“ SUSTAINABLE PROGRESS ”

David Willmott

BE(civil) DipTP DipMgt COPs(Econs, PolSci)

Co-Director, Centre for Urban and Transport Studies

CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION – Life IS progress

• PART A – On Sustainability

• PART B – On Government

• PART C – On Science

• CONCLUSIONS – On Parts A B and C

INTRODUCTION

• Nature is – survival of (reach to be) the fittest

• Life is – reaching for personal betterment

• Transactions Interactions Experiences =TIEs

• Specialisation + TIEs -> community prosperity

• Human nature = genetic not (insert)-washable

• TIEs voluntary = win/win, coerced = win/lose

Thus humanity’s personal and collective reach towards the humanly primal and eternal goal of “PEACE & BETTERMENT / PROSPERITY”…

(ie safety/security/survival & betterment/prosperity, the latter acquired from personal - not state - choice)

… within a market-based system of exchange of rights to property (in land, goods, services) (bi-laterally with barter, multi-laterally with money) is entirely natural, representing as it does the absolute essence of humanity,

and distinguishing us from less progressive animals

The eternal “peace and prosperity” goal is inherently progressive ; this can’t be denied without denying evolution as the source of humanity’s essential nature.

“SUSTAINED PROGRESS” is the hallmark of humanity and its ongoing civilisation. “Sustainability” as “stasis” is stagnation … … and death in life, -- if not death itself.

The world can’t be stopped for those who wish to resile from progress; - like Lot’s wife looking back, they (become as) a pillar of salt.

PART A – ON SUSTAINABILITY

1. Essentially natural, naturally essential

2. Consumption (or replacement) of resources

3. Popularisation, and political effects thereof

4. “Sustainable Development” – an oxymoron?

5. “Sustainable Management” under the RMA

6. Sustainability of a development project

1. SUST : ESSENTIALLY NATURAL, NATURALLY ESSENTIAL

• “Planet Earth” dynamic, not static• Ecologies adapt within changing environments• Nothing new in envt/eco degradation/renewal• There never was a (static) Garden of Eden …

… rather the Garden is irretrievably dynamic • Humans survived and evolved through change … by sustaining resources … … or creating better/cheaper/efficienter ones

2. SUST. : RESOURCE CONSUMP’N OR REPLACEMENT

• All life interacts with, changes environment• Higher life forms conserve scarce resources • As envt/ecology changes, adapt/change or die• Human brain is our sole/pre-requisite resource ;

its application enables ongoing civilisationvia exploit existing resources, then conserve, then invent to replace or for greater efficiencyin the creation of tools for survival/betterment

3. SUST’S POPULARISATION, AND POLITICAL EFFECTS

• The “interconnectivity revolution”

• The population explosion

• Rapid change, fears, stop-the-worldism

• Vacant niche for stasist enviro-NGOs

• Predilection for forcing change via regulation

• Stasism? Dynamism? Where’s your vote?

4. “SUST. DEVELOPMENT” : OXYMORON?

• Brundtland’s (lack of) “definition”

-> edicts by Tom/Dick/Harry Layman.com

eg cars unsustainable! biofuels sustainable!

• Beckerman “A Poverty of Reason”

eg1 : limits to resource availability

eg2 : intergen’l equity is moral high ground

Environmentalism a new form of imperialism

• Attempts to reconcile Stasism with Dynamism

5. “SUST. MGT.” UNDER RMA

• Why displace TCPA with RMA? • Economic driver transformed to Env’tl driver• Associated demolition of MWD and City Engrs• Town planners/enviro-NGOs as monopoly

…………………………………………..advisers to government & local government

• “Smart growth”-style “designer cities” restrict/distort “natural” (efficient) expansion more resource-intensive($$/energy/materials) eg rail transit, dense housing, service upsize

“INTEGRATED THINKING”

• Left Brain

LogicalSequentialRationalAnalyticalObjectiveLooks at parts

(function/efficiency reality-oriented)

Eg Science, Engrg

• Right Brain

RandomIntuitiveHolisticSubjectiveIntegratingLooks at wholes

(arrangement/shape appearance-oriented)

Eg Arts, Town Planning

6. SUST. OF PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

• Project benefits ignored in assessments

• Consultation favours local over Reg./Nat.

• Extraordinary process hoops imply knowledge

• Transfer of property rights to city, neighbours

• RMA outcomes generally counter-productive

of “Sustainable Development” defined as

resource conservation (except of scenes)

PART B - ON GOVERNMENT

7. On the nature & purpose of Government

8. Competence of Government generally

9. Societal stability and sustainability

(primary responsibility of Government)

7. ON THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT

• Govt exists to sustain cooperative society

• Nobel North’s three governmental eras

(separated by agric. & indust. Revolutions)

• Nobel Buchanan’s “Public Choice” theory

• Current “interconnectivity revolution”

• Global government? Good for whom?

8. COMPETENCE OF GOV’T

• Democracy necessarily mediocracy

- policy selection necessarily ideological

- policy effectiveness necessarily mediocre

• Govt growth = bureaucratic empowerment

• Ideology as necessary focus for groups/depts

• Simplistic quickfix = “Unintended Conseq’s”• UCs can be enormously counterproductive

9. SOCIETAL STABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

• Underlying presumption of sust society

• But many potential major disruptors

• Current global problems include …

• What do we (you) want most ?

• Will “Enviro-Sust.” preoccupation deliver ?

PART C - ON SCIENCE

10. Science as the means of human progress

11. Risk as an essential aspect of science

12. Corruption, denigration, demotion

of science/technology

10. SCIENCE AS THE MEANSOF HUMAN PROGRESS

• Human progress via trial, error, correction

• “Dark ages” of “correct thinking”-> stasis

• Renaissance :free thought >creativity, progres

• Scientific method formalises ancient abilities

- requires impartiality = exclude personal values

• Analogous to separation of church and state

- sustainability is values/belief, science is secular

11. RISK AS AN ESSENTIAL ASPECT OF SCIENCE

• All projects involve unknowns = risk

• Risk increases with problem complexity

- but are problems really more complex?

• Increased caution warranted

- except where alternative risk worse

• The safety-at-any-cost regulatory industry

• Precautionary “Principle” precludes risk

- and progress. Classic agent of stasism

12. CORRUPTION, DENIGRATION AND DEMOTION OF SCIENCE

• “Vision” needed to initiate scientific proof

• Proof (may) validates vision, not vice versa

• “Political correctness” imposes / fixes vision

- associated “proof” is probably corrupt

• “Post Modernism” antipathetic to science

• Consultation + lay “experts” trump science

• Dissolution of MWD, City Engineers

CONCLUSION - ON SUST

• “Sust.” must support progress, not prevent it

• Otherwise … (“not with a bang but a whimper”)

• Priority : Sust Society; Sust Envt as affordable

• Beware govt elites imposing absolutist values

• 50yr Plan : Flexible or (Policy) Fixation?

• Project benefits us’lly overwhelm costs/effects

CONCLUSION - ON GOVT• Freed/Democr facilitates “Peace & Prosperity”

Sust.Freed/Democr prior goal to Sust Envt

• UN/enviro-NGO Envtl Imperialism kills LCDs

• Politicians easily captured by bureau policies

- Price of Freed/Democr is eternal vigilance.

- Public must mind the bureau minders,

… seek constitutional checks & balances

• Subsidies prop up unwanted services – beware

• OTT on climate/oil distract from greater threats

CONCLUSION - ON SCIENCE

• Left brain professions must be reinstated

as (balancing) advisers to (local) govt

• Without that, society must/will stagnate

• Sciences must self-protect from shonky

by - clear separation from values/politics

- avoid values in Codes of Practice/Ethics

• “No man can serve two masters”

such as client and imposed values