Earth & Sky

Can science help sustain humanity?

Robert Kates talks about science and 21st century challenges.

The idea of sustainable development arose in the 1980s. It’s the process of meeting the needs of people on Earth now, without compromising future generations. The science of sustainability arose in the 1990s. It’s using the tools of science to help solve 21st century challenges. Robert Kates is one of the founders of the sustainability science movement. Earth & Sky’s Marc Airhart spoke to him in March of 2005 (updated April 2006).

Airhart: What is sustainability science, and how did it come about?

Kates: Scientists were originally involved in creating the notion of sustainable development back in the early 1980s. They soon realized that they could not try to preserve those places of biodiversity in the world without also being concerned with the people who lived in and around those places.

Beginning in 1995, a major study, called Our Common Journey, sought to define what a sustainability transition would be. It said, Let’s imagine that we are in the year 2050. How would we assert whether sustainability had been reached?

And they developed three simple ideas. First, had we met the human needs of the 9 billion people expected to live in the world by 2050, as opposed to 6 billion today?

Second, had we substantially reduced hunger and poverty?

And third, had we preserved the life support systems upon which life depends?

And it turns out that not everything needs new science and technology. Some are issues of political will and how we organize ourselves and how we govern ourselves.

But there are a lot of areas where a good dose of science and technology could help. From that was born the idea of sustainability science, which is science in support of sustainable development.

Airhart: What does a sustainability scientist do?

Kates: We’ve organized meetings and conferences on every continent except Antarctica. And so, for example, the Nigerians organized a Nigerian national committee for sustainability science. They hosted a meeting with African scientists and others.

That’s because one of the essences of sustainability science is that you need to do it jointly with the “practitioners,” people working in the field around the world. They are the ones who pose important problems to you.

There were people from government and industry at our meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. And we subsequently held meetings in Bonn, in Ottawa and Mexico City all around the world and in fact, they’re still going on.

Airhart: What about here in the U.S.? What are sustainability scientists doing here?

Kates: Lots of things. I was just in Arizona where a new scientific effort is starting a decision center for the city of Phoenix, one of the most rapidly growing cities in the United States. The sustainability scientists at Arizona State University are asking crucial questions such as “how fast and how large will Phoenix become” and “how will its population grow and sprawl over the landscape?”

Phoenix is an example of a place that’s defining its set of concerns. The city has noticed links between sprawl, growth, population change, and the environment in terms of both its traditional sources of water and the profound effect of climate change.

Airhart: So do we live in a sustainable world?

Kates: There’s no such thing as a sustainable world. A sustainable world is composed of sustainable places.

And those places are often very unique and very different. They have very different problems. If sustainability scientists want to contribute to helping solve those problems, they have to do that in the context of those particular places. There are important questions regarding the people who live and work in such areas.

For example, my Nigerian co–convenor, Achen Mabagungee, and I visited a city of 200,000 in Ijebu–ode in the southwest corner of Nigeria. There they had gone through a process called a “city consultation” with different groups, ranging from traditional rulers, to the local government, to the women who sold things in the market. They decided that over the long run, their questions about sustainability were on how to reduce poverty in and around their town.

I think we’ve learned that we have to be working intimately with the people who face the real world problems to which we scientists would like to contribute.

Airhart: What else do you want to tell us?

Kates: Well, a sustainable world ought to be more than just meeting minimal human needs. It ought to say something about a good life. And what’s a good life for the world’s peoples? And what’s a good life for nature? That’s where it gets more complicated.

Airhart: Dr. Kates, thanks so much for speaking with us.