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Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide

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  • John Pezzey

Abstract

A definition of sustainability as maintaining ‘utility’ (average human wellbeing) over the very long term future is used to build ideas from physics, ecology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, history, philosophy, economics and psychology, into a coherent, interdisciplinary analysis of the potential for sustaining industrial civilisation. This potential is highly uncertain, because it is hard to know how long the ‘technology treadmill’, of substituting accumulated tools and knowledge for declining natural resource inputs to production, can continue. Policies to make the treadmill work more efficiently, by controlling its pervasive environmental, social and psychological external costs, and policies to control population, will help to realise this potential. Unprecedented levels of global co-operation, among very unequal nations, will be essential for many of these policies to work effectively. Even then, tougher action may be required, motivated by an explicit moral concern for sustainability. An evolutionary analysis of history suggests that technology and morality can and will respond to a clearly perceived future threat to civilisation; but we cannot easily predict the threat, or whether our response will be fast enough.

Suggested Citation

  • John Pezzey, 1992. "Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide," Environmental Values, , vol. 1(4), pages 321-362, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:1:y:1992:i:4:p:321-362
    DOI: 10.3197/096327192776680034
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. John Pezzey, 1992. "Analysis of Unilateral CO2 Control in the European Community and OECD," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 159-172.
    2. Daly, Herman E., 1987. "The economic growth debate: What some economists have learned but many have not," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 323-336, December.
    3. John Pezzey, 1992. "The Symmetry between Controlling Pollution by Price and Controlling It by Quantity," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 25(4), pages 983-991, November.
    4. Norgaard, Richard, 1986. "The Scarcity of Resource Economics," CUDARE Working Papers 198296, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
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