Kyra Majewski

Professor Curren
PHL 230W
24 April 2020
Final Essay Prompt #1

The international climate crisis is becoming an increasing threat to life on the planet and

the planet itself as the proliferation of technology and use of fossil fuels continue. Solutions

involve restructuring societies around sustainability and sustainable practices, extending far

beyond renewable energy sources. This would include reformation of institutions, accountability,

and perspective, all of which significantly impact culture, and our cultural dependence on

extraction of natural resources and environmental degradation.

I will define what definition of ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’ will be used throughout

this paper. The art of sustainability is defined by Randall Curren and Ellen Metzger as

“preserving the opportunity to live well into the future,” meaning a life of fulfillment according

to ethical principles of justice.1 The definition is broken down even further to involve both

compatibility with the ecology of the environment as well as the resources the environment

provides. These two subtypes are labeled “ecological sustainability,” and “throughput

sustainability.”2 In greater detail, ecological sustainability involves the ability of a society to

function without disruption of the ecological stability of the environment. Throughput

sustainability requires that the consumption of humans be compatible with the capacity of

resources the environment can spare. When the term ‘sustainable’ is used, it will refer to both of

these definitions, unless otherwise specified.

Problems of implementing the principle of sustainability are largely problems of

incomplete preferences of various actors, meaning nonlinear priorities comprised of irrational

1 Randall Curren and Ellen Metzger, Living Well Now and in the Future (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2017), xv.
2 Curren & Metzger, Living Well, 8-9.
choices. Capitalism is the root cause of these disorderly preferences, as profit, influence, and

power primarily dominate decision-making, rather than the health of the environment and the

longevity of our practices. Immediate profit with the smallest possible cost is in direct conflict

with sustainability and the preservation of the earth. The development of a capitalist world into

coordinated sustainable systems requires that the preferences of those in power be coordinated

and rational, as well as universally just. There is enough difficulty in aligning choices and goals

of governments, private organizations, industry, and the public, but the increased demand for

justice as an integral aspect of sustainability introduces an entirely new set of challenges

regarding what justice entails and what actor(s) bears responsibility for existing injustice.

Crucial to the implementation of sustainable practices is the concept of justice.

Governing society and industry without justice results in harms to human and environmental

health, and is conducive to the perpetuation of unsustainable living. Contemporary philosopher

John Rawls clearly defines justice with his two principles of justice, found in “Justice as

Fairness: A Restatement.” In summary, Rawls’ first principle of justice states that everyone

should have equal access to an undeniable set of basic liberties. The second principle is broken

down into two parts: social and economic inequalities only exist when they accompany different

occupations to which everyone has equal access to try and hold, and these inequalities are to the

benefit of the worst-off in society (known as the difference principle).3 In order for the principles

of justice to be satisfied, an individual's basic liberties need to be fulfilled, many of which require

a human right to health in order to live well, a concept defended by contemporary philosopher

Johnathan Wolff, amongst others.4 The human right to health is being violated at the hands of

governments and corporations seeking to maximize capital. Many populations are left vulnerable

3 Rawls, J., & Kelly, E. (2001). Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Bleknap Press of Harvard University Press. 42-43
4 Johnathan Wolff, “The Content of the Human Right to Health,” Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (January, 2015), 491–501.
to these actions as well, ranging from Pacific Islanders who rely on the predictability of the

ocean to poor members of industrial societies who are subjected to toxic externalities of

industrialism. One example of this environmental injustice can be examined in the case of Flint

Michigan described in the NOVA documentary, Poisoned Water. The local government was fully

aware of the lead content in their new water system and how harmful it’s ingestion is to human

health. However, because of the money saved using poorly treated water from Flint River, they

continued to deliberately deceive and harm their residents with claims that the water was

completely safe.5 Similarly, in Libby, Montana, a large mining company failed to acknowledge

that what they knew to be asbestos was harming the town and went as far as to lie about the

contamination of the mines,6 demonstrating a clear case of detrimental reliance. Prioritizing

government money and corporate profit at the expense the human right to health is unjust and the

appropriate parties need to be held responsible, comparable to the large global climate crisis.

Despite the far-reaching, universal nature of climate destabilization, there is a significant

lack of unified global strategy to address it. One of the major focuses of climate action is the

preservation of sustainable water sources while still providing access to safe water for all. The

United Nations has attempted to lay legal groundwork for this with the adoption of the human

right to water by several countries in 2010.7 An appropriate and successful attempt of sustainable

water governance was observed in the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, where an abundant

source of fresh water was being diverted for various uses, resulting in destruction of the basin’s

ecology. To combat this damage and preserve this water source, the Australian government

introduced the Basin Plan in 2012, which limited the amount of water that could be diverted

from the river for economic uses by 70%, while not negatively impacting agriculture in a

5 “Poisoned Water,” NOVA, PBS (May 10, 2017).

6 Schwarze, Steve. “The Silences and Possibilities of Asbestos Activism: Stories from Libby and Beyond,” 169.
7 Maude Barlow, “The Fight for the Right to Water,” in Blue Future (The New Press, 2014), 20-32.
significant manner.8 This demonstrated the capabilities of a national, systemic water

management. However, despite the success of these actions of governance of the Murray-Darling

Basin, it is important that we consider the cultural and governmental context in which these

events were able to take place. This is not a universal solution to the world’s diminishing fresh

water problems, but an example of what can be adapted to similar situations. Political scientists,

politicians, and governments may note the strategy taken by the Australian government and

realize its utility, but not forcibly implement it in places where it is not appropriate, or even

damaging to the environment.

The largest obstacle to sustainability, described in depth in Curren and Metzger’s

“Obstacles to Sustainability” chapter of Living Well Now and in the Future, is the problem of

social coordination, outlined earlier.9 The existence of conflicting interests among industry,

government, and the public is nothing new, but it is in the context of addressing climate change

and sustainability that the true complexity of these interests are made clear. With the stability of

governments reliant on economic prosperity and the short-term perspective of elected officials

within a democracy, it is incredibly difficult to coordinate the interests of nations toward long-

term systemic change that could destabilize economies in the short term. If agreements are

reached, it is beneficial to a nation, in the short term, to defect from these agreements and

continue a way of life that jeopardizes the climate, yet ensures economic stability. Some argue

that it is the responsibility of governments to provide market-based price incentives to encourage

industries to limit pollution, most often done through instituting a variety of taxes or charges to

internalize the costs of what are usually externalities. It can’t be expected of industry to

internalize these costs on their own, and as some of the primary polluters, it is the government’s

8 Curren & Metzger, Living Well, 143.

9 Curren & Metzger, Living Well, 28.
duty to limit some of the harm done by industry. As different countries have contributed at

varying levels to climate change, it exacerbates the difficulty of coordinating efforts to address

climate change, as highly industrialized countries recognize their just responsibility to pay higher

costs than countries that have contributed less to climate change. This is known as the polluter-

pays principle. There are a variety of perspectives held on the subject, the main cause of debate

being whether or not it is the undeniable responsibility of a centralized power, such as a national

government, to facilitate regulation of common pool resources. Elinor Ostrom believes in a

different approach concentrated on polycentrism, meaning local governance of resources to

promote a sustainable system.10 This contrasts with the actions observed at the Murray-Darling

Basin, but it doesn’t necessarily contradict Ostrom’s research. A viable solution may be to avoid

any universal solution altogether, and delegate authority based on individual situations and

environments. While national effort was necessary in Australia, Ostrom’s local governance may

be what is most appropriate in other places. Polycentrism is an incredible useful concept that

must be kept in consideration when developing climate policy.

The true nature of the current and future state of our world is made incredibly clear in

“The Energy-Complexity Spiral” written by Tainter and Patzek. They discuss the need for

civilization to complexify, and the subsequent energy needed to do so, followed by the need to

complexify further to maintain a steady energy supply, which then results in an energy-

complexity spiral with diminishing returns and sure destruction of finite natural resources.11 This

complexity is often destructive, manifesting in large corporations as ‘structural blindness,’

observed on a destructive scale with BP Oil and the spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.12

10 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: the Evolutions of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).
11 Joseph A. Tainter and T.W. Patzek. “The Energy-Complexity Spiral,” in Drilling Down (New York: Springer Press, 2012), 93.
12 Margaret Heffernan, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” in Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril (New York: Walker &
Company, 2011), 168-169.
Higher-ranking members of the company were completely unaware of the malfunction of the oil

rig in the Gulf, resulting in mismanaged chaos and one of the biggest man-made environmental

disasters ever. Tainter and Patzek acknowledge the relationship between complexity and the BP

Oil spill as well, conveying just how unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels is, and the diminishing

returns of drilling for oil.13 Industrialized civilization’s dependency on diminishing resources is a

wicked problem, meaning a problem with many causes and no clear solution.14 The complexity

of this reliance, as well as the reasoning behind preferences, requires an equally complex attempt

to address it, aligning with the research of Elinor Ostrom’s polycentrism, and the inability of one

solution to completely cover all aspects of the problem.

The complexity of the problem of sustainability must be reflected in its solution. In order

to achieve both ecological and throughput sustainability, as well as a system that operates on

principles of justice and fairness, there must be greater availability of truthful information. Allen

Buchanan discusses the importance of an epistemic society in a sustainable future. An educated

society is achieved through the establishment of epistemic institutions that disseminate truthful

information, so as to not deceive or confuse the public.15 It is the responsibility of the

government to be an unbiased, independent authority in a sustainable, free from arbitrary

partisan obligations that often fail to be truthful. Addressing climate change and environmental

health should not depend on certain government parties while others actively work to undermine

these truths and maintain popularity among supporters. Any benefit to climate change-deniers

will quickly diminish as environmental health worsens, affecting the well-being of the public, the

productivity and profit of industry, and the legitimacy of government. Even in well-educated

societies, like the one Karie Norgaard examines in Living in Denial, suffer from the inability to
13 Joseph A. Tainter and T.W. Patzek. “The Significance of Oil in the Gulf of Mexico,” in Drilling Down (New York: Springer Press, 2012), .
14 Sandra S. Batie, Wicked Problems and Applied Economics (Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, 2008), 1.
15 Allen Buchanan, “Political Liberalism and Social Epistemology,” in Philosophy & Public Affairs (New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
99.
have meaningful discussions about how to address climate change when institutions do not

provide a conducive platform to do so.16 The coordination of preferences is heavily reliant on the

truth. Therefore, it should be the responsibility and priority of the able public to seek out the

truth and hold the government accountable, and to vote and lobby. It is the responsibility of

industry to see past short-term economic trends when engaging with climate change, and not to

bully the government away from climate policy. The long-term harm of climate destabilization

must be made known and must govern the decision of governments, industry, and the public in a

way that results in just policy and climate reparations.

In order to create conditions in which individual rational choices add up to collectively

rational choices that enable people to live well now and in the future, economic influences over

the various actors need to be evaluated, as fear of economic destabilization seems to be the

greatest contributor to irrational preferences and collective action problems. The importance of

epistemic societies cannot be undervalued either, as making known the true past, present, and

future costs of climate change will help to align the interests of competing powers and establish a

framework on which to develop climate policy.

Works Cited

Barlow, Maude. “The Fight for the Right to Water.” In Blue Future. The New Press, 2014.

Batie, Sandra S. “Wicked Problems and Applied Economics.” American Journal of Agricultural

Economics 90, no. 5 (2008): 1176–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8276.2008.01202.x.

Buchanan, Allen. “Political Liberalism and Social Epistemology,” in Philosophy & Public

Affairs. New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Curren, Randall and Ellen Metzger. Living Well Now and in the Future. Massachusetts: The MIT

Press, 2017.

16 Kari Marie Norgaard, Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2011).
Heffernan, Margaret. “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” in Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the

Obvious at Our Peril. New York: Walker & Company, 2011.

Norgaard, Kari Marie. Living in Denial Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.

“Poisoned Water.” NOVA. PBS, May 10, 2017.

Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: the Evolutions of Institutions for Collective Action.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Rawls, J., & Kelly, E. (2001). Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Bleknap

Press of Harvard University Press.

Schwarze, Steven. “Silences and Possibilities of Asbestos Activism: Stories from Libby and

Beyond.” Environmental Justice and Environmentalism, 2007.

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2781.003.0011.

Tainter, Joseph A. and T.W. Patzek. “The Energy-Complexity Spiral,” in Drilling Down. New

York: Springer Press, 2012.

---. “The Significance of Oil in the Gulf of Mexico,” in Drilling Down. New York: Springer

Press, 2012.

Wolff, Jonathan. “The Content of the Human Right to Health.” Philosophical Foundations of

Human Rights, January 2015, 491–501.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199688623.003.0028.