Supply-Side Sustainability

Supply-Side Sustainability (T.F.H. Allen, Joseph A.Tainter, and Thomas W. Hoekstra) is a good place to begin our review of books.

Allen, Tainter, and Hoekstra's supply-side sustainability bears no resemblance to the trickle-down, supply-side economics of the Reagan era (seemingly in vogue once-again today, although wrapped up in "free market" rhetoric). Instead the book helps us better understand how far we need to go to begin to embrace sustainability as an ordering principle for civilization. And it helps us to get a feel for what we might do to slow our progress away from what we might call a path to sustainability, as well as what we might do to approach such.

When developing principles for ecosystem management in public lands management, we learned that we must work across various spatial and temporal scales in order to begin to get a better grasp on the wicked problems we face. Confucius knew this well and said something like, "Those who give no thought to that which is distant will find trouble close at hand." We seem to be living in a whole society that has forgotten ancient wisdom.

In public lands ecosystem management, we used to talk of looking up a scale to address context and down a scale to address contribution of various ecosystem or social systems components in complex adaptive systems. In Supply-Side Sustainability, the authors admonish us to look up a scale for both context AND management.

In particular the authors focus on roles of hierarchy and complexity in sustaining ecological systems, human societies, and problem solving. They argue that being sustainable consists, in part, of using approaches that:

• Manage for productive systems rather than for their outputs.
  
• Manage systems by managing their contexts.
  
• Identify what dysfunctional systems lack and supply only that.
  
• Deploy ecological processes to subsidize management efforts, rather than conversely.
  
• Understand the problem of diminishing returns to problem solving.

Allen, Tainter, and Hoekstra say that,

We will achieve sustainability when it becomes a transparent outcome of managing the contexts of production and consumption rather than consumption itself. If we shift our management emphasis to managing from the context for whole ecosystem functions, rather than for resources, the cost of problem solving will diminish and the effectiveness of management greatly increase. When a manager gets the context right, the ecosystem does the rest. Because the material ecosystem supplies renewable resources and makes them renewable, we call our approach supply-side sustainability. (p. 14)

At the first international conference on Ecological Economics, educator Mary Clark suggested that our culture needed to undergo what she termed a Gestalt Shift. Specifically, Clark suggested that we need to reorient our cultural focus away from growth and development and toward sustainability. And we needed new economic and new ecological thinking to help us get there. Allen, Tainter, and Hoekstra’s Supply-Side Sustainability is a beginning.

Back in 1990, when I attended the first Ecological Economics conference I believed we had a better short-term chance than I do now of that cultural reorientation. But the world works in mysterious ways and we may be closer now than then, with but a generation-long crisis needed to trigger a cultural reawakening—which is the subject matter, in part, of The Fourth Turning.

Note: This first appeared June 7, 2005 on Econ Dreams - Econ Nightmares

Comments

[Tracy W]

"Manage for productive systems rather than for their outputs.

Manage systems by managing their contexts.

Identify what dysfunctional systems lack and supply only that.

Deploy ecological processes to subsidize management efforts, rather than conversely.

Understand the problem of diminishing returns to problem solving."

I think if we must do all this to be sustainable, humanity is going to collapse. I don't think us humans know enough about the planet to operationalise such vague instructions.

I'm sorry, but this is my problem with a lot of ecological economics' writing. It is so vague. What happens once I understand the problem of diminishing returns to problem solving? How does one manage a context? What would an ecological process deployed to subsidise management efforts look like, and how could I distinguish it from management efforts deployed to subsidise an ecological process?

[Tracy W]

On thinking about it, I should make myself more clear. I don't think us humans have the mental capacity to do such things as "identify what dysfunctional systems lack and supply only that."

Think about it. Ecological systems change continually, and in NZ at least the change is not being driven purely by human factors. Plus it is very difficult to make a decision that clearly maximises outcomes against more than one criteria when you can't measure the criteria (there are of course mathematical techniques that can be applied if your criteria are strictly mathematical).

For example, in NZ possums are an environmental problem because they eat native trees and other vegetation and don't have a natural predator. However, we don't just want to kill possums to save native trees, we also want to protect endangered species of NZ birds. Many of these species are endangered because they are flightless so they are therefore vulnerable to introduced predators like rats and stoats who eat their eggs (and sometimes them). So how do you supply something that kills possums, and rats, and stoats, and etc, but none of the good things you really care about? And how do you *know* ahead of time that it will only kill the bad things?

I don't have an answer, which is why I have problems with glib answers like "identify what dysfunctional systems lack and supply only that."

[Dave Iverson]

Tracy W.

One of the things you do is to try to think a bit about the complex systems you are embedded in, and try to work with them instead of against them. People have to quit basing so much on blind faith, simple cause/effect reasoning, and reductionistic logic.

Another thing to do is to remember Garrett Hardin's first law of ecology -- You can never do just one thing! -- and attempt to apply the precautionary principle in suggesting remedies to problems.

Read a few books and see what you think for yourself. But be careful not to fall into the "disciples trap" of believing what you hear from ideological preachers, as Garrett Hardin warned in FILTERS AGAINST FOLLY: HOW TO SURVIVE DESPITE ECONOMISTS, ECOLOGISTS, OR THE MERELY ELOQUENT. Hardin's book reviewed in this PDF: http://www.zoology.wisc.edu/courses/220/readings/Hardin/Filters_Against_Folly.pdf

It's all very hard to do, hard to even conceptualize. But that doesn't mean we ought to turn a blind eye, or knowingly use half-blind theory without at least admitting our ignorance. That's why we champion cross-disciplinary discussions: to help illuminate all sides of issues and contexts to aid in policy making.

Finally, as I mentioned before, I and other contributors here do not discount the potential for governments to do evil. In fact we work to daylight abuses in all forms of concentrated power. For example, I helped found two environmental ethics groups to try to keep the US government a bit more honest:

Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) - http://fseee.org/
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) - http://peer.org/

[Tracy W]

"One of the things you do is to try to think a bit about the complex systems you are embedded in, and try to work with them instead of against them. People have to quit basing so much on blind faith, simple cause/effect reasoning, and reductionistic logic."

That's useful advice. *sarcasm on* I mean, I run across so many people who say they are in favour of "blind faith, simple cause/effect reasoning and reductionistic logic" when it comes to managing the environment. *sarcasm off*

It's relatively easy to think a bit about the complex systems I am embeddded in, but if I don't simply want to think, but to come up with the right ways to manage them then that's difficult. E.g. lots of people have been thinking about how to manage possums in NZ for the last twenty years and we still don't have a solution that only fixes that problem without causing or worsening others. The problem isn't a failure to think, the problem is a failure to get a solution.

"-- You can never do just one thing! -- and attempt to apply the precautionary principle in suggesting remedies to problems." Again, that's nice to remember those things, but that doesn't help tell me what should be done about possums if we're going to be managing "for productive systems rather than for their outputs." Except that as far as I can tell, when it comes to the possum problem, the precautionary principle implies we shouldn't change anything from what's happening now as we can never prove that the change has no risk of making anything worse.

"It's all very hard to do, hard to even conceptualize. But that doesn't mean we ought to turn a blind eye, or knowingly use half-blind theory without at least admitting our ignorance." Agree. But vague proclamations about "If we shift our management emphasis to managing from the context for whole ecosystem functions, rather than for resources, the cost of problem solving will diminish and the effectiveness of management greatly increase. " do not help in doing this conceptualizing.

Meanwhile, an idea like "If you want to reduce production of a pollutant, then an effective way to do so is to tax it" is useful. It may be useless in a particular situation (e.g. how do you tax possums in NZ? Our IRD isn't that good.) But it does give an option that a policy-maker can consider. And if you put a tax on something, at least I have a fighting chance of identifying that the substance has been taxed, unlike if you "deploy ecological processes to subsidize management efforts, rather than conversely".

Glad to hear you're worrying about governments too.

As for your books, what useful ideas do they offer about the possum problem?

[Dave Iverson]

I'll think more on the "possum problem" this weekend, assuming that I'm not too preoccupied with things more fun. I find it an interesting exercise in bioethics, a problem of "You can never do just one thing," as well as a problem of maybe you can't even do one thing effectively.

I think of the US problems of invasive species with names like "Starlings," "Knapweed," "Dyers Wode," "Leafy Spurge," "Tamarisk," and so on.. Maybe we'll find an ecologist to chime in before I blast of with some outer-space thoughts of my own.

[Dave Iverson]

Tracy W. (on various things)

In your earliest reply to this post you said, "I'm sorry, but this is my problem with a lot of ecological economics' writing. It is so vague. What happens once I understand the problem of diminishing returns to problem solving? How does one manage a context? What would an ecological process deployed to subsidise management efforts look like, and how could I distinguish it from management efforts deployed to subsidise an ecological process?"

And the problem on the other side of the divide is people frame problems too clearly, too narrowly, and allow themselves and others to jump to conclusions that are inappropriate give full contextual consideration.

So there you have the central dilemma of social science as framed by W.W. Mills in "The Sociological Imagination" : How does one not fall off the razor's edge on one side into "grand theory" (too vague, too much context, etc) OR, on the other side, "abstracted empiricism" (too narrow context, wherein the problem has slipped away as one frames up a problem that they can actually solve with tools of the trade).

Later you said: "Meanwhile, an idea like 'If you want to reduce production of a pollutant, then an effective way to do so is to tax it' is useful. It may be useless in a particular situation…"

NOTE: I am a fiscal conservative (as well a social liberal in some things) and rail against abusive government "borrow and spend" and "tax and spend" schemes in much of my writing, particularly on my Economic Dreams... blog. So it should be no big shock that I agree with this and support levying taxes both to discourage social "bads" and to raise money to fund government. In both cases legislatures need to deliberate as to what constitutes public interest in whatever they deem "bad" or "good."

Also, legislatures and administrations have to work to hold government program managers accountable for what they do. This is particularly hard in organizations that have multiple and conflicting mandates, but needs to be done nevertheless—when framed in "appropriate" context what organizations do not have multiple and conflicting mandates? All one has to do is to add the words "social responsibility" to any organization's mission statement to see the problem. Still there are means to talk-through and work-through accountability without resorting to nonsense reductionism.

I an earlier comment you said: "Think about it. Ecological systems change continually, and in NZ at least the change is not being driven purely by human factors. Plus it is very difficult to make a decision that clearly maximises outcomes against more than one criteria when you can't measure the criteria…."

Here you hit on that main point of having conversations. If people can't agree on metrics, if they can't reduce the ambiguity in any one mind or across minds ordered by ideology, theology, or whatever, maybe the best you can do is to talk—about problem and resolution framing and much more. There is a whole body of literature devoted to "wicked problems" that is relevant. I remember hearing that democracies are "temples of talk." And that is what I argue for: Talking things through. Beyond the talk, agreements that includes science and reason are things I hope for. Relying solely on faith-based policy and program development are things I fear will lead us astray (individually and in variously formed collectives).

As to Possums: All that we can hope for w/r/t "possums" and other "invasives" is that we can learn to deal with them without destroying more in the process of applying "fixes" than we do by letting them be. To do that will take science in conversation with politics, and both in conversation with government program managers, for-profit organizations, not-for-profit organizations, and "the people" generally. This is the stuff of adaptive management, working politics, and more.

[Tracy W]

As someone who has worked in the NZ government, I do not think that our real problem is a lack of talking. Massive amounts of hot air have been spent in NZ on a wide range of environmental problems. If ecological economics' advice is simply that we need to talk, it's rather redundant. It's as if doctors restricted themselves to reminding us that we need to breathe on a regular basis.

Even possible solutions would be much more useful. (And by solutions, I do not mean vague idealisations such as "Manage systems by managing their contexts.")