I read with interest the lucid argument for sustainable development as presented by Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, in the Insight column under the title "$2.30 African and the $2.20 EU cow" (New Sunday Times,, June 15, 2008).
I agree that for sustainable development to take roots there have to be a realization in us that what we do today will have an impact on future generations after us. I recalled the belief held by some Native Americans that they have identified seven generations as the length of time by which they can determine in all seriousness the idea of sustainability. In our calculation this will take around 140 years (if one were to count 20 years to comprise one generation).
If one were to follow this logic to its conclusion, we will certainly need a lot of futures thinking to appreciate what Tan Sri Dzulkifli meant by 'sustainable development' being the "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations".
In the meantime, what do we do to get out of our unsustainable lifestyle? I offer the idea developed by Ivan Illich (1974) in his book, "Energy and Equity".
The idea is based on the observation that once you are dependent on something you will always do your utmost to sustain that dependence. There is therefore a correlation between dependence and sustainability. It feeds on one another. What he says can be summed up as follows:
If you have it, you depend on it;
It then becomes a habit to you and it starts to control you;
You tend therefore to lose your sense of values on the important aspects of life,
In the end you enslave yourself to it;
The choice is no longer yours to make,
You are in fact poorer than before.
Illich was of course referring to the excesses of the transport industry in the United States of America when he wrote the book. Today the Americans have built a whole civilization based on the automobile and oil and they are in fact overwhelmingly dependent on both in order to sustain their present lifestyles. For them to sustain their global economic, social, political and technological leadership they require more oil and new energy sources which are getting less and less.
The road to our future sustainability lies in us resurrecting Buckminster Fuller's "more for less" idea and the giving up of our dependency and sustainability lifestyle.
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