Transcript 2015 Lecture 08 Transportation Sustainability

Sustainability and Autodependency
Norman W. Garrick
Lecture 8
CE 4710/5710
Mobility, Freedom and Sustainability
• Low argues that personal mobility is a freedom
bestowed by modernity.
• But like Good, Low points out that this freedom and
flexibility can be illusory if the opportunity cost of
providing unending mobility is never considered.
‘We need to protect the real benefits of mobility,
and contain and allocate the costs properly’
Benefits From Sustainable Thinking
Low implies that the concept of ‘sustainability’ is a framework
for clarifying the real benefits of mobility
And for developing the mechanism needed to protect these benefits
and to appropriately contain and allocate costs.
Environment, Social and Economical
Sustainability
Low introduces the common model of sustainability, made up of a triad of
environmental, social, and economic sustainability
This triad has gained wide acceptance, although some groups use other terms
to describe these three concepts
For example, The California DOT uses planet, people and prosperity
(This change in language might miss some of the nuances of the original)
The Three-Legged Stool Model
So what is the relationship between this
triad of concerns?
In many cases a ‘three-legged stool’model
is used
This model suggests that for sustainability
three simultaneous goals must be achieved:
economic profitability,
social responsibility
and environmental conservation
Sustainability
Sustainability
Low calls this model the ‘triple bottom line’ perspective
and states that this model might be a good accounting tool,
but is not an effective or realistic way of characterizing sustainability
The Paradox of
The Three-Legged Stool Model
• Fundamentally the three-legged stool model is based on a
triangle of forces in balance.
• According to Low, to achieve environmental sustainability we
need to change both the society and the economy.
• We cannot have a stable triangle when we are trying to
sustain all three systems in their existing state.
The Need to Curb Consumption
to Achieve Sustainability
According to Low, the paradox we face is that we need to find ways to
“Curb consumption while spreading the capacity to consume”
The three-legged stool model of sustainability tends to gloss over this important idea
Talking the Talk
In Jamaica
Politicians in developing countries, like Jamaica, are well aware
of the need to ‘talk’ sustainability.
But the policies don’t add up to changes that support
environmental sustainability.
Environment and health concerns are often traded off
in the interest of economic growth.
.
Talking the Talk
In the USA
In the USA, we have some of the same posturing as in Jamaica
But an additional factor is that in the USA there is
more focus on a technological fix as the solution that will
cause us to achieve environmental sustainability
The faulty idea is that we can bring about environmental sustainability
without ever changing any of the related economic or social issues
Can we have Sustainable Growth?
As Low pointed out, we cannot trade-off environmentally unsustainable
growth against environmental sustainability
“Growth is either sustainable or it is not”
Starting Place for Thinking About Sustainability
From the movie “Chasing Ice” with photographer James Balog
Thinking about the Biosphere
The starting point in thinking about sustainability is the recognition that
the action of humankind is causing catastrophic changes to the environment
This fact supports the need for change in both society and the environment
The environment in question is the global biosphere with
one energy input and no output for waste
This biosphere consists of natural ecosystems at different scales
Change a Light Bulb,
Save the Biosphere
Low points out that one of the dilemmas we face in trying to move
towards an environmentally sustainable existence is the
scale of these ecosystems, which dwarf a single human actor
One problem is that a single human cannot directly act to influence the
biosphere
What is needed is the collective action of society through
its institutions and market economy
The Role of Society in Affecting the Biosphere
The example is of a single driver making a single trip
That driver perceives correctly that his individual action has minimal impact.
However, when that trip is multiplied by millions
we begin to see a noticeable effect on the biosphere.
However, this one trip by a given driver
and the millions of other trips by her peers
are only possible because they are facilitated by society
Transportation and Our Patterns of Living
Low points out that
transportation patterns feed into socially created patterns
including land use, distribution of goods,
distribution of social opportunities, health and diseases
And some of these patterns
- including the production of goods and services and the distribution of land use –
feed back into transportation pattern.
Based on these relationships,
billions of trips are made in fossil fuel burning vehicles each day, leading to changes
in the biosphere and affecting the fate of all species on the planet
The Key to Changing Society
Thus the key to understanding sustainability is twofold:
• Individuals can only have a significant effect on the biosphere
through social institutions and mechanisms
• Individuals are capable of changing society and it institutions
Rejecting The Three-Legged Stool
Sustainability
The Problem with the Three-Legged Stool
Low argues that the triad model of sustainability is flawed since it does not
explicitly recognize that environmental sustainability
requires changes to social and economic institutions
However, he also points out that the idea of considering
sustainability in terms of the three dimensions
- environment, social and economic –
is a useful and valid way of understanding the concept.
But the order in which they are considered is important
The Nested Box Model of Sustainability
ENVIRONMENT
SOCIETY
ECONOMY
(LOW AND GLEESON 2003, HART 2006)
The Limits to Growth
The important shift is to recognize that the economy is the
creation of society, and not the other way around
The economy is framed by the social context in which it occurs.
Further, both society and the environment operate within the
context of a natural environment of limited capacity
The Need for Long Term Economic Thinking
Conventional economic analysis does not account for the fact that there are
limits to the capacity of the natural environment
For example, there is no economic mechanism in place to put a value on the
fact that oil is a finite resource
Market price reacts to short term scarcity of oil but does not take into
account the fact that oil is a finite resource
Social Sustainability and Social Equity
Low defines ‘social sustainability’ as
“progress of a society towards prosperity, freedom and justice for all
(and not just the entrenchment of class privilege)”
He adds that environmental sustainability should not necessarily be
conditional on social sustainability.
But the question I would ask is, can we get environmental
sustainability without social sustainability?
Win-Win-Win
Low also notes that an environmentally sustainable solution
is often consistent with social improvement and
long term economic security
From an article by McGranahan and Satterthwaite in
Pugh, Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries, Earthscan, pg. 73-87
Ref: Low and Gleeson, Making Urban Transportation Sustainable, Palgrave MacMillan, pg. 25 - 41.
Erath, Louisiana
after Hurricane Rita
Biloxi c2004
Roads Slated for Expansion
Biloxi 2025
With Road Expansion
8 lanes
6 lanes
5 lanes
4 lanes
Gulfport c2004
Roads Slated for Expansion
Gulfport 2025
With Road Expansion
8 lanes
6 lanes
5 lanes
4 lanes
18000
14000
10000
6000
1980
1985
1990
1995
USA
Mississippi
2000
2005
2010
24.8
25.7
24.4
23.7
10.6
3.6
1970
1975
1980
1985
Netherland
1990
USA
1995
2000
Mississippi
2005
2010
Level 1
3 Domains
Environment
Society
Level 2
12 Elements
(Goals)
01 02 03 04
05 06 07 07
Level 3
19 Indicators
**
*
*
**
**
**
**
**
Economy
*
09 10 11 12
*
*
*
Level 4
22 Variables
Each indicator is measured by one or more variables
*
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52
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Best
Worst
Dist. of Columbia
17.4%
Mississippi
44.2%
Alaska
22.1%
Wyoming
38.2%
New York
22.6%
Alabama
38.1%
Connecticut
22.7%
Montana
38.0%
Massachusetts
22.8%
Kentucky
37.7%
Best
Worst
Oregon
6.7
Michigan
0.3
Indiana
4.7
Mississippi
0.4
Dist. of Columbia
3.9
Alaska
0.5
Massachusetts
3.8
Louisiana
0.7
South Dakota
3.4
Hawaii
0.7
Connecticut: Ranked 19th, 23 % Growth in GDP, 12% Growth in VMT
Best
Worst
New York
12.5%
Mississippi
45.4%
Washington
13.4%
Montana
40.8%
Massachusetts
14.1%
Rhode Island
40.3%
Virginia
14.1%
North Dakota
37.3%
California
15.1%
South Carolina
37.1%
Connecticut: Ranked 40th, 32.9 % Federal Sources
Best
Worst
Dist. of Columbia
0.2%
Alaska
6.0%
New York
1.1%
Mississippi
4.5%
Connecticut
1.4%
Montana
4.0%
Delaware
1.4%
Wyoming
3.9%
Rhode Island
1.5%
North Dakota
3.8%
Percentage spent on transportation petroleum shown
Best
Worst
Dist. of Columbia
90
Mississippi
7
New York
75
Montana
21
Massachusetts
73
Arkansas
28
Oregon
65
Wyoming
29
Washington
65
South Carolina
29
Connecticut: Ranked 16th, Score 55
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