Sustainability Reimagined: Ecological Degradation in an Age of Endless Growth

• In Event: 046 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Sustainability and Development

Abstract

Human societies have collapsed or thrived based on their ability to adapt to dynamic biospheric conditions and ecological limits (Diamond 2005). Although anthropogenic environmental degradation has existed throughout human history, the scale of impacts has burgeoned since the dawn of the industrial revolution, culminating in human societies for the first time becoming significant geological agents (McNeill 2000:21). In spite of this shift, for most of the twentieth century social scientists tended to implicitly reject the notion that human societies were constrained by natural limits—instead viewing human-caused environmental problems as surmountable challenges to be overcome by human ingenuity. As environmental impacts were amplified, so too were their consequences for societies, resulting in pollution, scarcity and climate change. In understanding the underlying causes of the ecological and economic problems that have become defining features of modernity, we must look towards the system of capital accumulation and its necessity for growth as the engine behind these perils. This paper will discuss the origins of the growth imperative and whether it represents an endogenous to capitalism. Using this theoretical basis, the paper grapple with differing perspectives on growth and environmental degradation including: (a) ecological Marxism through James O'Connor's second contradiction of capitalism and John Bellamy Foster's elaboration of Marx's metabolic rift, (b) Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT), as well as (c) the steady-state development model proposed by scholars in ecological economics.

Author

• Brian Rosenberg, University of Oregon