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SSPP:A Modest Proposal: Global Rationalization of Ecological Footprint to Eliminate Ecological Debt Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy http://ejournal.nbii.org ARTICLE A modest proposal: global rationalization of ecological footprint to eliminate ecological debt 1 2* 3 Brian Ohl , Steven Wolf , & William Anderson 1 Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA), Cornell University, 294 Caldwell Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA (email: [email protected]) 2 Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, 124 Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA (email: [email protected]) 3 School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University, 414A Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA (email:[email protected]) In the context of ecological overshoot, extreme poverty, and profligate consumption, we propose using ecological footprint analysis (EFA) to regulate and rationalize material consumption worldwide. EFA quantifies human- consumption flows relative to renewable natural capital stocks given specified levels of technology. Worldwide, 1.8 global hectares (gha) of bioproductive land exist per person, yet the human population is currently consuming 2.2 gha per person. Given global overshoot and the radically uneven distribution of consumption, we propose a global regime of cap-and-trade of ecological footprint. Under the terms of our modest proposal, all nations would be allocated pop- ulation-based ecological footprints of an “earthshare” of 1.8 gha per person. Nations with large per capita footprints would be obligated to make reductions through some combination of reduced consumption, resource-productivity gains, population decreases, ecological restoration, and purchase of footprint credits. In contrast, countries with small per capita footprints could sell footprint credits to finance modernization along ecological lines. Mathematical simula- tion of our proposal indicates global convergence of nations’ ecological footprints in 136 years. In our view, the ob- scenity of contemporary ecological degradation and human suffering is perhaps rivaled by the audacity of our pro- posal to commodify biocapacity worldwide. We leave it to the reader to compare our response to institutional failure and the problem of distributive justice to the remedy Swift offered in 1729. KEYWORDS: geopolitics, international trade, environmental equity, incentives, sustainable development, economics, resource conservation Introduction cern for distributive justice. Without sufficient access to natural resources, humans cannot survive and cert- Over the past fifty years, human alteration of ainly cannot thrive. Meeting our basic human needs earth’s ecosystems has accelerated and diversified requires water, food, shelter, clothing, and other markedly, degrading the natural capital and related goods derived from nature. With incomes of less than ecosystem functions on which we depend. The Mil- one dollar a day, close to a billion people currently lennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) undertaken live in “extreme economic poverty” and, by defini- by the United Nations from 2001-2005 inventoried tion, lack access to essential natural resources to meet the state of the world’s ecosystems and quantified the basic needs (World Bank, 2008). The profligate use effects of human activities on them. The analysis was of resources by the rich within and across nations designed to “establish the scientific basis for actions degrades natural resources and limits access, exacer- needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable bating problems of the poor who often rely directly use of ecosystems and their contributions to human on such resources for income generation and susten- well-being” (MEA, 2005). According to its findings, ance. Impoverished people, with scant alternatives approximately 60% of the ecosystem services evalu- and a foreshortened planning horizon, further degrade ated are being degraded or used unsustainably (MEA, local environments, deepening their hardships and 2005). This statistic is, of course, a measure of the further eroding local potential for socioeconomic de- “overshoot” that environmentalists have long identi- velopment. Roberts (2003) has referred to the eco- fied as a failure to recognize and heed the limits to logical degradation that accompanies a lack of eco- growth (Catton, 1980). nomic opportunity as the “pollution of poverty.” Linked to this ecological crisis, we face a pover- From an ecological perspective, poverty ty crisis and a related ethical dilemma rooted in con- remediation is not unproblematic. As is increasingly __________ *Corresponding Author. © 2008 Ohl et al. Spring 2008 | Volume 4 | Issue 1 5 Ohl et al.: A Modest Proposal well understood, improvement of the economic status valuable functions performed by natural systems, of the world’s poor could, over time, result in unin- including purification of air and water, pollination of tended and devastating side effects. If developing crops, stabilization of climate and habitat (NRC, nations adopt first-world consumption patterns and 2005)—are often not valued or are undervalued in the dominant technical designs, emissions—including marketplace, in policy-making processes, in organi- greenhouse gases from private automobiles and ni- zations, and at the household level (Daly & Cobb, trogen from inorganic fertilizers—would overwhelm 1989; Costanza et al. 1997; Balmford et al. 2002). As ecosystem-buffering capacity at local and global a consequence of institutional failure, ecosystems’ scales (Tilman, 1999; Galloway, 2000). In this con- contributions to socioeconomic systems are targets of text, people are seeking to expand what is now an chronic under-investment (Wackernagel & Rees, unacceptable choice set: to take no action to alleviate 1997). systemic desperate poverty and the accompanying Ecological modernization theorists argue that the resource degradation or, alternatively, to cope with core contemporary political, social, and economic the pollution, ecological disorganization and over- institutions of late modernity have the potential to shoot that would result from adding billions of people address the current ecological crisis (Crowley, 1999; to today’s global middle class. Marx, 2000; Mol & Sonnenfeld, 2000; Mol, 2000, In the contemporary political economic context 2001, 2003). Specifically, they argue that hyperindus- much of the energy and optimism directed at finding trialization—radical resource productivity gains— an alternative to this pair of poor choices focuses on will limit throughput, reducing inputs, waste, and so-called “leap-frog technologies,” radical innova- attendant ecological degradation (Hawken et al. tions that will allow rapidly developing nations to 1999). As part of this material transformation, eco- avoid the negative socioeconomic and ecological logical rationality is incorporated into economic consequences of modernization while imparting logic, social organization, and politics. In this frame- competitive advantages (e.g., hydrogen-based trans- work, socioeconomic development and environmen- portation, regenerative agriculture). While we share a tal protection are seen as complementary, rather than certain measure of respect for innovation dynamics as contradictory, goals. As an integrated social-scientific a central element of progressive strategies, in our analysis and policy prescription, ecological moderni- analysis we emphasize institutional processes regu- zation points to institutional change—defined to in- lating the pace and nature of technical change clude formal coordination mechanisms such as rules (Berkhout, 2002). We regard technologies as re- and prices as well as cognitive structures such as sponses to scarcity and changes in factor prices, and conceptions of fairness, justice, and personal factor prices are subject in part to social controls (i.e., identity—as capable of transforming circuits of pro- politics). Our commitment to social controls (i.e., a duction and consumption and attendant ecological retreat from voluntarism and an embrace of regula- disorganization. In keeping with this generic pre- tions and externally imposed limits) is a principle scription of multi-scaled institutional innovation, we element of the immodesty suggested by the title of introduce a policy proposal in which ecological foot- this article. print analysis (EFA) would be used to measure, Our proposal is a policy instrument to address monitor, and manage consumption of natural re- the social and ecological challenges that humanity sources in pursuit of sustainable development. confronts. We propose to regulate and rationalize EFA seeks to provide a unified, comparable material consumption at the global level through es- measure of human ecological impact known as the tablishment of a system of cap-and-trade of con- “ecological footprint” (Loh & Wackernagel, 2004). sumption rights. Like Jonathan Swift in his essay of This footprint can serve as an indicator of sustaina- 1729, our interest lies in advancing a public dialogue bility (York et al. 2003; Loh & Wackernagel, 2004). focused around our shared problems. We leave it to Human consumption greater than available biocapac- the reader to compare our proposal to Swift’s remedy ity—i.e., productive capacity of earth’s renewable to the dual problem of social inequity and how to live natural resources to produce goods and services on a within our means. sustainable basis—constitutes ecological overshoot (Venetoulis et al. 2004). We outline a globally scaled An Institutional Analysis of Ecological environmental agreement to reduce and redistribute Overshoot consumption as represented
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