually dependent co-inhabitants of the living Earth. Even human relationships are valued as a means of increasing economic efficiency rather than as a basic human need. Thus, limits to economic growth are limits to which humans can extract and exploit nature and each other, with little if any regard for the overall well-being of nature or society.
As the resources of the Earth become increasingly polluted the Earth becomes less livable, particularly for those who cannot insulate themselves from the ravages of a wounded nature. As the productivity of the Earth’s resources continues to be depleted, larger and larger segments of humanity will be deprived of even the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, dignity, and respect—and global society eventually would lose its willingness and ability to consider anything beyond day-to-day survival. Human society would eventually degenerate into chaos as the Earth is deprived of its ability to sustain human life on Earth.
A world dominated by the worldview of deep sustainability would systematically dismantle the current unsustainable economic and political systems. The transformation would be accomplished with consideration of those vested in the conventional and shallow worldviews but time or energy would not be wasted accommodating ways of thinking or trying to fix inherently unsustainable systems. New economic and political systems based on the principles of deep sustainability would focus on halting and then reversing the depletion and damage inflicted on the Earth’s natural and human sources of sustenance and abundance by unsustainable economic development.
The living things of nature are capable of using the daily inflow of solar energy to restore the health and productivity of natural ecosystems and to sustain the productivity of healthy natural ecosystems. This includes ecosystems in which humans are dominant members and are major users of the Earth’s natural resources. The key to sustainability is to learn to live in harmony with nature rather than try to conquer or replace nature.
Those holding the worldview of deep sustainability would prioritize the first requisite of sustainability by meeting the needs of all in the present so that those of the present will be willing and able to ensure equal opportunities for those of the future. The worldview of deep sustainability would lead to flourishing human communities—a term used to describe authentic human well-being from Aristotle to Ehrenfeld.[iii] In a flourishing society, people care for each other and care about the earth because doing so is not a sacrifice or burden but gives purpose and meaning to life. The tenets of deep sustainability are the tenets of human happiness.
The challenge of deep sustainability is that those currently holding the worldviews of conventional and shallow sustainability will need to rethink just about everything. They will only be willing to do so if they become convinced that current ways of thinking are not working and will not work in the future—that their ways of thinking are not sustainable. More and more people in contemporary society are beginning to come to this realization. However, the desire to change, while necessary, is not sufficient. People “change from” something only if they can visualize something better to “change to.” Unfortunately, most people seem to view sustainability as a sacrifice rather than an opportunity. And finally, people must believe that real and lasting change is possible, even if not quick or easy. They must have hope. Lacking any one of these three, most people just keep doing whatever they are doing for as long as they can possibly do it.
In this book, I explore the implications of deep sustainability for our ways of thinking about a variety of different subjects that affect our day-to-day lives. Those subjects include reality, process, and purpose; energy; information, and entropy; the economy, money, and growth; the government, human rights, and economic rights; corporate values, political values, and human values; relocalization, relationships, and communities; holism, integrality, and decision-making; and reality, love, and hope. Some may see these topics as too theoretical or philosophical. Many people want to be told what to do and how they should do it to be successful. They don’t want to be bothered with the whys and why nots. I contend that nothing could be more practical or useful than understanding why we should do the things we do before we learn how to do them. The doing part is easy, or at least much easier, once we know what we want to do and why we want to do it.
The Good News of Deep Sustainability
Over the years, I have been called an evangelist whenever I speak of sustainability as an ethical or moral question. I have also been accused of preaching a “gospel of sustainability,” when proclaiming the moral values essential for authentic sustainability. Since I have a Ph.D. and a 30-year academic career, I suppose people expect me to think like a researcher and speak like a professor. I am flattered rather than offended by being called a preacher. Like all good preachers, my message comes not only from my mind but also from my heart and soul. Sustainability is fundamentally a moral question that can only be answered within the context of ethical and social values. I believe it is unethical as well as unprofessional to attempt to reframe a question such as sustainability to fit a particular way of thinking rather than change our way of thinking to fit the question. Science may provide valuable information and insights into the challenges and opportunities, but science cannot answer the central questions of sustainability. Ultimately, meeting the challenge of sustainability will require rethinking science and just about everything else.
Sustainability is now a religion but it is grounded in a specific belief system. Belief systems are characterized by sets of core principles or tenets. If you Google “the requirements for a religion” you will find varying opinions regarding the basic characteristics of a religion. Belief systems are universally accepted as essential characteristics of religions. Religions are also characterized by specific rituals or practices that are carried out by their devotees, members, or congregations. Religions also maintain organizational structures committed to cultivating, protecting, and preserving existing belief systems.
The belief system of deep sustainability is characterized by core principles by which sustainable ecosystems, societies, and economies must function. However, there are no rituals or practices that define deep sustainability. The practices or methodologies of authentic sustainability, by necessity, are individualistic and time- and place-specific. There is no institutional structure or organizational hierarchy to preserve or promote the gospel of sustainability.
Those who define sustainable living as a specific lifestyle or sustainable organizational management as a set of “best management practices” are the ones treating sustainability as a religion rather than a systematic way of thinking. Authentic sustainable living and sustainable management are guided by an overall purpose and sets of principles that must be expressed in different ways to accommodate the unique ecological, social, and economic environments in which specific individuals and organizations function.
In fact, today’s scientific and economic belief systems are more characteristic of religions than sustainability. Modern scientists must follow the “scientific method” in their work to be accepted as credible by other scientists. Economists must follow specific analytical procedures, such as cost-benefit analyses, for their conclusions to be accepted as valid. Both scientists and economists have formal hierarchical organizational structures committed to maintaining the integrity or academic rigor of their disciplines. Scientific organizations hold regular professional conferences that serve to reinforce their common belief in science and commitments to their respective disciplines. Those who fail to conform to the beliefs and tenets of their disciplines are systemically expelled or excommunicated—either formally or informally.
The belief system of deep sustainability, although similar in other respects, is simply not compatible with the rituals and organizational structures of religions. That being said, the “gospel of sustainability” may be a useful way of thinking about deep sustainability. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon term god-spell, meaning ‘good story,’ a rendering of the Latin evangelium and the Greek euangelion, meaning ‘good news’ or ‘good telling.’”[iv]
Historically, the word gospel has been linked most closely to the biblical story in the New Testament, the “good news” or “good telling” that Jesus was the Messiah promised by God. Over time, the term gospel has also become associated with “something accepted as the truth or a guiding principle”[v]—the gospel truth. Both meanings of the word gospel help reveal the basic tenets of deep sustainability.
The gospel of sustainability is based on “absolute truth”—meaning “truths for all times at all places.”[vi] Absolute truths are different from empirical or scientific truths, which are based on evidence gathered by specific methods under specific circumstances. Absolute truths are logically rather than empirically true and dependent only on the acceptance of an initial set of definitions or assumptions.
For example, a square can never be a circle and a circle never be a square, once the definitions of square and circle are accepted as true. All mathematical truths are based on a set of axioms or principles, such as if a=b then b=a and a x b is equal to b x a. These propositions are not proven but accepted as self-evident truths. All economic truth or predictability depends on the assumption that people seek to maximize their individual self-interests, which is not proven but simply accepted as truth.
The absolute truth of deep sustainability is rooted in the generic and generally accepted definition of the word sustainable, regardless of the arbitrary redefinitions of sustainability that might suggest otherwise. Merriam-Webster defines sustainable as “a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.”[vii] Calling or labeling something “sustainable” doesn’t mean it can actually be sustained—any more than labeling something as natural means it is actually natural rather than artificial or manufactured. Authentic sustainability demands that we harvest or use the Earth’s natural and biological resources in ways that meet the needs of society today without permanently damaging or depleting their future productivity.
Sustainability has become a public issue because our currently dominant ways of life are depleting and permanently damaging the Earth’s natural and biological sources of human sustenance and well-being. Referring to something as “not sustainable” has become a common descriptive phrase for anything that can’t continue indefinitely. We know intuitively that we cannot continue doing many if not most of the things we are currently doing indefinitely. Regardless of attempts to coopt and confuse the word to deny or delay the necessity for change, people know intuitively what sustainability means because they know our current way of life is not sustainable.
We are not only depleting and degrading the natural resources essential to meet the needs of the future we are also failing to meet the basic needs of many if not most of the people in the world today. This cannot continue indefinitely. We can’t expect people who are unable to meet their own or their children’s basic needs today to willingly sacrifice to ensure a better future for those who already have plenty.
Despite these concerns, the gospel of deep sustainability is a story of good telling or good news. As with organized religions, the focus of the gospel of sustainability up to now has been on the necessity for repentance and fundamental change—as with today’s global movement to address climate change. The focus is on setting ecological limits for greenhouse gas emissions and other limits for environmental pollution and the depletion or degradation of natural resources.
However, the good news is that the conversion to a sustainable way of life leads to a fundamentally better way of living. There are more than enough resources to sustain a desirable quality of life for all, if we are willing to learn to live in harmony with each other and with the other living and nonliving things of the Earth. Deep sustainability is the best hope for a more rewarding, satisfying way of life and a brighter, happier future for humanity.
The basic tenets, or gospel truths, of deep sustainability include the following:
· The Earth and the Universe exist for some positive purpose within the higher order of things. The existence of purpose cannot be proven, at least not scientifically. However, if there were no purpose for being, the continued existence of the Earth and human life on Earth would be meaningless.
· The purpose of humanity is to contribute to the inherent goodness of the Earth. There is no logical justification for sustaining human life unless the purpose of humanity is to enhance, at least not destroy or degrade, the Earth’s goodness. If humanity persists in diminishing the goodness of the earth, the sooner humanity destroys itself. Our individual and collective well-being is intrinsically and inescapably interdependent with the well-being of the other living and non-living things of the earth.
· The purpose of individual humans is to make their unique contribution to the goodness of the Earth. In the absence of a positive purpose for living, there is no way for individuals to distinguish between good and bad or right and wrong. An individual life would be meaningless. There would be no reason to get up in the morning, but no reason not to.
· The good news or gospel of sustainability is that a life of purpose is a life of contentment and satisfaction—a life of happiness. We humans are spiritual and social beings, as well as material beings—regardless of the assumptions of science or economics. Our spiritual self is our means of connecting with our purpose and communing with the deepest levels of reality. Our social and ethical values affect everything we do. It is not a sacrifice to share with others or to care for the Earth. Sharing and caring make our lives better.
The good news is that if we strive earnestly to live with purpose, we will have made the greatest contribution to the goodness of humanity and the Earth we possibly could have made and will have lived the best life we possibly could have lived. Despite the inevitable and necessary good and bad times in life, will find peace and contentment at the core of our being; our lives will have mattered.
Some so-called evangelists for sustainability point out commonalities between sustainability and Christianity.[viii] Such commonalities exist, but the basic tenets of deep sustainability span virtually every major religion and enduring philosophy throughout human history. Deep sustainability applies the Golden Rule across as well as within generations. We should do for others as we would have them do for us if we were them and they were us—including those of future generations. In this sense, sustainability may be thought of as “a religion without rituals or rectories.”
Others who are called evangelists for sustainability are simply promoting the resource efficiency and substitution strategies of “shallow sustainability.”[ix] For example, an alternative “gospel of stainability” is proclaimed by a movement called Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS). An academic reviewer of the book, The Gospel of Sustainability,[x] concluded: “The LOHAS experts are those who are selling the products consumers need to understand how they are to live a better life. The good life is not necessarily gained by making your own clothes and composting, though those can help as long as you have purchased the right guidebooks telling you how to do those things, and by purchasing green products.”[xi] This may be the gospel of shallow sustainability, but it definitely is not the gospel of deep sustainability.
Shallow sustainability focuses primarily on reducing and mitigating the negative impacts of consumerism and industrial economic development on the natural environment. Reducing, reusing, and recycling nonrenewable resources is necessary but is not sufficient for sustainability. Substituting renewable for nonrenewable resources will be necessary but will not result in sustainability. These actions may make current systems of resource extraction and exploitation less unsustainable but will not make them sustainable. The currently dominant global economic systems are inherently extractive and exploitative and thus are inherently unsustainable. Shallow sustainability results in improvements that make the dominant economic and political systems less bad.
Some likely accept the status quo because they don’t know what they can do personally to change it. Deep sustainability means digging down to the depth of our belief systems and rethinking our basic beliefs and values—rethinking how the world works and our place within it. We cannot change the economy or society unless we are willing to change ourselves. When we change our belief systems, we realize that the change we want to bring about in the world begins with a change in us. Nature will require or accept nothing less from us, and nature always bats last. We ultimately must be willing to rethink almost everything. Deep sustainability is a societal transformation that recreates economic and political systems to contribute to life’s goodness.
My Truth
This book reflects “my truth.” I know some intelligent, thoughtful, caring people will disagree with my perspectives on the worldviews of sustainability and the implications for our ways of thinking and day-to-day lives. That’s okay with me. None of us knows for sure how the world works and where we fit within it. We are all searching for “the truth.” I believe if we each share “our truth” with other intelligent, thoughtful, caring people, together we will come closer to “the truth” and know better how to live our lives. My truth is ultimately a reflection of my unique abilities and aspirations and is the culmination of my life experiences. If you, the reader, are to decide how much credibility to give to the rest of this book, you need to at least know something about me and my life experiences—at least those that relate to sustainability.
I have been rethinking and developing a deeper understanding of sustainability for quite a long time. I can still recall vividly a trip to Washington DC in the spring of 1989. It was during cherry blossom season. I was there to meet with some people in the U.S. Department of Agriculture about a grant proposal that would fund a two-year leave of absence from the University of Georgia for me to provide leadership for a special project as part of a new USDA program called “Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA).”
For the previous four years, I had been the Head of the Extension Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Georgia. This was a time I still identify with the farm financial crisis. My time in Georgia had been a time of soul-searching, which Merriam-Webster defines as an “examination of one's conscience especially with regard to motives and values.” My self-examination of conscience led to the conclusion that I needed to make some major changes in my professional and personal life. For a variety of reasons, this meant that I needed to leave my position at the University of Georgia.
During my 18-year academic career, I had been respected as an agricultural economist. Before becoming a Department Head, I had chaired the Extension Committee of the American Agricultural Economics Association and been elected to every office, including President, of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association. However, I had lost confidence in economics—at least the economics I had been taught in graduate school and the economics I had been teaching university students as well as farmers. I will explain the reasons in the following chapter.
I had proposed carrying out my USDA grant at the University of Missouri, where I could reshape my career free of the distractions of previous responsibilities and expectations. No other university was going to hire me to do anything very different from what I had been doing—at least not at the salary I had been making. A two-year leave of absence would give me some time to work out another permanent position—hopefully at the University of Missouri. If that didn’t work out, a leave of absence, rather than a resignation, would allow me to return to the University of Georgia. At least, I would have two years to reexamine my conscience and rethink my motives and values.
I was cautiously optimistic because I had a good contact in the USDA that I had developed while carrying out various USDA grants to help farmers cope with the farm financial crisis. Buel Lanpher was the Farm Management Program Leader for USDA Cooperative Extension. I had told him I was looking for a career change. So, he contacted me when he learned that Congress had recently allocated several million dollars to the USDA to develop and implement a research and educational program in sustainable agriculture. He said that no one in the USDA had a clue about how to develop a program in sustainable agriculture or how to spend this money. To me, this seemed a perfect opportunity to take on a new challenge as well as take a break from the “business as usual” of agricultural economics. By then, I had nearly 20 years of experience in developing and implementing research and educational programs. I thought I was as qualified as anyone else to do something that no one knew how to do.
The University of Missouri in Columbia (MU) was particularly appealing to me because I had grown up on a small farm in southwest Missouri and had earned my undergraduate and graduate degrees there. To me, returning to MU would be like coming home. I also had a long-time academic relationship with Bruce Bullock who was the Chair of the Agricultural Economics Department at MU. I had shared an office with Bruce at North Carolina State University in the early 1970s and a few years later had supported his candidacy for a faculty position at Oklahoma State University. I thought he might be able to at least provide me with an office for a couple of years if I helped him initiate a sustainable agriculture program in Missouri as well as provide leadership for the new USDA program. I called Bruce with my proposal and he said he would make it work with the University if I could come up with the money from USDA.
I still remember seeing the cherry blossoms as I called home from a phone booth with the good news that my proposal had been approved. My wife at the time had grown up in St. Louis and we had met and married while we were both students at MU. She had never been able to fit in with the social culture of Georgia and was even more anxious than I was to move back to Missouri. Now, it looked like it would happen.
Fortuitously, a few weeks later Bruce noticed that the Dean of the College of Agriculture, Roger Mitchell, and I were scheduled to be changing planes at the St. Louis airport at about the same time. An airport meeting gave me an opportunity to share my vision of sustainable agriculture with the Dean. I made the case that Missouri, with its diversity of small independent family farms, was ideally suited to make MU a national leader in research and educational programs for sustainable farming. That meeting sealed the deal for my two-year leave at MU. The long-term arrangement would be a bit more challenging. I would return to Washington DC many times over the next seven years, but the cherry blossoms never have been as beautiful or smelled as sweet as that day in the spring of 1989.
I now had the rare opportunity, and the challenge, of starting over in midcareer. Fortunately, I was starting over in an academic area in which there were few if any recognized authorities—particularly among agricultural economists. The few agricultural academics working in this area were mostly agronomists, soil scientists, entomologists, and horticulturalists who had an interest in reduced tillage, integrated pest management, or organic farming. There was a scattering of rural sociologists, agricultural economists, and anthropologists who were critics of what I now call industrial agriculture. There weren’t enough of us in any one department or discipline for intradepartmental collaboration and interdisciplinary research and education has always been more an aspiration than a reality.
Most of the knowledge regarding organic and other sustainable farming systems was in the heads of the farmers who were doing the things that academics only observe, write, and talk about. Many of these farmers had rejected the transition from diversified, independent family farms to specialized, industrial farming operations that took place during the 1960s and 1970s. While these so-called modern farming operations were more economically efficient, many farmers knew there was something fundamentally wrong with trying to conquer nature rather than working with nature. A common comment was that "nature always bats last.” A handful of nonprofit organizations, such as the Rodale Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Pennsylvania, the Minnesota Land Stewardship Project, and the Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska, had been working with these farmers, helping them collaborate with each other and developing research-based information to guide their intuition. The USDA and agricultural colleges had been enthusiastic advocates of so-called modern industrial agriculture and were reluctant to join alliances with its critics.
Those of us working on the LISA program had the rare opportunity, and challenge, of developing a new interdisciplinary, participatory, collaborative research and educational program—literally from the ground up. The USDA recruited Patrick Madden, an experienced agricultural economist at Pennsylvania State University, to head up the LISA program. Patrick was a long-time critic of industrial agriculture and a defender of family farms and rural communities. My professional relationship with Patrick would continue long after we finished our work with LISA. Fortunately, most of the USDA personnel providing leadership for the LISA program also had years of experience working with farmers and people in rural communities before moving to DC.
Like me, the people I worked with in USDA had lost confidence in industrial agriculture and were glad to have an opportunity to work on something new and different. I knew my key LISA contact and supporter, Dixon Hubbard, from the days when we were both livestock marketing specialists; him with USDA and me with Oklahoma State University. Dixon was always a bit of a cowboy and nearing retirement and he was ready to challenge the “business as usual” within USDA. He recruited a collection of academic renegades to work on a variety of special projects. I recall one talking about someday being able to view videos on the internet and someday being able to post information on websites by ourselves. It was a rare time of excitement and innovation at the USDA.
I still recall vividly attending the conference in DC where USDA administrators introduced the LISA program and some key advocates of the LISA program presented their perspectives on sustainable agriculture. I recall particularly Robert Rodale, of the Rodale Institute, who referred to sustainability as the “big question” that he thought LISA should be committed to answering. How can we create an agriculture capable of maintaining its productivity and usefulness to society, indefinitely into the future? He emphasized that a sustainable agriculture would have to be a “regenerative” agriculture, meaning an agriculture capable of using solar energy to continually restore, renew, or regenerate its productivity.
Walking back to our hotel after the evening session where he spoke, I had an opportunity to talk with Rodale about his vision for the future of farming. I told him that I thought current economic thinking was a major cause of the lack of sustainability in American agriculture and that creating a sustainable agriculture would require a major change in economics. He agreed and commented that very few agricultural economists had been willing to work on organic farming, which had been the focus of the Rodale Center, and he doubted that many would be willing to support the LISA program. I told him I had lost confidence in conventional economic thinking and was recommitting my professional career to sustainable agriculture. I said I was going to create a new “economics of sustainability.” I can’t recall his specific response, it was something encouraging, but I doubt that he took me seriously.
Over the years, I had focused my professional career on several different priorities, including agricultural price determination, commodity futures markets, livestock price outlook, agricultural risk management, and farm policy. In each case, when I had learned as much as I thought I could learn about a subject, and done as much as I could to help others understand what I had learned, I had become bored and felt like I had moved on to a new challenge. I remember very distinctly saying to myself that night in Washington DC that the question of sustainability was big enough to challenge me for the rest of my life. And, it has!
During my seven years of working at least half-time for USDA, I had an opportunity to meet and talk with virtually everyone in the Land Grant University System who was working on sustainable agriculture at that time. I spent the last five years of my academic career providing leadership for a three-state program focused on sustainable community development funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Since retiring from MU, I have written six books, several book chapters and forewords, and a few journal articles, and made hundreds of public presentations, accompanied by presentation papers, many of which are posted online.
Sustainable Capitalism and The Essentials of Economic Sustainability relate most directly to my commitment to developing a new economics of sustainability. I have continued learning and teaching, some say preaching, the gospel or good of sustainability. My understanding of deep sustainability has been informed and confirmed by many others through reading, listening, reflecting, and sharing ideas and perceptions one-on-one. Quoting Robert Pirsig, from Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.[xii]
“What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications that we have with other men [sic], we receive from them ready-made harmonious reasoning. We know that these reasonings did not come from us and at the same time, we recognize in them, because of their harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same things as we; thus, it is that we know we haven’t been dreaming. It is this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can ever know.”
I first began to understand the differences between deep and shallow sustainability in 2009, while co-teaching a four-week course in economic sustainability in the Sustainable Living Department at Maharishi International University in Fairfield Iowa. My co-instructor was Lonnie Gamble, who has since become a close personal friend as well as a continuing intellectual colleague. Lonnie has a long history of entrepreneurship related to sustainable energy and at the time was living off the grid in a straw bale house he had constructed a few miles outside of town.
During the course, we began developing and teaching our shared understanding of the worldview of sustainability as a nested hierarchy, which views human society as a part of nature, wholly contained or nested within nature, and the economy as a part of society, wholly contained within society. Within nested hierarchies, the purpose of lower levels is derived from higher levels—society from nature, the economy from society. The potential or possibilities of higher levels depend on lower levels—society on the economy, nature on society. Nature might be able to survive without humanity and humans might survive without economies, but the potentials of both nature and humanity would be limited. Sustainability is dependent on economies, societies, and nature functioning in harmony.
Lonnie and I continued our collaboration after my wife and I moved to Fairfield in 2012. This is when I met Travis Cox who was employed as an instructor at Maharishi University while completing a Ph.D. degree in sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University. Travis’ dissertation supervisor was Fred Kirchenmann, a leader in organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Fred is a farmer as well as a professor in the College of Agriculture with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He was the ideal advisor for Travis, whose research focused on applying the ideas of “transpersonal psychology” to agricultural sustainability. I have known Fred since the early days of the sustainable agriculture movement. He asked me if I would be willing to serve as an “outside dissertation advisor” for Travis and meet with him periodically as he finished his dissertation. During these discussions with Travis, I gained a much deeper understanding of sustainability, particularly of integral ecology as it relates to the innate connectedness of humans with the other elements of their natural environment.
Lonnie, Travis, and I co-hosted a couple of multi-day workshops or mini-conferences shortly after I moved to Fairfield and we continued our discussions, frequently at the local Cedar Valley Winery. Our conversations ultimately resulted in a shared vision of what we called “deep sustainability.” We articulated our vision in a paper that we posted online and placed in the “creative commons” to keep it freely available to everyone. In the paper, we recognized the contributions to our thinking of others who had developed similar ideas. We invited readers to share in the future development of the principles and tenets of deep sustainability. Since then, others have used the term deep sustainability to challenge various aspects of contemporary approaches to sustainable development. This book, however, is rooted in the worldview of deep sustainability expressed in that paper, Deep Sustainability: The Essentials.[xiii]
My perspectives on deep sustainability are still rooted in many stimulating hours of post-retirement collaboration with Lonnie Gamble and Travis Cox in Fairfield IA. However, my thinking has continued to evolve during the years since our “essentials” paper was posted. I gladly share credit for the ideas we have developed together but I accept full responsibility for what I call “my truth”—meaning what I personally believe to be true. My truth is based on my unique personal experiences and perspectives, which obviously are somewhat different from those of anyone else. However, I am more firmly convinced than ever that what we as a society are doing and have been doing is not sustainable. We simply can’t continue doing what we have been doing—not indefinitely. The good news is that we can create a sustainable agriculture, a sustainable economy, a sustainable society, and a more desirable quality of life—if we are willing to rethink just about everything.
Endnotes;
[1] This introduction is taken in large part from a paper by the author and colleagues: John Ikerd, Lonnie Gamble, and Travis Cox, “Deep Sustainability; The Essentials,” https://sites.google.com/site/sustainabilitydeep/ .
[i] Britannica, n.d., “cogito, ergo sum, https://www.britannica.com/topic/de-facto
[ii] Wikipedia, “ephemeralization,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeralization
[iii] John Ehrenfeld, Flourishing; A Frank Conversation about Sustainability, Stanford University Press; 1st edition (May 15, 2013).
[iv] Encyclopedia Britannica, New Testament, Updated July 22, 2023, “Gospel,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-New-Testament
[v] Merriam Webster Dictionary, n.d. “Gospel, noun,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gospel .
[vi] Wikipedia, updated July 23, 2023, “Absolute Truth,” https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_truth .
[vii] Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Sustainable,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustainable .
[viii] Wikipedia, “Evangelical Environmentalism,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_environmentalism .
[ix] NYU-STERN, June 2, 2023, “Sustainability Evangelist,” https://www.stern.nyu.edu/portal-partners/alumni/alumni-news-profiles/news/sustainability-evangelist
[x] Monica M. Emerich, 2011 The Gospel of Sustainability: Media, Market, and LOHAS,
Published by: University of Illinois Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcnvn .
[xi] Ten Eyck, Spring 2012, Review of The Gospel of Sustainability: Media, Market, and LOHAS. By Monica M. Emerich, Great Plains Research; A Journal of Natural and Social Science, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2222&context=greatplainsresearch .
[xii] Robert Persig. 1974. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Bantam Books, Doubleday/Dell Publishing,New York, NY. (p. 241).
[xiii] John Ikerd, Lonnie Gamble, and Travis Cox, “Deep Sustainability; The Essentials,” https://sites.google.com/site/sustainabilitydeep/ .