Sustainable Societies: Transition from theories to practice

Front matter

Mahendra Sethi

Sustainable Societies: Transition from theories to practice

Technische p Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin cert i :

Preface

We are living in challenging times for the planet earth and human development. In search of authentic ideas and viewpoints that can steer sustainable transformations, this book navigates through a multitude of ideas, concepts and principles. Certain theories considered specific and intrinsic to the knowledge of any particular discipline, that tends to blur the focal thought of this research for an uninitiated or inter-disciplinary audience to fully comprehend have purposely been omitted. These include demand and supply theories in economics like The Principles of Economics (Marshall 1890), the theory of biological evolution and natural selection in The Origin of Species (Darwin 1859), the likes of of Idealism in philosophy as well as similar puritan theories in psychology-anthropology, political science, international relations and global trade that are ancillary to the subject. In particular, politically enthused constructs like Social Darwinism, Feminism and Cultural Marxism have not been considered.

Concepts promoted through international conventions and policies like the Millennium Development Goals or the Sustainable Development Goals for which aplenty of awareness and data exists have deliberately been excluded. Certain umbrella terms like ‘Development Theory’ are not used or studied as such in this book, but instead its key concepts like the structural model, linear stages of economic growth and the basic needs approach have been thoroughly considered individually.

The most investing but interesting task while compiling and presenting different theories was to deal with the some of the most inter-disciplinary concepts like the Garden City movement, Neighourhood Unit, Ecological Systems Theory, Diffusion of Innovations and few others. How do you classify these? Do these pertain more to the environment discipline, sociology or economics? In fact, these exactly lie between the inter-spatial scopes of either environment-society, society-economy or economyenvironment. Thus, upon a careful consideration of their relevance in further contributing to the thought of a discipline, these have been suitably classified. This is only a subjective and perfunctory classification and

V practitioners and students of sustainability should not consider this as sacrosanct by any means. This further encourages me to ask the readers to study the book with an open mind. In case of any comments, suggestions, queries or noticed aberrations, they can feel free to communicate. I hope this book instils knowledgeable insights in unfolding sustainability and greater commitment and energy in contributing to its actualization in public policies, community programmes and development projects.

Marshall, A. (1890). Principles of Economics. London: Macmillan.

Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. J. Murray.

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Acknowledgements

I owe gratitude to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the gracious research fellowship. The fellowship period facilitated me to reflect on and deduce findings from my longstanding research in the inter-disciplinary field of sustainable societies. In doing so, the research gives an intellectual tribute to several German scholars and stalwarts, who have embellished thought process in modern societies.

I would like to acknowledge my host, Prof. (Dr) Felix Creutzig at the Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany for giving me sufficient academic time and space to work on this intensive project.

Special thanks is due to my postgraduate students at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi who contributed to the preliminary literature studies under the Strategies for Settlements course in 2018.

The continuous support of Technische Universitat Berlin Publications towards the book’s publishing and its open access dissemination is immensely acknowledged. Thanks to Ms Shreya, a planning student at the Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University for assisting in preparing most of the figures. Unless specifically mentioned, the source of the figure is the author.

I am grateful to my family members for backing me in this meticulous project.

The views presented by myself as the author of this extensive volume are objective, independent and without any influence or conflict of interest.

VII

List of Figures

Figure 1: The most fundamental and common representation of the sustainability concept

Figure 2: Conceptual diagram demonstrating disintegration of the sustainability model and surfacing of the intervening knowledge gaps

Figure 3: Theocentricism overwhelms the humanistic and environmental worldview

Figure 4: The determinism theory posits that environment determines cultural factors

Figure 5: The cultural factors in a region are selective to its environmental limits

Figure 6: The “Town-Country” magnet would provide all vital benefits of both town and country life

Figure 7: The concept of Garden City

Figure 8: The group of garden cities with respect to central city

Figure 9: The ecocentricism worldview considers all ecosystem entities Figure 10: The broad schema of the Neighbourhood Unit within a radius of ¥Y, mile

Figure 11: The Apron Diagram is often used to demonstrate Deep Ecology Figure 12: Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory

Figure 13: Relationship between the Working Class and the Capitalist Class under the Marxist theory

Figure 14: The Geddesian Triad of place, work and folk and the Outlook Tower in Edinburgh

Figure 15: The Valley Section Principle

Figure 16: Akin to the ecological pyramid, Park devised the societal pyramid that shows how human communities form ecological, economic, political and moral order

Figure 17: The Burgess Model or the Concentric Zone Model demonstrates how the communities settle evolve around the urban centre

Figure 18: The construct of “I” & “Me” is mutually contributing, helping to form an individual’s identity between the culture and its self-image

Figure 19: The knowledge in a society is often created by partially known facts or widely spread beliefs that generally forms the dominant public opinion

Figure 20: The deviance behaviour in a society can be understood by the means & goals criteria to justify it. The resulting permutations of this is characterized by conformity, ritualism, innovation, retreatism and/or rebellion

Figure 21: Ekistics is a combination of diverse disciplines in shaping human settlements

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Figure 22: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Figure 23: The Dynamic Hierarchy of Needs with respect to stages of personal development over time

Figure 24: Instead of creating grand speculations on social systems, the middle range theory is Keen to study actual problems that can be substantiated with empirical data

Figure 25: The diffusion of innovations curve (the percentage showing proportion of adopters), along with representation of the chasm in case of certain technologies

Figure 26: The Urban Information Model is a means to structure & classify layers of different information contained or flowing in networks crucial to realize smart cities

Figure 27: The theory of distribution explains how in steady state, the real wages will stagnate at subsistence level, the interest rate of capital will stay at zero and rents will maximize

Figure 28: The General Equilibrium Theory can be understood simply as an economy with two sectors, the household and the business, that works on exchange of goods and services (real flows) and monetary flow between these

Figure 29: According to the Harrod-Domar Model, growth occurs in a circular manner, increased investments leading to higher capital stocks, economic growth and savings

Figure 30: The Clark's sector model explains the sequential evolution of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors of economy.

Figure 31: The Lewis Structural Change Model of Growth is largely a labour equivalent to what Harrod-Domar model, arguing for increased savings and investments to usher growth in the manufacturing sector in under developed countries.

Figure 32: The Rostow’s Model demonstrates the five stages of development in a traditional society transforming into a high mass consumption economy

Figure 33: Simon Kuznets curve and the following EKC show how poverty and environmental degradation (pollution) diminish with prosperity

Figure 34: The evolution of different concepts and perspectives in the environmental system

Figure 35: Sustainable societies and their transformation should be visualized as a part of the co-evolutionary process of diverse interacting systems

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List of Tables

Table 1: The three intellectual stages (theological, metaphysical and positivism) of social progress

Table 2: The Geddesian Triad of place, work and folk Table 3: The distinction between unsustainable and sustainable societies

List of Boxes

Box 1: Principles of the Stockholm Declaration Box 2: The 17 SDGs to transform our world Box 3: A broad typology of sociological theories

Box 4: Descriptions of Co-benefits

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Contents

Preface V Acknowledgements VII List of figures VIII List of tables X List of boxes X Chapter 1

Introduction to Sustainable Societies 1 Background 1 Multiple Facets of Sustainability 5 Why are Sustainable Societies So Elusive? 8 Knowledge Gaps in Actualizing Sustainable Transitions 12 Research Questions 20 The Intent of This Research 23 Research Methodology 24 Practical and Academic Significance 29 Chapter 2

Environmental Theories & Principles 36 Theocentricism 36 Anthropocentrism 37 Catastrophism 38 Uniformitarianism 39 Environmental Determinism 40 Possibilism 42 Neo-determinism 44 Garden City Movement 46 Biocentrism Theory 49 Ecocentrism 51 Neighborhood Unit 52 Probabilism & Cultural Ecology 54 Environmentalism & Green Theory 55

Chapter 1 Introduction to Sustainable Societies Background

The national economic situation, rapidly changing societies, increasing environment pollution amidst global warming around us are some of the most burning topics in both day-to-day discussions, news and scholarly discourses. What we see are only the consequences of protracted actions, policies and decisions. The issues associated with these phenomena are highly complex that challenge a direct interpretation of their root causations, indications, results and long-term impacts. For instance, is the issue of managing natural resources for industry & business operations within a country an economic problem? Or is it an ecological one? Or rather a social one? Could it be resolved with theories and techniques of either of these fields? Well, the issue and its redressal requires a combination of all the three disciplines. And yet actions to integrate all of these fields have typically by-passed one or more.

We commonly observe that progressive solutions driven by industrial and economic concerns are known for processes disregarding nature, assuming those can be substituted by technological and management solutions. Projects inspired by natural conservation motives frequently overlook the economic aspects like financial feasibility, human enterprise and institutional arrangements that define relationships between nature and the society. Future proposals driven by social groups tend to behave as if individual rights of a local community are supreme devoid of any national economic and global environmental responsibility. Thus, the composite idea that unifies these speckled perspectives and objectives in environment, sociology and economics forms the core concept of sustainability.

The framework that has over the years most commonly explained the convergence of the three diverse spheres of disciplinary knowledge into sustainability is demonstrated in Figure 1.

Environment

Figure 1: The most fundamental and common representation of the sustainability concept Source: Johann Dréo / Translation: Pro bug catcher (https://commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Sustainable_development.svg), “Sustainable development”, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Sustainability has been a key slogan or agenda for governments, institutions, corporates, social-groups in the last three decades, ever since it became popular with the Brundtland Report (United Nations 1987). Here, it was outlined as a guiding principle for development, as in Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future (WCED 1987). What becomes obvious in this formulation is that sustainability has a particular temporality: it is a future-oriented model that is to take effect in the present. It stands as a societal goal that aspires to enable a common future hinging on today’s equilibrium between the consumption of resources and their conservation. In the time horizon of the present, sustainability is understood as a mode of action by means of which overexploitation of resources can be curbed and the developmental goal of resources security achieved (Neckel 2017). Itis further argued that social and ecological demands that are linked with the guiding principle of sustainable development, are much older than the Brundtland Report itself. By some accounts, the concept started gaining public currency with the Report for the Club of Rome in the 1970s. Yet only few experts would know that the pursuit of discerning sustainability has been an ongoing and evolving academic process (as a comprehensive investigation on theories from different fields in this book would reveal). For instance, the socialist movements in the 19th century were already demanding more social fairness and equality. The contemporary environmental movement began around 1962 in the USA with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Diekmann & Preisend6rfer 2001). The consciousness brought by the foundation of Earth day in 1970, the release of the Limits to Growth (1972) are also a fundamental aspect of a culture of Sustainability (Meadows 1972, Hirsch 1981), followed by the

Dag Hammarskjéld-Foundation’s document, namely What now? Another Development (1975) presented to the UN-General Assembly.

The first affirmative step in the evolution of global sustainability policy can be traced back to 1972, when national governments met in Stockholm for the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. The meeting agreed upon aDeclaration that contains 26 principles concerning the environment and development (see Box 1); an Action Plan with 109 recommendations, and a Resolution (Baylis & Smith 2005). One of the key issues that emerged from the conference was the recognition of poverty alleviation for protecting the environment. The Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhiin her seminal speech in the conference brought forward the connection between ecological management and poverty alleviation (Vidya 2017), and further motivated countries around the world to monitor environmental conditions as well as to create environmental ministries and agencies (Meyer et al. 1997, Linnér & Selin 2013).

Box 1: Principles of the Stockholm Declaration

Human rights must be asserted, apartheid and colonialism condemned Natural resources must be safeguarded The Earth's capacity to produce renewable resources must be maintained Wildlife must be safeguarded Non-renewable resources must be shared and not exhausted Pollution must not exceed the environment's capacity to clean itself Damaging oceanic pollution must be prevented Development is needed to improve the environment Developing countries therefore need assistance . Developing countries need reasonable prices for exports to carry out environmental management . Environment policy must not hamper development . Developing countries need money to develop environmental safeguards . Integrated development planning is needed . Rational planning should resolve conflicts between environment & development . Human settlements must be planned to eliminate environmental problems . Governments should plan their own appropriate population policies . National institutions must plan development of states' natural resources . Science and technology must be used to improve the environment . Environmental education is essential . Environmental research must be promoted, particularly in developing countries . States may exploit their resources as they wish but must not endanger others . Compensation is due to states thus endangered . Each nation must establish its own standards . There must be cooperation on international issues . International organizations should help to improve the environment . Weapons of mass destruction must be eliminated

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In 1983, the United Nations created the World Commission on Environment and Development (later known as the Brundtland Commission), which eventually defined sustainable development. In 1992, the first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, where the first agenda for Environment and Development, also known as Agenda 21, was developed and adopted. Thereafter, global policy discourse and academic interest in the topic has seen exponential growth as evident in scholarly research and publications (Wilkinson et al. 2001, Brandenburg et al. 2014, Carter and Rogers 2008). Gonzaleza et al. 2015 argues that sustainability has been defined in the triple bottom-line context where organizations should integrate economic, social and environmental objectives into their business strategies and seek to optimize the balance amongst these three dimensions (Székely and Knirsch (2005). By 2050, it is expected that mankind will probably consume three times its current annual consumption, or an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year (UNEP-IRP Report 2011), and the human civilizational progress would have to invariably address the impending challenges, through a sustainability led course. The concept of sustainable development offers a process of advancement that accommodates the needs of current and future generations while successfully integrating economic, social, and environmental considerations in decision making.

In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio+20, was held as a 20-year follow up to the UNCED. During its run-up, there were many discussions about the idea of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the Rio+20 Conference, a resolution known as “The Future We Want” was reached by member states (Vidya 2017) agreeing to key themes on poverty eradication, energy, water and sanitation, health, and human settlement. In January 2013, the 30- member UN General Assembly Open Working Group (OWG) on SDGs was established to identify its specific goals. After 13 sessions, the OWG submitted their proposal of 8 SDGs and 169 targets to the 68th session of the General Assembly in September 2014.

The SDGs were in fact developed to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which were about to end in 2015. Instead of merely approaching national development indices without environmental sustainability within a donor-recipient relationship, the new SDGs tend to involve development that meets global sustainability with collective participation by all member countries. As a process of ratification, on 25 September 2015, the 193 member countries of the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Development Agenda titled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. This agenda has 92 paragraphs, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the associated 169 targets and 232 indicators.

In the current discourse, sustainable development and sustainability are often used interchangeably. More often than not, sustainability is highly associated to ecological paradigm and the expression of environmental sustainability fundamentally underscores it. Similar emphasis is seen in the use of terms like economic sustainability and cultural sustainability. The local sustainability discourse stresses upon the significance of place and corporate sustainability on endurance of the individual or group of enterprises. Meanwhile, a sustainable society is largely understood as one that has learned to live within the boundaries established by ecological limits. In a nutshell, the idea of sustainability that rose as a gradual response to the modern industrialized paradigm, presents an alternative to immediate, short-sighted and consumptive behaviour.

Multiple Facets of Sustainability

Sustainable solutions are pursued by multiple groups, either a state, private enterprise, industry association, non-governmental organization, environmental group, etc. as a policy prescription packaged in seemingly technical terminologies (ban, subsidy, stakeholder participation, innovation, price cap, market liberalization, management plan) that tends to nurture their views. The view is not wrong by itself, it only presents an incomplete picture. How? The groups depend on insights, principles and conventional solutions from their own discipline or policy arena, that may be too simplistic or specific for a multifaceted and inter-twined sustainability problem to be dealt with.

Working within a particular knowledge domain, they neither question its key framing argument nor its scoping boundaries. The economist relies on free-market principles, the environmentalist on ecological & energy models while the social workers on theories of ethics, community interactions and organization. None of these ideologies in seclusion, can address a genuinely responsive pathway of innovations, technology, policy-making and management practice. There is dearth of a sustainable approach that

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acknowledges the potential and constraints between environmental, social and economic aspects to transpire a theory that can inform sustainability and demonstrate it into practice. By default, sustainability entails dealing with complexity and future insecurity, thus working with disciplinary knowledge would question the efficacy of such an endeavour. An overview of the three key domains- environment, social and economic and their perspectives is key to understand the dichotomies and challenges in pursuing a comprehensive sustainability approach.

Environmental dimension: While numerous practices are cited as threats to human sustainability on this earth, such as political corruption, social inequality, the arms race, and profligate government expenditures, environmental issues remain at the heart of the discussion (Meadowcroft 2019). The planned management of environmental resources, fossil-fuel consumption, air and water pollution, depleting biodiversity, piling up of plastic and hazardous waste, and abatement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are some of the most hotly pursued challenges. Of course, what is conducive to environmental sustainability remains a matter of intense debate. Approaches can range from moderate “greening” by institutions to a radical transformation of the global political and economic order (Meadowcroft 2019). Several approaches resist a decisive solution because tackling unsustainable practices is wrought with compound values, vested interests and a political-economy involving profiteering motives, deep states and institutional inertia. Within these, there are gradations of attributing ideals and priorities. For instance, ecosystem services that may not have a tangible or immediate benefit to individuals or the society like minimum flow in surface water bodies, wildlife habitat or corridors and sustenance of gene pool are often undervalued environmental facets in several sustainable development policies led by governments. A colossal example of this dilemma is that scientists and policy experts perceive climate change only as an environmental or economic problem, rather than a human rights issue where every individual on this planet is legally entitled to his/her fair-share of carbon space and a right of being protected against catastrophic impacts.

Social dimension: Numerous organisations, businesses and public entities in modern societies invoke sustainability as a core value and as a guiding principle for their actions. The notion of sustainability has diversified in many directions and often seen to support quite contradictory social agendas. For instance, to uphold their claims of sustainability and social justice, NGOs across the globe have been campaigning both in favour and

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against of coal miners, tobacco farmers, consumers of exotic imported meat and sea-food. For social scientists, with such an interpretational diversity, sustainability needs to be treated not as the long-sought solution to every environmental and societal issue but approached as a problem itself. A sociological approach addresses sustainability not as a normative guiding principle that designates something desirable per se, or something that can be investigated simply in terms of the societal conditions and functional requirements for its implementation—the procedure most often followed by current sustainability research like the Future Earth programme. Instead, it will take up a problem-oriented and reflexive stance towards sustainability, a perspective that does justice to sustainability’s contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes (Neckel 2017). Social sustainability necessitates research into several fault lines in ongoing transformations, for instance: (a) equitable distribution of resources and access to markets both for producers and consumers, (b) of maintaining cultural diversity or mitigating social hierarchies and inequalities, (c) sustainability criteria being objectively analysed and internalized in cultural values and society’s institutions, (d) structures of global capitalism with its socio-political consequences, (e) cultural interactions that shape relations, practices, norms and behaviours. A sociological perspective of sustainability would have to inevitably address these issue directly—dealing with different social actors like citizens, consumers, producers (includes both the capitalist and labour), state institutions, etc. in addition to environmental and economic stakeholders to generate a win-win situation for sustainable development to be actualized. This is plausible through a critical and reflexive viewpoint that looks beyond: (a) the theoretical constructs of social justice and socialism, (b) the normative and narrow expectations of a sustainability or social appraisal of public projects (Bond & Morrison-Saunders 2009). This requires a comprehensive understanding of what the true knowledge and practice of social studies stand for.

Economic dimension: One finds that sustainability makes itself felt everywhere in economic, market and financial discourses. Numerous institutions, organisations, business and public entities invoke sustainability as a core value or a guiding principle for their actions. What is understood by sustainability in any one case has not remained consistent in the course of this development. The notion has diversified in multiple ways, being influenced by different motivations, perspectives and interests. Sometimes, one and the same idea of sustainability has been cited to support quite contradictory social agendas. Advocates of a “green economy” and “smart”

growth programmes (Fiicks 2013), for example, regards sustainability as a vital precondition for future economic growth (Janicke 2012), whereas proponents of the degrowth movement or convivialism (Adloff and Heins 2015, Les Convivialistes n.d.) see that very focus on economic growth as a serious obstacle to sustainable development (Muraca 2014, Paech 2014, Fatheuer et al. 2015, Brand & Wissen 2017). Examples of both are seen in the field, where genuine carbon footprint reduction efforts by corporates are dwarfed and tarred by shady and unethical “greenwashing” of certain companies. In spite of such varied nuances, it can be reasonably deduced that to the economics discipline and practice, sustainable development is undoubtedly an approach that attempts to foster economic and business growth while preserving the quality of the environment for future generations.

Different groups are trying harder than before to interpret and argue about sustainability from different standpoints. Consultations for finalizing the SDGs brought

Box 2: The 17 SDGs to transform our world

: No Poverty : Zero Hunger : Good Health and Well-being demands from these diverging stakeholders together. As a principle, these groups stand unison on the issues of global environmental conservation, peace and social justice, quality of life, etc. recognizing an integrated view and multi-dimensionality to implement the 17 SDGs (Box 2). As evident, most goals are aimed towards long-term well-being of human community, yet one fails to decode why sustainable societies remain so elusive.

: Quality Education : Gender Equality : Clean Water and Sanitation : Affordable and Clean Energy : Decent Work and Economic Growth : Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure : Reduced Inequality : Sustainable Cities and Communities : Responsible Consumption-production : Climate Action : Life Below Water : Life on Land : Peace and Justice Strong Institutions : Partnerships to achieve the Goal

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Why are Sustainable Societies So Elusive?

A fundamental difference between the sustainability thought of the second half of 19tt century and that of the present times is its increasingly resounding acceptance across the board. It is now more difficult to find an individual, profession or country claiming that sustainability is unnecessary

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and irrelevant, although the nature of its criticism has variedly evolving undertones. So if sustainability has indeed become such an existential and an un-ignorable model for the entire humankind, why does it fail to capture the dominant public perception, the political agenda and the mainstream media? An overview of the plausible reasons demonstrates a broad pattern to how individuals, communities and nations respond to the sustainability challenge and inhibit in actualizing sustainable societies, these include:

The classic naysayers: Though a diminishing population, a small number of such species still exist. The archetypal denier’s outlook completely repudiates and dismisses the proposition that the world is heading on an unsustainable pathway. The origin of this anthropocentric thought has a long history claiming nature to have unlimited powers for humans to exploit. The usual arguments to defend this proposition are: (a) The bounties of nature are vast, unexplored and humans are still unfolding several new mysteries, virgin areas and productive frontiers, (b) The environment has innate and exceptional powers to rejuvenate itself beyond the human capacity and speed to exploit it, (c) If the world was unsustainable it would have doomed already, and (d) Humans have an undisputed right and precedence over nature. So, any environment protection at the cost of people’s energy needs, freedom of movement and jobs is unacceptable within a responsible society. In addition, the general attention of such disapprovers in the 21st century has visibly shifted from sustainability to climate change. They falsely implicate that since it is difficult for the mankind to agree on global concerns like climate change, it is futile to deliberate and make attempts to achieve sustainability.

The perpetual doubter: This viewpoint has been fundamental in limiting the promotion of sustainability agenda in both developed and developing societies. It relies on the time tested logic that if you could not defeat your opponent, belittle its trustworthiness in the society. Thus, while its now difficult to find sustainability doubters in the scientific peer-reviewed literature, articles in the business periodicals, development or industry journals (posing as scientific), discussion in public forums, political debates and popular media with vested interests tend to undermine environmental research. The vested interests are multifarious- politico-economical nexus between energy firms, petrochemical giants, business tycoons, mine holders, livestock/farm owners that control environmental resources on one side and public representatives, political parties, media houses, etc. that legitimate their ownership on the other. Interestingly, a lot of this

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propaganda is an artwork of learned intellectuals, columnists and anonymous writers who gloss or spin scientific facts in current research with a finesse of raising doubts over their accuracy, precision, reliability or applicability results. The most evident example of a contemporary sustainability challenge that has been consistently enduring political and popular media suspicion (and even ridicule) is the scientifically proven fact of global warming. Ironically, while school education across the world teaches environmental conservation in their primary and secondary curriculums, when it comes to circulating factual information amongst responsible adult citizens, the main socio-political institutions and communicators like politicians, journalists, social-leaders, celebrities, etc. fall considerably short of a responsible and legitimate conduct. Consequently, in absence of a credible and decisive knowledge, the ordinary citizen remains in a perpetual confusion.

The elitist perspective: Most countries and their citizens perceive sustainability through the dualism of East-West cultures or global North- South, which is an obvious extension of the rich-poor. They may accept that sustainability is a global concern, but believe that it has nothing much to do with them because either they have not caused it or more so, because any negative impact occurring far away is not going to affect their every-day life. An extreme would be to combine both these arguments with disdain— others have caused it and since they are not fit to manage it, they be doomed. It shows an “elitist” outlook, for some this attitude reflects a not in my backyard (NIMBY) syndrome, but most people on this planet do not have the luxury to debate it as a rich-poor or North-South divide, it is a fact of life that their springs are getting polluted every year, they have to walk extra miles to fetch potable water & fodder, their crops and livestock are dwindling, they experience scorching summers and heat waves they didn’t endure during their childhood; cyclones, floods and mudslides and increasing, their villages are getting abandoned as more people are migrating to cities already seaming with filthy slums and insanitary conditions. What most entitled people discount is their own consumerist lifestyles and wasteful attitude— for food, meat, goods and services perpetuates a natural resource exploitation, deforestation, environmental pollution, socio-economic inequality and poverty in the developing societies. In addition, they disregard that if people in deprived societies start living with the same economic, space, energy and quality of life standards considered as basic needs in developed cultures, they would lose their very share of resources, energy and global carbon space entitlements.