Ecological Limits of Development Living with the Sustainable Development Goals 1st Edition by Kaitlin Kish, Stephen Quilley ISBN 9780367540593 0367540592

Part I Energy, complexity, and livelihood

1 Introduction: ‘Me, myself, I’ and the political economy of the Sustainable Development Goals

Alternative modernity: Partial re-embedding

Works cited

2 Energy and social complexity: A primer in ecological economics

Systems ecology and society

Complex systems analysis

Ecological economics and societal energetics

H.T. Odum: Energy embodied across distributed and hierarchical flow networks

Steering and channelling: Unintentional and intentional human regulation of the Earth system

Ecological economics

Development goals and levels of reality

Notes

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3 State, Market, and Livelihood: Ideology, politics, and political economy in an era of limits

Disembedding, re-embedding, and complexity

Social limits to growth

Karl Polanyi and more viscous modernity: More embedded economic development

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4 Core and periphery in the global economy: How does green politics in the ‘North’ relate to development in the Global South

Core and periphery: From Marx and Lenin to Frank and Wallerstein

Highly networked regions, distributism, and re-localization as an alternative to globalization

Conclusion

Notes

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Part II Basic systems sustaining life

5 Human culture and life on land and sea: Attachment and scale in ecology and society

Ecology and society: The problem of the ‘complete act’

Individual, community, and social-ecological attachment

Wicked dilemma: Individual versus attachment

Attachment and social-ecological systems

Mobilizing the effects: Restorative culture and political economy

Oikos: Subsidiarity and distributism in ecology and political economy

Grain and scale in the economy

Distributive oikos: Economics, attachment, ecological edge, and diversity

Semi-permeable membranes and edges: Quantitative complexity at scale versus qualitative, granular complexity in place

Ecology and economy: Attachment, the commons, and self-organizing pastoral taskscapes

Note

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6 SDG 7 ‘Energy for all’: Ecological economic targets for an energy transition that centres well-being within planetary boundaries

Introduction: SDG 7, quality of life, and planetary limits

Why SDG 7 falls short

SDG 7 and the myth of decoupling

Energy-affluent societies and SDG 7

SDG 7 and the three pillars of ecological economics

Sustainable scale in SDG 7

Just distribution in SDG 7

Efficient allocation in SDG 7

Achieving a holistic SDG 7

A holistic SDG 7 and the energy transition

Decoupling energy use and well-being

Governing a post-growth SDG 7

Conclusion

Notes

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7 Livelihood and limits: We can prosper without growth

How did we get here?

Beyond the biophysical

Are we better off?

Beyond growth for well-being

Conclusion

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8 Wicked dilemmas of growth and poverty: A case study of agroecology

Food systems

Alternative system case study: Agroecology

Alternative targets for SDGs

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9 Planetary health and well-being from a limits perspective

Introduction

Human health is dependent on planetary health

Planetary health depends on a post-growth transition

Initiatives that create conditions for health to flourish across socio-ecological scales

Soil health

Care farming

Family care for mental illness

Conclusion

Proposed new targets

Indicators

Indicators

Indicators

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Part III Life and well-being enhancing systems

10 Education, Livelihood, and the State–Market: Towards radical subsidiarity

The big history of education

Education in turmoil

Education, modernity, and civil society: Paradoxes of shared culture and coercion

Education and the loss of language cultures

Standardized education

Horns of a dilemma: Livelihood education and the civic-national society of individuals

Livelihood and the State–Market in education: The co-existence of two ontologies and forms of life

Problems of meaning for education

New targets for SDG 4

Notes

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11 Removing the burden: Valuation of the household and commons in the SDGs

Women and devalued work

What happened to women during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The need for a shift away from both over reliance on the State–Market and an overly feminized domain of Livelihood

A radical polis-oikos

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12 Are there environmental limits to achieving equality between humans?

Are there biophysical limits to achieving equality between humans?

Is it possible to meet humans needs, in an equitable way, within planetary biophysical limits?

Focusing on over-consumption and extreme wealth

Endless economic growth is not possible on a finite planet

Mainstream approaches to addressing inequality ignore extreme wealth and redistribution and focus on inclusive economic growth as the solution

Proposed new targets for SDG #10

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13 A handmade future: Makers, microfabrication, and meaning for ecological and resilient production networks

A brief history of manufacturing

Impacts of mass production on the individual

The do-it-yourself alternative

Case study: A handmade future

Conclusion

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Part IV Politics and global partnerships

14 Peace and justice within limits: Putting the pressure on geopolitics, development, and social cohesion

Introduction

What determines violence within states? Market-driven complexity, the state monopoly of violence, and internal psychological restraints

Democracy versus economic growth versus state formation: The sequence of development

Liberal interventions: The monopoly of violence and the legitimating ‘we identity’

Inclusion of whom and in what?

Growth, peace, and politics: North, West, East, and South

Growth, class conflict, and democracy in the West

Growth and development in the Global South

Conclusions and policies

Localism, subsidiarity, and the circular economy

The arms trade

Trade and aid as a pressure point

Conscription, communitarian solidarity, and defensive posture

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15 Engaging economies of change: Equitable partnerships for climate action

Engaging Economies of Change

Positionality

Revealing intersections to transcend crossroads

Intersectional feminisms and the SDGs

Embodying change at CANSEE 2019

Building relationships

Dialogue across difference

Emphasizing local ecological economies

Student empowerment

Public scholarship and community participation

Learning by doing

Focusing on just recoveries

Conclusion

Note

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16 A crisis of identity: The UN Sustainable Development Goals within an unsustainable law and governance framework

Introduction

The state of the SDGs is a reflection of the state of the system

The ability of the SDGs to uproot the roots of our crises

SDGs need to embrace the evolution of the protection of life (sustainability)

Conclusion

Notes

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17 Conclusion: From ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ to ‘Ecological Livelihood Goals’

Navigating the long now

Complexity and political economy

Ecological Livelihood Goals: Trade-offs and wicked dilemmas

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Index