Today’s post is by regular contributor, Richard Jurin. Before his retirement, Richard led the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, where he launched a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily shared by NAEE.
Whenever I talk about new metrics, I am inevitably faced with disdain, even derision. An inability to consider a complete change in our thinking and how we live, and especially the metrics that rule our lives is especially difficult. Our modern world runs on Quantitative metrics; what gets quantified gets our attention, e.g., GDP and Standard of Living, Unfortunately, what is important and Qualitative most often gets overlooked or ignored, e.g., Quality of Life. Objective information is preferable to subjective information, because it is more easily and quickly obtained and doesn’t require extensive explanation to justify its conclusions. When we make assumptions about how variables are connected, we can get data for quick action with quantitative metrics. However, the questions asked are based on those assumptions and not the true questions that require qualitative metrics.
Read, I mean really read, Adam Smith’s books on Economics (first published in 1759 and 1776), and it becomes clear that he considered economics a qualitative science, much like sociology, history, or psychology. For a science that involves numbers, this made classic economists envious of their hard science colleagues (e.g., chemists, physicists, biologists) with their derivable equations to explain physical phenomena. In the early 1800s, in order to address economic phenomena, economists adopted and adapted hard science equations. But the adaptations still didn’t account for many of the variables inherent in economic theory. As such many inconvenient variables were ignored or simply explained away as non-essential ‘externalities.’ While the basis for our current market economy is over 500 years old, in the last two centuries at least, banks, governments, and corporate entities, have determined the quantitative metrics we use to determine success at all levels in our global society. But that ‘success’ is inherently economic success, which ignores the variables we need to show true quality of life and a positive state of the biosphere. In essence, our current economic metrics are a root cause of global ecological issues and continuing human misery.
A true sustainable community is not a money-making machine; it is a collection of people living and working together within a specific ecosystem for maximal well-being of all people and the environment. As such, all metrics should reflect measurement of that interconnectivity. Science is but a process for understanding observable phenomena, and what happens with decisions based on that science is sociological and philosophical. Technology is the application of that science, but economic considerations, more often than not, take initial priority over philosophical considerations of health and risk. Likewise, money is but a tool for collecting the resources together to facilitate community action and policies, it is not an item that describes human well-being, no matter how many assumptions are made to link the quantitative metrics to the Qualitative factors.
In 1985, Carl Sagan asked a simple question: “If we spent $10 trillion preparing for a war (the Cold War) that never came… why wouldn’t we invest in preventing a climate disaster that surely will?” He wasn’t just talking about climate. He was talking about our civilization. Action for climate and a sustainable world isn’t just about hope. It’s about prudence. Mitigation and adaptation aren’t radical; they’re responsible – we have to empower ourselves and each other. And the cost of inaction? It’s Existential. It is up to each of us to make choices from a place of individual sovereignty. Much of modern humanity suffers from ‘Cause’ blindness – Focusing on symptoms not causes – we rarely discuss ROOT CAUSES. Symptoms are easier to measure so we focus on them preferentially. What we measure is what we focus upon. When the primary focus is money, everything will be determined by money.
The Sagan quote highlights this problem – war and preparation for war generate immense economic profits for mega corporate systems and continue human aggression and violence against each other and the natural world – it’s the best economic business model. Adaptation and mitigation for resolving ecological issues decrease profits because better and safer technologies – even elimination of currently profitable yet harmful technologies – cost more. Any meaningful change, as I mentioned in my last post, has to occur at the grassroots level. It’s the only place where meaningful metrics will be enacted that are grounded in true Quality-of-Life variables.
Many organizations discuss measuring ‘well-being’ (aka. QOL) but inevitably these discussions are always crouched within an economic framework. Hence it comes down to living well within a material-consumer mindset. To be globally sustainable we have to transcend material-consumerism, which is inevitably based on an economic framework, not a ‘well-being’ framework that addresses all humanity and the natural world.
An existing model that already promotes these necessary kinds of metrics can be found in the small Himalayan Country of Bhutan. The nine primary domains of Bhutan’s National Gross National Happiness (GNH) Indices are values changing and immediately applicable to any governing system: 1) Psychological well-being, 2) Health, 3) Time use, 4) Education, 5) Cultural diversity and resilience, 6) Good governance, 7) Community vitality, 8) Ecological diversity and resilience, and, 9) Living standards. This is but one model, yet it readily encompasses QOL factors we can all agree upon as we modify and meld them to work in our own localized communities.
To Be Continued …………
Richard can be contacted at: richardjurin@gmail.com