Is Sustainable Development Prioritizing Our Environment, Or Consumerism?
A comparison of two contrasting views on sustainable practice in global development.
A critical assessment of two analytical papers on our current ecological crisis (by DeClerck and McMichael) for the course ‘Critical Development Perspectives’, presented to The University Of Queensland in partial fulfillment for a Leadership in Global Development MicroMasters.
Global development is consistently being recalibrated toward more sustainable practices, propelled by the continuously intensifying need to address the climate crisis. In response to our rapidly escalating and expanding ecological crises, Earth’s planetary boundaries are critical to any and all sustainable development decisions. Potential outcomes are dependent on how humans are driven to make decisions, whether steered by ecological stewardship that is mindful of the ecological limits of our environment, or by the very consumeristic pressures placed on our environment that have led us to this moment.
These directional differences are on display in the ideas supported by McMichael and DeClerck. The two authors agree that our current climate crisis looms heavy on all fronts, and they highlight the critical need for sustainability in development. DeClerck (2016) states that the paradigm must now be defined within the context of the rapidly changing environment in the Anthropocene. His paper focuses on insights that suggest shifting agricultural practices in ways that can reduce environmental impacts.
The focus of DeClerck’s paper tends to be on sustainable intensification and human prosperity. In contrast to DeClerck, McMichael (2009) places far more emphasis on human responsibility, and how climate change is the most critical of all development issues. McMichael posits that while the market is synonymous with how development is understood today, market-based solutions are limited and problematic when discussing climate change. McMichael recognizes that we have ‘externalized the environment’ rather than being deeply conscious about our ecosystems and ecology, and he discusses capitalism’s ‘metabolic rift’ in terms of climate change.
The contrasting directions taken by DeClerck and McMichael are further highlighted in their papers. According to McMichael, climate change interventions and economic investment tend to focus on the Global South, while the Global North’s level of consumerism is the main driver of our rapidly warming planet. McMichael asserts that in the midst of this flawed focus, market-based solutions reproduce rather than address the causes of global warming.
DeClerck’s paper suggests an acceptance of planetary boundaries and biophysical limits in so far as there is a ‘safe operating space’ to continue pressuring the planet with intensified sustainable agriculture. In DeClerck’s paper, one can spot terms like ‘agricultural inputs’, ‘sustainable intensification of agriculture’, ‘regulating Earth’s resilience’, all of which seem to want to push the planet’s boundaries further, when we’ve already seen that this type of development is not sustainable.
Both papers ultimately support the narrative that development thinking needs a more sustainable direction if we hope to continue to live and function on this planet. While McMichael’s paper preceded DeClerck’s by a number of years, his position is far more aligned with an understanding of our ecological crisis today, since a ‘more of the same’ approach only pushes us deeper into debt with our environment.
DeClerck presents a strategic and human-focused paper that places consumerism above the planet, while McMichael places the environment front and center. DeClerck’s manner of thinking is a continuation of where we have been, while McMichael’s position is the approach we should take if we hope to truly address the ecological crisis.
References:
DeClerck, F. (2016). Sustainable intensification of agriculture for human prosperity and global sustainability. Springer.
McMichael, P. (2009). Contemporary Contradictions of the Global Development Project: geopolitics, global ecology and the ‘development climate’. Third World Quarterly, Vol. 30, №1, 2009, pp 247–262.