Ref: 78

Title

Ideology and Utopia of Sustainable Development

Abstract

The paper reconsiders the relation between the declarative level and the practice of the concept of sustainable development. On one side it deals with ideological concept which is imposed by corporative and political elites while on the other side it considers utopian concept of sustainable development. The mentioned concept tends to be “active utopia” which is realized due to decomposition of order based on power, domination and manipulation.

Country Credited

Croatia

Author Details

AUTHOR
Title of author / mr. sc.
Surname / Pražetina
First Name / Marina
Name of Institution / Croatian Bioethical Society
E-mail address of author /
Author biography
I was born 1979 in Zagreb, Croatia, but currently live in Germany. I win a master’s degree in Philosophy and Croatian language at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Attended and participated at several Congresses related to ecology and philosophy.

Category

Sustainable Development

Theme

Environment
Rural Development
Sustainable Urbanisation
Sustainable Consumption

Type of Contribution

Philosophical Reflection

Ideology and Utopia of Sustainable Development

MarinaPražetina

Main thesis of this text shows the explicit discrepancy between declarative level and practice of sustainable development as well as difficulties in its operability. If we accept the fact that sustainable development can be motivating and stimulating in producing new social energies and not operable because concrete strategies of specific countries and problems should be operable. Even if we accept this fact, what remains is the criticism of sustainable development as an empty formula, due to implementation of that concept in practice where it mostly serves as a mere justification to further exploit the nature and does not resolve the existing social, temporal and spatial conflicts. It appears that concept of sustainable development is not sustainable and is concerned only with conceptual changes while in practice it is still the same civilization continuity.

Idea and ideology of sustainable development

Concept of sustainable development has been discussed ever since 1972 when the first UN-commission for environment and development took place in Stockholm. The concept was formed due to the necessity to reconciliate economic growth and the protection of environment. Definitions of sustainable development are quite undetermined, the most often used being the definition of Brundtland: “Sustainable development is development which satisfies necessities of today without the risk that future generations wouldn’t be able to satisfy their necessities.”[1]

Ideology of sustainable development implies thee ideological concept of sustainable development which is imposed by corporative and political elites. By imposing that concept they are trying to cover the situation in the world that doesn’t contribute to more sustainable relation towards living world of nature and more equitable relations between people. Jurić talks about the ideological concept of sustainable development “which become the instrument of global economic-political establishment, in other words expression of power of “new world order” institutions, a power that excels biological and social power of humanity and Planet.” (Jurić, 2003).

Colonization of Third World

After classical and industrial colonization, the colonization continues to this day through the process of globalization as develop colonization or bio colonization. It is represented as tendency of development and modernization of the Third World even if it is obviously as Vandana Shiva called it, bio piracy genetic robbery of undeveloped world.

It is obvious that the trend of globalization of free trade under the protection of new “Holy Trinity” WMF, World Bank and WTO leads to devastation of human culture and nature and that it is far away from any possibility of social justice and the preservation of environment. An illustrative example of such practice is Uruguay agreement GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and its law of patents TRIP (Trade Related Intellectual Property). According to that law bio piracy is today accepted as natural right of western corporations.

With ecological footprint it is easy to find out how much we are exploiting the Third World countries. Ecological footprint is the “land and water necessary to maintain material standard of specific population while using the dominant technology.” (Chamber, Simmons and Wackernagel, 2004:177) With ecological footprint it is possible to calculate how much hectares we need for resources, waste disposal and production. Living Planet Report 2004 states that we are exploiting the earth 20 percent more than it can give and that the USA has the biggest ecological debt. Since rich countries can’t satisfy all their needs on their own territories, they exploit the natural capacity of the poor countries. In that way they generate poverty and maintain control and wealth for themselves. According to the UN World Food Programme we produce enough food to feed 1,5 more people than there are currently on the planet. People are hungry not because there is not enough food, but because they can not pay for it.

Unsustainable economy

Views on the possibility of existence of sustainable economy are different. One type of relations between sustainable development and business is paradigm of antigreen state where business is negatively oriented towards the preservation of nature in its striving towards economic growth and profit. Paradigm of green washing deals with business that declaratively accepts sustainable development but in practice there are just few examples. Finally, the third paradigm of green knowledge is the most interesting one since it illustrates the possibility of sustainable development in practice. Kalundborg, a Danish city, is a positive example. They created zero-waste formation where all subjects build a circle similar to a process in nature where somebody’s waste becomes resource for somebody else. [2]

ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives) is founded in 1990 and it is also based on null waste principle where waste from one organization becomes resource of another. While forming ZERI organization, Gunter Pauli used advanced techniques of electronic networking and conferences. ZERI consists of three types of interconnected nets. The first are ecologic industrialgroups formed in natural ecosystems. The second is human net of local community and the third is international net of scientists who help by designing industrial groups compatible with local ecosystems and cultural surrounding. Unfortunately, there are only around fifty projects of that kind in the world which is very small part in industrial system.

Utopia of sustainable development

If we don’t identify concept of development with growth, then we are talking about sustainable development which is concerned with qualitative changes, improvement of potentials, which is unlimited, because we can define quality over and over again. Then, if we try to define the concept of sustainable development from a perspective of paradigm which aspires towards respect of life and not towards pure interest, then we have to demand civilization changes. Yet we come to utopian concept of sustainable development which, according to Mannheim, destroys existence, which would be world order, and at the same time takes place in alterglobalization movement where it makes changes in material sphere as well as in the sphere of values and quality of life.

Crucial part of that kind of utopia deals with modesty as opposed to the earlier utopian wastefulness. One of the probably successful ways of dealing with ecological crises would be the point where developed countries would give up their unnecessary needs according to strategy of sustainable development, and this would be the way to eliminate the world poverty. We will have to give up the needs which could destroy our planet if we make them universal. Specific level of asceticism represents, in a way, a condition of our freedom. According to Hösle the revival of stoic ideals might be one of the last chances that humanity has.

Alterglobalization movement

Term antiglobalization movement is wrongly used by media after the protest in Seattle. Using that term it doesn’t become obvious that movement is not totally against globalization. It is a movement for different globalization which is more just to the people and more sustainable towards the nature, so it is correct to call it alterglobalization movement. Movement agents emphasize the positive aspects of globalization such as better communication between people, planetary awareness about social and ecological problems, our common responsibility for a planet as a system etc. Negative aspects of globalization are considered to be the social separation, injustice and destroying of nature. As well as promoting human rights, the promotion of diversity, tolerance and sustainable development should also be made global.

At the end we would like to underline some positive examples which try to overcome negative consequences of neo liberal democracy and unsustainable development. Colin Heins introduces the concept of localization which is not based on competition, but mutual help and is concerned with the protection of local globally. International Forum on globalization takes over Hein’s ideas on global level and their members suggest concrete alternatives to neo liberal capitalism.[3] Further more, alternative economic programs make it possible for the economy to work for the people and not only for a small group on top of the power pyramid. As an example of alternative economic programs we can mention Fair trade, LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems) and GEN (Global Ecovillage Network).[4] “Corporative ideas will fail if we refuse to buy what they sell: their ideas, visions of history, war, weapons and they attitude of their own inevitability…Different world is not only possible, it is here, it is coming. On a quiet day I could hear it breathing. “ (Danaher and Mark, 2003:315)

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