Just think about it, from about 1960s to 2012 a green cold war was on in western countries and the Rio +20 conference was the event where winners and losers were going to come up. The competitors in the different economy-environment coalitions were perfect environmentalism and imperfect environmentalism. Perfect environmentalism aims at fixing the environmental sustainability gap to achieve environmental sustainability, imperfect environmentalism aims at patching the environmental sustainability gap to achieve environmental externality management. In the end from 2012 to now the world went environmental externality management. So the question, can 2012 Rio +20 conference be taken as where perfect environmentalism lost the green cold war? I think yes, what do you think?
Very interesting point you raise am following as a deliberate on the issue.
Dear Lucio,
In a way, yes. Unfortunately, the implementation of sustainable development into economic processes and the development of the concept of green economy and / or circular economy is progressing too slowly in relation to the needs arising from the accelerating global warming process. These processes are slow because there are many enterprises, corporations, business environments etc. whose current businesses are in opposition, contradictions, antithesis etc. to sustainable development and the concept of green economy and / or circular economy. There is still a strong lobby that slows down these processes.
Best regards, Have a nice day,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now," said Martin Luther King, Jr. on a different subject. Twenty years after the Earth Summit of 1992, the world leaders and national representatives who attended Rio+20 evidently still felt they were not in the same boat, although all of Mankind is undoubtedly in the same storm. It cannot have helped that Rio+20’s sadly-titled outcome document, "The Future We Want", hoped to address our planet's cornucopia of pressing issues from "common but differentiated responsibilities": that was a sure way to both err on the side of breadth and lack depth.
Dear Joan, Dariuz, Olivier and Abdelnser, thank you for commenting.
The way I see it, 2012 Rio +20 was the culmination of the green cold war that started in the 1960s with the rise of modern environmentalism, and the talk before the conference, during the conference and soon after the conference was about going to green markets, green economies and green growth which meant to me then that perfect environmentalism had won the green cold war as the conference was opening the way to fix the environmental sustainability gap embedded in the traditional market model.....,,,
but the later move away from green markets after 2012 Rio ended and towards environmental management based markets told me that No, it was imperfect envrionentalism that had won the green cold war, and hence they will be ones who history will judge as the ones who agreed to go against the wish of the 1987 Brundtland commission of going far away from business as usual.....Instead we moved to a business as usual model with a green cover as under environmental externality management based markets the environmental sustainability gap is STILL ACTIVE,,,
That is why in my view 2012 Rio +20 conference represents the fall of perfect environmentalism, and the end of the pressure needed for green markets to become a reality....
Thank you for your comments...
I am working on the first draft of my next paper where I am going to share more food for thoughts related to this question, you may find this project interesting:
Sustainability thoughts 118: Who lost the green cold war at the 2012 Rio +20 conference in practice, perfect environmentalism or imperfect environmentalism? What is the implication of this?
https://www.researchgate.net/project/Sustainability-thoughts-118-Who-lost-the-green-cold-war-at-the-2012-Rio-20-conference-in-practice-perfect-environmentalism-or-imperfect-environmentalism-What-is-the-implication-of-this
Was there at any time a posible perfect environmentalismo? What that means, anyway, if not an utopia like Plato ideal world as a model for the desired world?
In Rio+20 won the neoliberal concept of sustainable development, euphemistically named as green economy. It have been suported by UNEP, FAO and others international institutions, including some big international environmental NGOs. It is already reflected in the SDG-2030.
Also, the next step of 'green economy' is 'blue economy' and 'blue growth' (implicit in SDG nº 14), meaning the assault to the oceanic resources and the commodization of the deep marine frontier.
Not perfect nor imperfect, it is the struggle of power in the global market and politics as always have being.
Carlos, are you saying models in science are useless? Because they are utopia? I do not think so
Point 1:
At Rio plus 20 perfect environmentalism won in theory because they said they were going green market, green economy and green growth.....and green markets can not exist without perfect environmentalism....
That green market can be stated in simple terms as
GM = BC,
where B = Economy and C =environment
So the necesssary and sufficient conditions for green market(GM) to exist is the present of economic sustainability(B) and environmental sustainaibilty(C) at the same time. That is the WIN-WIN Perfect economy-perfect environment as paradigms shifts from perfect markets to perfect markets.....
Point 2
After Rio plus 20 perfect environmentalism lost in practice when the world decided to go the way of environmental externality management markets instead of green markets as they originally said they were going, which are not green markets....
The environmental externality management market(ENM) can be stated in simple terms as:
ENM = B[M(C)]
where B = economic sustainability and M(C) = Environmental management
You see there is no requirement for environmental sustainability to exist in the ENM model so imperfect environmentalism wins, perfect environmentalism loses...
Just because others use a concept be it international organizations or individuals does mean mean anything.... I sometime wonder how someone can use a concept with the definition of a different concept....
Have a nice day!
I am not saying that models are useless, but in fact they are a simplification of reality. When you named a model as perfection it is bound to fail, because there is not possible perfection in anthropogenic environmental management. In this way I am saying it is idealistic. I would prefer the terms "deep environmentalism" versus "weak environmentalism" for such dichotomy you are talking about.
For your question on Rio+20 Conference, winner proposal was the neoliberal market driven environmentalism: a vision that natural elements are natural capital, bounded to become commodities with a price tag on it. To say that it is perfect is an exaggeration. To say that it is imperfect is a tautology, because humans are imperfect. So, what are you measuring with this denomination?
What you call "the neoliberal market driven environmentalism" is the heart of the environmental externality management market....they were the winners of the Rio plus 20 process that started in 1992 at the end and in practice as I said.....It is a non-free market made up by economists who walked away from perfect market thinking and by environmentalist who walked away from environmental sustainability thinking and now champion environmental externality management, they accepted a world under permanent government intervention...
But look at the environmental externality management market structure
ENM = BM(C)
The economy is a full winner as there is economic sustainability(B), but the environment is losing in this partnership because the more those environmentalist you mention and which I called imperfect environmentalism could get out of the green war was a partial win....as you have a full economy win-partial environment win partnership far less than the WIN-WIN partnerships that you have in green markets(GM = BC), where perfect environmentalism wins in theory if the 2012 Rio +20 had done what they said and prepare us for....a world under green markets....
You should know you can not look at green market thinking from the point of view of traditional microeconomy and macroeconomy as green markets follow green microeconomics and green macroeconomic thinking as they are a higher level market than the traditional market....
It seems your concerns are only about terminology, an issue that will be less an issue as my publications come along and people read....so I will leave it here....
Thank you for your comments.
Have a good day!
The "war" is not finished, although deep environmentalism is loosing - and this is being paid by the world, as we see.
One field of "battle" is the use of the very concept of "natural capital" and the ongoing revision process of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) in its Ecosystem Accounts part, which are currently Experimental and should remain such given the approach taken. This approach has monetary valuation (based on exchange values) as final result and overarching organisation logic (despite all leap service to plurality of economic and non-economic values, integration, system approach, indivisibility of ecosystems, etc). It is based on neoclassical economic thinking and is functional to neoliberal policies (despite leap service to "imagine there's a market" (for ecosystem services and assets) not being intended as "we want that there be a market"). It is an ideology-laden apprach, whose relationship with real markets functioning and the big game of power should be better explored. A different approach to the description of the relationship between Nature and economy and what is necessary to know for policy (e.g. based on non-marginalist functions of production) is possible but not actively funded by international organisations such as the UN (UNSD, UNEP, regional Economic Commissions....), the WB, OECD and Eurostat, which are all looking (after Costanza and frinds) for "the economic value of Nature"... as if there could be anything outside Nature or anything could be produced without it.
Good day Aldo. If you look at the issue from the sustainability point of view, then the green cold war is over, but by default.....The only science based winner in a green cold war is the green market whether under win-win conditions or no win-win conditions as either correcting the perfect environmental market to reflect fully economic concerns or correcting the traditional market to reflect fully environmental concerns shift those markets towards green market so as to go beyond business as normal as the Brundtland Commission asked us to do in 1987.....as the paradigm shift is a full fix.....
Environmental externality management is a patch aimed at blocking the paradigm shift either because the green market paradigm shift knowledge created did not or does not let see from inside the box what needs to be done or perhaps because of willful academic blindness.....
In summary, from the sustainability point of view:
a) green markets and hence perfect environmentalism lost the green cold war in 2012 Rio +20 by default as they are the winners in theory since in practice environmental externality management was arbitrarity made the winner....
b) but now we have a new environmental war, the war between environmental sustainability and environmental externality management, a war that according to paradigm death and shift expectations will lead to the death of the externality management model as the remaining environemental sustainability gap embedded in will bring it down sooner or later as the enviromental externality management markets expands.....then after collapse green market will come under more challenging economic and environmental conditions with a response.....corona virus type government response.....
We need to close the green paradigm shift knowledge gaps to clearly see the way forward in terms of the proper set up and implementation of green markets for when the time comes....I have a personal commitment to contribute to do that....
I will be publishing this year more articles aimed speficically at doing that with the goal not just to criticise but to hightlight the way forward from the sustainability point of view in a respectful manner...
Thank you for your comment Aldo, I will leave it here.
Good day Ricardo, .....
the earth summit is being held every 10 years since 1992, the first one known as Rio conference, second one in 2002 known as rio + 10, and the third one known as rio +20. In the last one we supposedly shifted to green market thinking to address the environmental crisis in theory, but in practice they went the way of non-green market thinking in order to patch, not to fix, the traditional market development model...
What is you view on the question of this thread, Can 2012 Rio +20 conference be taken as where perfect environmentalism lost the green cold war?
Dear Ricardo, when we think about green markets or red markets, we have to think outside the box as they are the results of different types of cold wars that lead to paradigm death/old paradigm and paradigm shift to a new and higher level model....
There are different types of perfect markets, i) fully exclusive markets like the traditional market or the red socialism market or the environmental market; ii) partially inclusive markets like the green market or environmentally friendly markets and red markets or socially friendly markets; and iii) fully inclusive markets like the sustainabilty market or socially and environmentally friendly markets....
Perfect markets aim at mantaining and advancing their core values when they shift as a result of sustainability gap pressures....I never heard perfect capitalism being called economic terrorism...I never heard perfect socialism being called social terrorism......I do not see perfect environmentalism as environmental terrorism....because I think outside the box, but those that are inside a box such as the red socialism box or capitalism box or environmentalism box and with the help of paradigm shift knowledge gaps those view about other systems can come to exist....
In the case of green markets coming from fixing capitalism's environmental sustainability gap, then...The green market can be seen as the one coming from the clash between perfect capitalism and perfect environmentalism where full inclusion is the outcome of the green cold war; and a WIN-WIN economy-environment model comes out.... In green markets, the existence of full economic responsibility and full environmental responsibility at the same time is the necessary and sufficient condition for them to exist....If you move away from green market thinking and away from the implementation of green markets....you move away from full environmental responsibility; and hence you move away from perfect environmentalism....The fact that after 2012 RIO +20 you see no green markets being set up yet, but you see many types of non-green markets very active dealing with the consequences of the environmental sustainability problem affecting the traditional market, leaving the root cause of the problem still unfixed....Green markets provide a fix to the environmental sustainability problem affecting traditional markets, non-green markets provide a patch...that leaves a remaining portion of the environmental sustainability gap still active,,,,
You can find related food for thoughts in the following papers on way to publication
Sustainability thoughts 118: how can the green cold war, the 2012 Rio +20 conference actions, and the fall of perfect environmentalism be linked? What are the implications of this in terms of winners and losers and of environmental sustainability?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342299479_Sustainability_thoughts_118_how_can_the_green_cold_war_the_2012_Rio_20_conference_actions_and_the_fall_of_perfect_environmentalism_be_linked_What_are_the_implications_of_this_in_terms_of_winners_and_l
Sustainability thoughts 119: How can the 2012 green cold war be stated graphically in terms of sustainability gaps? What are the implications of this in terms of the only possible science based resolution to the green cold war?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342158454_Sustainability_thoughts_119_How_can_the_2012_green_cold_war_be_stated_graphically_in_terms_of_sustainability_gaps_What_are_the_implications_of_this_in_terms_of_the_only_possible_science_based_resoluti
Good day Ricardo.
There are two ways of looking at the world, additive thinking and systematic thinking. From the additive thinking point of view you cannot see beyond deep market thinking as you need the notion of independent individual components/independent choice for full one component dominance to flourish and for them to exist....They exist as ISLANDS.....This is true for the red socialism market, the pure capitalism market, and the environmental market.....Deep market thinking allows you to cancel out codependence, partially or fully, so you can externalize it and then you can have lower prices....
System thinking allows you to see the interconnected whole, at each level of sustainability you need a different knowledge base, the knowledge base of each possible market in each level of the sustainability whole does not work in other markets....sustainability thinking allows you to see where each markets will shift given specific sustainability gap pressures....and if the knowledge base of the higher level paradigm does not exist, sustainability thinking allows you to point out the expected problems when taking actions under paradigm shift knowledge gaps,,,,these ideas can be used to explain for example, why there are no green markets yet since 2012 or why red socialism flipped to pure capitalism in 1991 instead of shifting towards red markets…
Notice that only under sustainability thinking you can see the market structure of the environmental market, the deep market that has never existed in practice....as under additive thinking, environmental markets do not exist as they are assumed away by Adam Smith's environmental externality neutrality assumption or because thinkers in deep environmentalism operated under an environmental market knowledge gap as this thinking would required micro-economic thought and macro-economic thought under which only the environmental cost matters.......
Your comment it is made from the additive thinking point of view, green markets and red markets require the use of sustainability thinking to understand them as in these higher level markets additive thinking no longer works as in these markets partial codependence is the rule....
You may find food for thought in the following articles:
Evolving Development Paradigm Choices: Are We Moving Towards Sustainability through Development Waves?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303897495_Evolving_Development_Paradigm_Choices_Are_We_Moving_Towards_Sustainability_through_Development_Waves
Markets and Production Pricing: Using the sustainability Market Price to Point Out and Link the Production Price Structure of Partnership Based Paradigms and Deep World View Based Paradigms
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308362720_Markets_and_Production_Pricing_Using_the_sustainability_Market_Price_to_Point_Out_and_Link_the_Production_Price_Structure_of_Partnership_Based_Paradigms_and_Deep_World_View_Based_Paradigms
Responsibility and Development Models: Highlighting the Road of General Development Towards Sustainability Using the Increasing Responsibility Framework
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310463093_Responsibility_and_Development_Models_Highlighting_the_Road_of_General_Development_Towards_Sustainability_Using_the_Increasing_Responsibility_Framework
Chapter 2 Paradigm Evolution and Sustainability Thinking: Using a Sustainability Inversegram to State Paradigm Death and Shift Expectations Under Win-Win and No Win-Win Situations
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333866783_Chapter_2_Paradigm_Evolution_and_Sustainability_Thinking_Using_a_Sustainability_Inversegram_to_State_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Expectations_Under_Win-Win_and_No_Win-Win_Situations
Dear Ricardo, Adam Smith avoided all those issues by assuming social and environmental externality neutratily to state his perfect traditional market....perfect means no chaos,,,,and only the economy matters,,,,
Karl Marx did the same when stating perfect red socialism by assuming economic and environmental externality neutrality....
Had a perfect environmental market been stated it has to had assumed social and economic externality neutrality......
When you talk about true sustainability, you need to talk about lower level models and higher level models so as to be able to see a map of possible paradigm shifts from lower level modes to higher level models....When you look at market paradigms, each paradigm has an specific model structure, choice structure, price structure, and cost structure; and therefore, each paradigm has a unique knowledge base supporting it, a knowledge base that is left behind if shitting to a higher level or if flipping to an inverse opposite market.
Notice that from the sustainability angle, green markets could have come to be in different ways such as for example from correcting the environmental sustainability gap affecting pure capitalism as attempted by the earth summit/Rio conferences or it could have come from correcting the environmental sustainability gap affecting red socialism, but the latest possibility can not be seen if you are inside the red socialism box or pure capitalism box, you need to place yourself outside the box.....
To keep close to the question of this thread, let's assume that you have a world made up of two components, perfect capitalism(B) and perfect environmentalism(C), then the different possible market configurations in that world are:
M = B + BC + C
a) If you assume independence, then you have a world with two possibilities
M1 = B + C
Option 1: Maximize perfect capitalism(B) at the expense of C
M11 = B = Bc = the perfect traditional market
Option 2; Maximize perfect environmentalism(C) at the expense of B
M12 = C = bC = the perfect environmental market
* here exclusion to maximize is the rule, you need a passive component in the system to exploit to maximize...
b) if you assume codependence, then you have only one possibility
M2 = BC = the green market
* here inclusion to optimize is the rule, you need two active component in the system to optimize...
c) notice that a cold war M11.M12 would force them to shift to green markets
M11.M12 = (Bc)(bC) = BC
Let's leave it here, not to stray away from the question in this thread....
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