Importing Sustainability

Worldpress.com / Foodtank.com

Hugo Penteado

Julio F. Campos

The list of the ten most sustainable countries on the planet varies depending on the source researched but is basically made up of European countries, with the Nordic countries usually at the top of the list, traditionally headed by Sweden.

Variations of the countries that make up the list also include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Recently, the University of Leeds study "A good life for all within planetary boundaries", analyzing our ability to live with adequate quality of life within the limits defined by the planet pointed out that, based on the current models of growth,  of the 150 countries, only Vietnam would be close to achieving the ideal results, with levels of resource consumption within the planet's carrying capacity, although it still needs to develop its social issues. (The reader can review the status of each of these countries here).

The study concludes that the search for human development in a universal way proposed by the Sustainable Development Objectives, without undermining planetary capacity, is only possible if these objectives deviate from the growth proposals.

Comparison between social and environmental indicators of Vietnam and Sweden. (https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/countries/#Vietnam)

 On the other hand, Rockström et al, in his seminal article "A Safe operating space for humanity", still in 2009, six years before the definition of SDGs, pointed out that we already exceeded three of the planet's main limits at the time.

Estimation of the status of planetary boundaries in 2009. In red those already exceeded (Rockström et al, 2009)

However, an analysis of the economic structure of those countries listed as sustainable reveals two common characteristics, a high level of development and high level of dependence on external products.

There's a contradiction between the countries listed as sustainable and those that really are.

The reason of such apparent contradiction can be glimpsed in another recent study which analyzed the sources of emissions in resource consumption in Austria. Not surprisingly it indicates that most of them are located outside their borders, including even emissions generated outside European borders. This means that most of its emissions from the consumption of natural resources are external to the country.

Analyzing both studies, it is noticed that developed countries, with more complex economies, have a strong dependence on imported resources.

When we analyze the source of these resources, it becomes clear that it's based on developing or poor countries whose main basis for their economies is the export of goods to developed countries, which have the bonus of access to cheap resources while the former bear the burden of social and environmental degradation.

As a result, we have in these countries the production of goods that they do not use, consuming their ecosystems and endangering their water, food and social security.

This economic model of importation imposes astronomical ecological, environmental and social costs that are not accounted for by the importers because in our general price system and in the global trade these costs are considered null (that is why the business is so profitable).

The cost of transforming ecosystems into monocultures and pasture is ZERO in our value system and importing countries do not pay a penny of that to the economy's happiness.

As a consequence, if the so-called sustainable countries, or any developed one, could only consume production only within their own territory and with their own ecosystems, they would have been in environmental collapse for decades.

This is the great feat of GLOBAL TRADE, enabling countries to avoid their own collapse by exporting it to the rest of the planet and ZERO COST.

Furthermore, we also have a global scale REPRODUCTION of that suicidal development model of those richest countries supposedly free of any environmental problem thanks to GLOBAL TRADE, and we believe that, when we reach the limit of the TERRESTRIAL GLOBE, we will be able to do the same by exporting to other planets, when if fact the reproduction of that same model will only lead us to our collapse.

A collapse whose signals were not only predicted, but later verified, by the "Limits to Growth" model in the 1970s.

Review of the results of the "Limits to Growth" model. Clear solid line - actual data used in the original model; Dotted line - forecast made by the model; Dark solid line - overlap of historical data with forecasts up to 2012 (https://us.resiliencesystem.org/looking-back-limits-growth)

That is the reason that the COLLAPSE that we speak today is no more local, but PLANETARY.

It follows that the sustainability model presented by the "sustainable" countries depends exclusively on their cynical export of their unsustainability to countries that, mainly for political/intellectual corruption of their leaders, are kept in the mere condition of global barns, not being allowed by the models imposed as ideal to seek their own solutions for social and economic development.

With the eyes of hope seeking answers to our problems in developed countries solutions, the myth of development shaped in the traditional economy shades the fact that at least one country has much of the answers we need to stay within the limits imposed by the planet.

But in the world of the information age, digital, 4.0, a small country backward in Southeast Asia has no reason to be used as an example. Better to mirror the development of those who would never have achieved their enviable current status without the unrestrained exploitation of countries condemned to social and economic inequality.

As long as the environmental surplus of the latter continues to sustain and subdue the deficit of the former we know that, as the leading countries of "sustainability" teach, for any problem there will be a technology solution around the corner.

Adepts of the mainstream economics can then argue, oblivious to the eternal repetition of their very error: Let's then look at what Vietnam did and reproduce it.

Nothing could take us further from the necessary solutions, which are inherent in each country, and what led that small country to be able to live within planetary limits is applicable exclusively to it, and therefore its proposals cannot be replicated by others.

Between facing the reality of the problem or living in the belief in a possible and possible technological solution, it is a decision that is not for governments, corporations or society, but up to  people, today, indiscriminately, to decide, because their children will, for better or for worse, be the victims of any decisions taken by them.  

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