The result is a nouveau utopianism that has tenuous connections with the real world, except for the few that are already True Believers. Thus, for example, I recently participated in a sustainability workshop where one conclusion was that firms should exist not for profit, but only to redistribute income (and that, by the way, money should be banned). Those with any historical background will recognize that this proposed policy closely tracks that of the early Leninist/Marxist Soviet Union. They did ban money - and the economy collapsed. Moreover, you can imagine how the typical executive would greet such a proposal as a model for how his/her firm could be "sustainable."
So, be careful if you want to work in this area. Before you jump in, you may want to work inside a firm first to get an idea of what companies really are like. It will help you maintain perspective. There are a few real opportunities - but caveat emptor.
So what to do? Back to first principles. The challenge of environmental (and related social) issues is precisely that they have become so all encompassing. They are not separable from the messy, multidisciplinary worlds of commerce, of ordinary life, of birth and death, of long natural cycles. So the kinds of things that contribute most to social and environmental progress - employee telework options, efficient network routing algorithms for air and ground transport systems, low-energy and reduced-water manufacturing technologies - come not from the environmental staff, but from the core operating competencies - engineers, business planners, product designers, and others. So, by all means remain committed to sustainability, but get expertise in international business, chemical engineering, or finance. Then, when you get your non-environmental, line position, you can start to change the world.
WORKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT - INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
A while ago, I was reading an article on pollution prevention written by an ex-EPA consultant, and was both amused and somewhat surprised to see "industrial ecology" identified as industry green wash.
My first response, of course, was dismissive: didn't the author realize that meaningful environmental progress could be achieved only through such systematic approaches as industrial ecology, and its implementation through (for example) Design for Environment and Life Cycle Assessment methodologies?
Indeed, pollution prevention as usually interpreted by environmental regulators is a singularly limited concept, a relatively insignificant extension of end-of-pipe approaches, and it requires something like industrial ecology to energize it.
But my initial reaction was both unfair and superficial. The author was not really reacting to industrial ecology as laid out in existing texts or as being implemented in some firms today. Rather, the article implicitly made an important point about the nature of "environment" itself: the very concept (and closely related concepts such as "wilderness" and "nature") is constructed from underlying mental models, which may differ significantly and carry very different policy and governance implications.
Thus, "industrial ecology" does not enter the environmental discourse as an objective concept (although industrial ecology studies strive for objectivity and good science). Rather, an environmentalist will see it as a response to growing political pressure by powerful administrative and bureaucratic systems, with a belief system based on scientific and technical rationality - as, in short, a defensive thrust based on a state/corporatist managerialism mental model.
Seen in this light, the concept carries several implications which to an environmentalist may be problematic: a powerful (and polluting) elite co-opting "real" environmentalism; establishment of a playing field (high technology and industrial systems) which implicitly degrades the knowledge base and operational characteristics of traditional environmental NGOs; and, more subtle but all the more powerful for that, a vision of a future "sustainable" world based on a high technology, urbanized society as opposed to an agrarian, localized world with large portions of limits to people.
It was important, therefore, not to take that article as just a naive rejection of industrial ecology and its promise, but to understand it as a reflection of deeply conflicting worldviews which were all the more critical for being implicit and, to a large extent, even unconscious.
And, of course, these two mental models - call them the managerialistic and the edenistic - are not the only common ones. Others which might be identified include the "authoritarian" (environmental crises require centralized authoritarian institutions); "communal" (with the caution that some communities can be extraordinarily violent towards minorities and outsiders); "ecosocialist" (capitalistic exploitation of workers and commoditization of the world are the source of environmental degradation); "ecofeminist" (male exploitation of nature andм women derive from the same power drive, and must be addressed concomitantly) and "pluralistic liberalism" (open collaboration involving diverse interests is the proper process to achieve environmental progress).
All of these raise some very difficult questions. For example, ecosocialism is somewhat tarnished by the abysmal environmental record of Eastern European communist governments.
The obvious question for the manager blessed with the opportunity to manage among these minefields is which one of these mental models is "right"? The unfortunate truth is that we as a society are not ready to answer that question yet.
This is not just because most people - environmental professionals, environmentalists, regulators, industry leaders - are naive positivists, and therefore unwilling or unable for the most part to recognize their own mental models, much less to respect other parties' mental models.
It also reflects a disturbing and almost complete ignorance about the implications of each model for the real world. What levels of human population, of biodiversity, of economic activity, would each mental model imply? What kind of governance structure? Who would win and who would lose (more precisely, what would the distributional effects of each model be)?
The important point, I think, is not the correctness of any particular model. Rather, it is the need to under- stand that differences among stakeholders in environmental disputes may arise not just from factual or economic disagreements, but from differences in fundamental worldviews - and that, at present, our current knowledge cannot anoint any particular one as "privileged."
A little sensitivity to how one's position and practices are understood by others can go a long way towards facilitating collaborations, which are both necessary and plenty difficult as it is. Before one too readily criticizes others, one should recall the Socratic admonition and know thyself - and thy mental models.
PRE-CAMBRIAN PERIOD
The Earth formed under so much heat and pressure that it formed as a molten planet. For nearly the first billion years of its formation - called the Hadean Period (or "hellish" period) - Earth was bombarded continuously by the remnants of the dust and debris - like asteroids, meteors and comets - until it formed into a solid sphere, fell into an orbit around the sun, and began to cool down.
As Earth began to take solid form, it had no free oxygen in its atmosphere. It was so hot that the water droplets in its atmosphere could not settle to form surface water or ice. Its atmosphere was also so poisonous that nothing would have been able to survive.
Earth's early atmosphere most likely resembled that of Jupiter's atmosphere, which contains hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia, and is poisonous to humans.
Earth's atmosphere was formed mostly from the out gassing of such volatile compounds as water vapor, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrochloric acid and sulfur produced by the constant volcanic eruptions that besieged the Earth. It had no free oxygen.
About 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth's surface - or crust - began to cool and stabilize, creating the solid surface with its rocky terrain. Clouds formed as the Earth began to cool, producing enormous volumes of rain - water that formed the oceans. For the next 1.3 billion years (3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago), called the Archean Period, first life began to appear (at least as far as our fossil records tell us... there may have been life before this!) and the world's landmasses began to form. Earth's initial life forms were bacteria, which could survive in the highly toxic atmosphere that existed during this time. In fact, all life was bacteria during the Archean Period.
Toward the end of the Archean Period and at the beginning of the Proterozoic Period, about 2.5 billion years ago, oxygen-forming photosynthesis began to occur. The first fossils, in fact, were a type of blue-green algae that could photosynthesize.
Some of the most exciting events in Earth's history and life occurred during this time, which spanned about two billion years until about 550 million years ago. The continents began to form and stabilize, creating the super continent Rodinia about 1.1 billion years ago. (Rodinia is widely accepted as the first super continent, but there were probably others before it.) Although Rodinia is composed of some of the same land fragments as the more popular super continent, Pangea, they are two different super continents. Pangea formed some 225 million years ago and would evolve into the seven continents we know today.
Earth's atmosphere was first supplied by the gasses expelled from the massive volcanic eruptions of the Hadean Era. These gases were so poisonous, and the world was so hot, that nothing could survive. As the planet began to cool, its surface solidified as a rocky terrain, much like Mar's surface and the oceans began to form as the water vapor condensed into rain. First life came from the oceans. Free oxygen began to build up around the middle of the Proterozoic Period around 1.8 billion years ago - and made way for the emergence of life, as we know it today. This event, of course, created conditions that would not allow most of the existing life to survive and thus made way for the more oxygen dependent life forms.
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