Dr. Tim White's Keynote from AASHE 2011

The following is a transcript of Dr. Tim White's keynote from the 2011 AASHE Conference.

Good morning. It is indeed an honor to be asked to address this group of panelists, participants, and leaders in higher education on an issue of such tremendous importance – not just to those of us gathered in this room, but to society as a whole.

I will focus, today, on the roles of higher education in addressing the issue of sustainability.

I seek to cover four main points:

1. The Definition: The complexity of sustainability and all that it encompasses. Its full meaning has many dimensions, layers, impacts.

2. Two Myths and a Fact: What do we mean when we talk about quality of life? And how do we think about it? This gets to our values, both personal and societal.

3. The Issue: Why is this issue so urgent? What trends of population, consumption, technology, and the priorities make sustainability so challenging to address?

4. The Solution: How does this all come together? How must we best tackle such a complex, multi-faceted issue? How can we accelerate progress? What role can -- and should -- higher education play, not only in serving as a model for sustainability, but in transforming society?

And I wish to thank Tony Cortese, Cindy Giorgio, Frances Fernandez and John Cook for their generosity of ideas and effort in constructing this address.

Definition

Let’s start with the definition.

Sustainability. [pause]

A word that derives from the Latin “sustinere” (suss-ten-erry).
“Tenere” (ten-erry) means to hold, and “sus” mean up.

Hence, the root word “sustain” means to hold up, to maintain, to endure.

It is no accident that the second chapter of Rachel Carson’s landmark book is titled, “The Obligation to Endure.” We first started using the word “sustainable” in the context of the environment in the 1960s with the publication of Silent Spring and the emergence of a fledgling environmental movement.

Before long, that context broadened to include the economic and social dimension of sustainability, because tensions were already beginning to arise between environmental interests and those who felt this path stymied economic development and growth.

Of course, multiple political perspectives emerged and began to shape, and in some cases pervert, the dialogue around sustainability and public policy.

Soon scholars and humanitarians began talking about the human dimensions of sustainability – the inequity between those with access to resources and those without.

More particularly, they pointed to the poverty afflicting 3.2 billion people today who live without sanitation on less than $2.50 US per day, and the fact that the depletion and redistribution of limited natural resources were exacerbating the problem.

At the same time, sustainability became an intellectual and technological challenge for scientists and engineers:

• Could we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, improve waste management, limit the greenhouse effect?
• How, exactly, could we measure the toll human activities were exacting on our natural environment …the air, water, soils and seas?
• What could we learn from this information?
• What sea-change in policies are required to sustain our quality of life as the population grows and countries develop?

And, in the end, a realization:

• The bottom line in defining sustainability is that it is inextricably intertwined with not only our values, but our actions and behaviors - both personal and societal.

I will explore that issue more in a moment, but first let me discuss how this concept affects our definition of sustainability.

At its simplest, sustainability may be described as sustaining or improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of the Earth.

But this definition shortchanges any discussion of our values and behaviors …and the call to action implicit in any true commitment to a sustainable future.

This omission was addressed by the Earth Charter.

Formed in 2000 as the eventual outgrowth of the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development (i.e., the Brundtland Commission), the Earth Charter refers to, “a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace.”

The Charter is built on the understanding that we must have a healthy and sustainable relationship with the earth in order to meet the basic needs of current and future generations.

The Earth Charter challenges us at a very visceral level – what will our legacy be?

This notion captures the full complexity and multiple dimensions of the concept of sustainability…the values we embrace, and the challenge that lies before us:

• Not a simple problem.
• Not a simple solution.
• But it simply must be solved…and universities and colleges will be the engine that does so.

Two Myths and a Fact
So let’s explore the issue of the values connected with sustainability with two myths and a fact.

Myth #1: Increased consumption is equated with success.

From the earliest civilization, 6000 or so years ago, humankind has equated the acquisition of goods as evidence of success. Early on, it was an issue of survival. More food, better shelter meant longer, healthier lives. But as we “evolved,” we wanted more. And more. And more.

Today many consider the most successful among us to be those with the largest homes, the fanciest clothes and furnishings, the most elegant cars, the latest technological gadgets, and the luxury to travel and consume, consume, consume.

This is a personal definition of success, the standard of living to which many aspire.

Looking at recent history through a strictly economic lens, we have been enormously successful by this definition.

Since 1950, the world economy has experienced a 10-fold growth, while personal income grew fourfold, significantly boosting our standard of living.

But is this really progress?

Ecologically, the answer is no. Our existing ecological footprint requires 1.5 Earths to sustain our current worldwide level of consumption. Already our “account” is overdrawn:

• Scientists have estimated we would need 4 to 5 Earths if everyone on the planet lived like the average American – a goal that many other nations are scrambling to attain.

• At some point, the celestial bank will have to foreclose…collapse, as Jared Diamond prophers.

And yet our appetite for growth, consumption, and new technologies is seemingly limitless.

In his 2011 book, World on the Edge, Lester Brown employs a simple but effective metaphor for the resulting degradation of resources and the speed at which this occurs:

• He describes a lily pond with one leaf in it on day 1,
• two leaves on day 2,
• four leaves on day 3, and so on,
• doubling the number of leaves each day. If the lily pond becomes completely full on day 30, on what day is it half full? [pause]
• Day 29.

Leaves in a pond is one thing. They can be seen and counted.

But the unintended consequences of exponential growth – and its corollary exponential decay – may not be noticed in time…unless there are people and agencies, namely colleges and universities, to provide science and rationale thinking to these issues – and then have them influence policy.

Frightening… And so much for Myth #1.

Myth #2: Better widgets = improved quality of life.

This myth is closely linked to myth #1, but it reflects the producer or industry perspective, rather than the individual.

Surely if a business can produce a bigger, flashier, faster widget, business is moving society forward and improving our quality of life, especially if the price is affordable and the producer turns a profit.

Is that not the business plan under which many companies operate? Is that not the premise underlying capitalism?

For example, with the recent passing of Steve Jobs, the eulogies speak convincingly of a better connected and informed life because of his genius.

But as we balance our consideration of such advances, we must consider whether a given company factors into the equation the true cost of producing widget 2.0?

• What fossil fuels were used in its production?
• How much water was consumed in cooling the manufacturing plant?
• What chemicals were released into the air, ground and water during the production process?
• How much fuel is used in the delivery system to get the widget to market? …
• and what are the true costs later-on of removing the product from the market?

Now, sometimes the manufacturer or consumer of a widget may actually be doing a public good, an environmentally responsible thing. Obvious examples:

• the manufacturer may be building a car that is more fuel efficient.
• The consumer may be replacing a 25-year-old refrigerator with one that requires less energy.

When consumption or production is coupled with positive, sustainable goals, it can be a public good.

But I would argue that, even in these instances, we often fail to take into account the full cost of developing, manufacturing, delivering, using and disposing of those widgets – the true life cycle.

In fact, manufacturers seldom factor the environmental costs into the price of the product they sell.

Lester Brown talks about gasoline as an example.

• At the time of his writing, pumping oil, refining it into gasoline, and delivering it to service stations cost roughly $3 per gallon before retail mark-up.
• But the indirect costs such as climate change, oil spills, respiratory illnesses, and our military presence in the Middle East to ensure that the oil keeps flowing, total $12 per gallon.
• A 4-fold increase in cost few consumers would bear but – more importantly – a cost for which no one, anywhere along the line, is held accountable.

To be fair and to be encouraged, the message is permeating some layers of business, government, labor leaders – and they are discovering that green can make very good business sense.

DuPont has saved $3 Billion since 1990 by reducing heat-trapping emissions by 72%.

And Interface, Inc., the world’s largest modular carpet manufacturer and one of the world’s leading companies in economic, social and ecological sustainability, netted $433 million with their zero-tolerance waste program.

The ten growing campuses of the University of California have committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG) and cutting energy costs by $36 million annually, with the goal of reducing our overall energy use

• 25% to 2000 GHG levels by 2014,
• and a 50% reduction by 2020 to reach 1990 GHG levels.
• We have embarked on three broad strategies:

1. ‘deep energy efficiency via e-saving retrofit projects;
2. obtain renewable energy from large-scale, mostly off-site, wholesale sources;
3. Procure biogas on a large scale for UC’s central plants.

So much for Myth #2.

Finally, the Fact: The Earth’s resources = finite.

Now, stop tweeting your colleagues that you just learned something new. Yes, we all understand this at an intellectual level. But our behavior – especially collectively - rarely reflects this understanding.

We continue to produce and consume as though the Earth’s natural resources will last forever. Or that it is somebody else’s problem and that I deserve a “pass” or “get out of jail free” card.

As though the consequences of climate change, habitat destruction, and over-consumption of natural resources can somehow be denied, or at least postponed for someone else to worry about.

In his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond writes:

• “Perhaps a crux of success or failure is to know which core values to hold onto, and which ones to discard and replace with new values, when times change.”

Jim Collins in his Good to Great books points out that to be great:

• one needs to preserve core values and core purposes,
• but change cultural and operating practices,
• and adjust specific goals and strategies to get from here to there.

While we may have raised our collective consciousness, at least somewhat, in this country, I see little evidence that we are making sufficient change.

• And when times get tough – like now with the lingering economic malaise - it is easy to retreat from a forward leaning view.
• We have not struck a realistic and sustainable balance between quality of life and environmental responsibility.

A 2002 study by Mathis Wackernagel (Math-iss Wack-ur-nay-ghel) of the Global Footprint Network concluded that humanity’s collective demands surpassed the Earth’s regenerative capacity in 1980.

• Less than 20 years later, global demands on the earth’s natural systems exceeded sustainable yields by 35 percent.
• Indeed, we went into ecological overload for 2011 just last week.

And this fact brings us to where we are today.

The Issue
So the issue boils down to this:

*We are currently living, functioning, manufacturing, prospering in a way that is environmentally unsustainable. *

In the last 200 years, the earth’s population has grown from 1 to 6.7 billion people, a more than 6-fold gain. During this same period, energy consumption has increased 80-fold and economic output has risen 68-fold. And of that burgeoning population, 25 percent consumes 70 to 80 percent of the world’s resources.

Since 1960, the gap between the richest 20 percent of the population and the poorest 20 percent has increased 3 X .

At the same time, developing countries are building their infrastructures and economies – their consumption rapidly increasing – while, in their haste to catch up, they are paying insufficient attention to the impact on the Earth’s resources:

• We can hardly blame just the developing world…indeed developed countries keep developing more, further straining the Earth’s limited capacity.

Again, we call this progress.

• Is it?
• Can it be sustained?
• The answer, I assure you based on science, is clearly no.

In our zeal to be competitive, we have not taken the time to reach agreement on the Earth’s carrying capacity.

• Nor have we identified our collective responsibility to sustain its resources, nor
• adhere to the values that will lead to a prosperous, peaceful, and just global society for the current and future population that will likely reach 8.5 - 9 billion people in 40 years.

I agree with my colleague and friend Tony Cortese that this is arguably the greatest civilizational, moral and intellectual challenge that humanity – and therefore higher education – has ever faced.

• Business as usual will not work,
• and failure is not an option.

Yet there are bright spots.

No one was more influential in promoting that vision of a sustainable future than Kenyan Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, (Wan-gari Mad-aye ) whose plan to speak at this conference was sadly thwarted by her untimely death on Sept. 23, 2011.

She founded the Green Belt Movement, dedicated to replacing Kenya’s decimated forests. Her unique insight was that the lives of people in many developing countries would improve if economic and social progress went hand-in-hand with environmental protection.

She conceived the tree planting movement as a source of employment in rural areas, and a way to give new skills to Kenyan women in terms of power, education, nutrition and much else.

Her movement was not just about planting trees;

• it was about why trees are planted,
• the social side of how tree-planting works,
• the political work that accompanies it,
• and the vision that sees loss of forest as translating into lost prospects for people down the road.

And that brings us full circle, back to Rachel Carson, who concludes the second chapter of Silent Spring – the chapter titled “The Obligation to Endure” – with the words:

“The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.”

Solution: The Vital Role of Higher Education
I have discussed:

• The complexity of sustainability
• Two myths rooted in our personal and societal values and their collision with one incontrovertible fact, and
• The myriad issues that we face.

So where do these many challenges – environmental, economic, political, social, intellectual, technological, and cultural – all come together?

• Where can solutions to such multi-faceted issues be developed?
• Where can the public turn to gain “full possession of the facts?”
• Higher education.
• Solutions must be driven by us.
• Our institutions, the people in this room, and our university colleagues around the world.

From community colleges and small private institutions to huge public research universities, we have a unique role in untangling the myths, developing the facts, creating solutions, and providing overall leadership to the many and complicated dimensions of sustainability.

In order to walk the talk, we must study the talk and teach the talk.

The fact that you are here today probably means that you share the sentiment of one of my colleagues, John Cook, who heads up our sustainability efforts at the University of California, Riverside. John says, “If we can’t envision a university being sustainable, how can we expect society to achieve sustainability?”

Actually, there are probably two defined communities that could consider this question. One is colleges and universities. The other is prisons.

In both cases you have a defined population that spends time on campus for a finite period of time (except of course sentences for life) and a village full of a range of energy consuming and waste producing activities.

Prisons have the advantage of being able to force several behavior changes, generally don’t use shared governance, and certainly have more resources…at least in California prisons receive significantly greater percentage of the state’s budget – 11 % to 7% - than higher education.

Despite prisons “enduring” qualities, however, universities have the clear advantage…because we are cauldrons of innovation, experimentation, discovery and learning. And most importantly -- the opportunity to create human capital that will make a positive difference.

So let’s get back to John’s statement – it is richer than it may first appear.

• It implies that a university can be a model for the rest of the world.
• Also inherent in his words is the implication that a university has many of the necessary ingredients – the intellectual and technological resources – to become sustainable.
• But more than that, more than being a model for sustainability, institutions of higher education have as their mission the very elements – teaching, research, engagement and the powerful engine of faculty, students and post-docs – required to be agents of change.

We are in the business of knowledge: its acquisition, development, preservation and transfer.

Our research universities are acknowledged leaders in developing innovative technologies. And, even before the advent of the land grant university system in the U.S., higher education has engaged with its communities, training its sights on some of the most vexing issues facing our society.

Through this array of missions, higher education has the opportunity to provide leadership to the cultural transformation that will be necessary for our globe to be sustainable.

To be successful, our institutions, our students, our faculty, our staff – our very culture – must be imbued with a belief in and commitment to sustainability.

How can higher education do better and do more to take on such an enormous challenge?

First, we can serve as models for sustainable practices. Institutions of higher education are microcosms of society.

Take the University of California, Riverside, for example. With a student and employee population of 27,000, we are roughly the size of the average U.S. town. We have apartments, residence halls, restaurants, stores, utilities, trash pick-up, recycling, mail services, fleet services, our own police department, gardeners, and more.

UC Riverside, like each of your institutions, has put into place many sustainable practices and technologies. Already at UCR, we:

• Recycle 58 % of our waste, and are installing a fully operational transfer station to take this to 75 %.
• Run 100 % of our chilled water air conditioning through a process called thermal energy storage, chilling the water at night when energy is cheaper, and thus saving enough to power the equivalent of 10,000 homes.
• Constructed our latest research building, Health Sciences, of recycled and renewable materials and to a standard that will outperform the stringent California Energy Code by 20 %.
• Our Center for Environmental Research and Technology is perfecting a biofuel transformation system that converts food waste from our dining halls into fuel.

Leadership can start at the top, so I personally have committed to chair the University of California’s Chancellor’s Committee on Sustainability. The bully pulpit can have its advantage.

And, despite significant budget challenges in the state of California – and perhaps because of them – I continue to fund UCR’s sustainability program, not only because I believe it is the right thing to do, but because in the long run I believe it will not only conserve precious natural resources but also save our institution money.

At the national level, I now chair the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a group that has shown unprecedented, collective commitment to the goal of climate neutrality. By signaling their commitment to creating a sustainable society, higher education leaders are ensuring that all graduates can align their personal and professional lives with sustainability goals.

In a very real sense, ACUPCC, which in four years has grown from a small group of 12 college and university presidents to 675, is throwing down the gauntlet to other U.S. institutions by committing so publicly to measure, reduce and eventually neutralize campus greenhouse gas emissions, to develop students’ capability to help all of society do the same . . and to publicly report on their progress.

But leadership also emerges from anyone willing to act – it is not only the purview of line-authority.

Because higher education provides the intellect and initiative to move this country forward, it is important that we set the standard for society to aspire to and train the intellectual community and the workforce to preserve this planet for future generations …and do battle with the causes of climate change.

Thus, it is the responsibility of faculty, staff, and students to provide leadership as well…in addition to our alumni who infiltrate all walks of society.

Given the increasingly international nature of higher education, and the large number of collaborative projects that we undertake across national borders, this unprecedented effort may hold the greatest chance for success.

And the spirit of collaboration that exists among member institutions of the ACUPCC speeds our ability to develop new knowledge and adopt new strategies in our communities.

It is precisely because leadership comes at all levels that at UC Riverside, our students have also taken the initiative by:

• Creating a community garden where students grow their own food and donate the rest to local charities.
• Launched a campaign educating students to use filtered tap water rather than bottled.
• And, in a true showing of commitment, voting to tax themselves $2.50 per quarter to finance such measures as installation of solar panels.
• One particularly enterprising group of engineering students has won an EPA grant to develop low-cost solar dryers for low-income families that could cut power usage up to 16 %.
  • A local builder has committed to installing the dryer in his zero-energy housing development.

These are just a few examples of what universities can accomplish.

You, as members of AASHE are in the wheelhouse and are doing this and so much more.

I applaud you for these efforts and encourage you to continue exerting such leadership and modeling sustainable behavior for other communities, states, and nations.

But to truly integrate sustainability into our culture and values, we must do more.

Let’s talk about one core of our mission: teaching and learning. It is encouraging that so many fields of study have emerged that focus on environmental issues.

• In chemistry, engineering, law, public policy, agriculture, biology, and of course environmental sciences, both undergraduate and graduate students can choose areas of focus that will advance the sustainability agenda.
• But what of other disciplines?
• Sustainability is not just for environmental sciences majors any more.
• Are our business majors examining health, social and environmental costs when they look at business plans?
• Are our psychology and sociology majors looking at human behavior in terms of sustainability and why we make the choices we do – and more importantly how we can change behaviors?
• Can philosophy majors examine the values that underpin the decisions we make about sustainability?
• Are we asking our English and creative writing majors to read and write essays on the human rights, social justice, and the environment?
• In music, dance, and other performing arts, are students taught to develop interpretive pieces that convey the sustainability message?

Sustainability can and must be infused across the curriculum.

One can make the case that the sustainability of a healthy, just, democratic and ecologically secure society should be the goal of our education.

• And, in so doing, we can ensure that all professionals, regardless of their major, have the knowledge and skills – and hopefully the values – to align their personal and professional lives with the principles of sustainability.
• Let me opine that helping to make this educational transformation occur is the most important ongoing focus of AASHE because of the breadth, understanding and commitment of its membership.
• I am delighted, and encouraged, that AASHE has committed to work on this effort on behalf of the ACUPCC network of presidents and chancellors.

At many of our universities, we have the opportunity to do still more by giving students the opportunity to participate in hands-on research, thus enhancing their educational experience while at the same time advancing our knowledge and, often, developing new strategies for sustainability.

UCR Students also have been instrumental in getting grants to support work on alternative energy.

• Engineering undergraduates won two Demonstration of Energy Efficient Developments (DEED) awards.
• One group is using steam hydro-gasification to convert campus food and landfill waste into synthetic diesel fuel. This team is now working with the local utility company on how to implement this method on a wide scale.
• The second group is helping design fuel cell electricity generation for us in remote, off-grid areas.

At research universities, faculty in a multitude of disciplines are exploring and developing new approaches, from sustainable suburban development to alternative fuels to programs aimed at alleviating poverty through green jobs.

I believe that University leadership has a responsibility to invest strategically in the most promising of these efforts, providing seed money that can help leverage federal or foundation grants.

Last, and far from least, institutions of higher education can partner with their communities to engage in sustainable practices:

• Decades ago, UC Riverside broke ground by partnering with the County of Riverside, California, to develop the nation’s first regional habitat conservation plan.
• Today the partnership continues, with UCR scientists conducting monitoring, sensing, and modeling studies throughout the county.
• These studies provide research opportunities for our faculty and students, but also provide valuable guidance to the county when it makes decisions about transportation, land use planning, and development.

Many other examples exist as to how higher education can engage with its communities. We can work with businesses, government, K-12 education, the arts, healthcare, civic organizations, and other groups to contribute to an environment of shared learning and creation of knowledge aimed at addressing societal issues.

This is also an opportunity to provide meaningful engagement experiences for our students. For faculty, our goal of engagement provides opportunities to translate their research and creative activity into beneficial outreach or service programs…or spin off new and sustainable companies.

Everyone wins – our students, our faculty, our communities and, most importantly, our planet Earth…and of course the people not yet here yet.

Which of course raises that nagging legacy question for all of us and each of us that I raised earlier…*what will our legacy be
*
Call to Action

In the past society has summoned the will to do the seemingly impossible:

• defeat totalitarianism;
• put a man on the moon,
• increase the number of people that can be fed,
• eradicate disease and diminish others,
• and the list goes on

Higher education was and is at the center of all of this.

So now is our time. Again.

We must step up and create a low carbon, low waste, socially just and sustainable economy on a vast scale.

Let me close by asking you to think deeply of the difference we can make if each of our institutions and our sister institutions throughout the world make and act on this commitment:

• Collectively our network can have a global reach – a reach that can make all the difference for our vulnerable planet.
• Imagine the impact – and the political capital – if all colleges and universities in the world joined the “ACUPCC 670” (and counting) US colleges and universities which have publically committed to research and education for, and practice of, sustainability and climate neutrality.

Clearly you are committed, or else you would not be attending this conference, but now we need to all redouble our efforts, not only to influence our own institutions, but to encourage our communities and our sister institutions around the world to engage in these efforts as well.

In Collapse, Jared Diamond identifies five factors that contribute to societal collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, loss of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and society’s response to environmental issues. The first four may or may not prove significant in a society’s demise, Diamond states, but the fifth – our response…our behavior – always does.

In this sense, society can choose whether it succeeds or fails.

And that decision can start with us.

• As leaders in higher education, we can make a difference.
• We can be the catalyst that begins to realign personal and societal values, that develops new technologies and strategies to advance sustainable practices, and that inspires and engages our global community in choosing success.

We are all leaders. Let higher education show the way to a new, sustainable world.

To quote just about everybody--- “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

Let me finish with an observation of the late Christopher Reeve.

• I understand this to be said as he worked personally to regain the ability to walk after his catastrophic cord injury.
• He spoke about this from a personal therapy perspective, as well as promoting research, education and policy in stem cells and other promising areas of regenerative medicine.
• Please think deeply about his words that I paraphrase: “At first many of our dreams and goals seem impossible. With continued work and effort they then become improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they become inevitable”.

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