Abstract
We are all living in a new era since the beginning of the industrial revolution: the Anthropocene, which reflects the growing, influence of the human activities on the earth. If we are responsible, we must limit our environmental impacts without forgetting that we have a huge social agenda ahead. So, we have to work on a tripod: the goals are social, there are environmental conditions to be respected, and if we do not give economical viability to our project, it will not happened. Economic viability does not come out of nowhere. We are in a period in which planning is totally demoralized and markets do not know how to manage themselves, they are shortsighted. And, in sensitive to social dimension, if we want to reintroduce social dimension, if we want to organize ourselves in a long time perspective, we have to go back to planning.
Ignacy Sachs is Honorary Professor of Development Economics at the EHESS (French school of advanced social studies). He acted as a Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 and of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. He developed the notion of eco-development. Email. isachs@msh-paris.fr.
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Notes
- 1.
I prefer the term used by A. K. Sen, “inclusionary” to “inclusive,” for an obvious reason: inclusionary denotes a movement.
- 2.
According to the Global Footprint Network 2010 Annual Report, http://www.footprintnetwork.org, in 2011, the world population as a whole was a debtor, having exceeded the available biocapacity by 35 %.
- 3.
The M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation is a reference with respect to sustainable agriculture and rural development (http://www.mssrf.org/bd.html).
- 4.
See on this point, Bruno Parmentier who opposes the two green revolutions in the following terms: “Là où la révolution verte cherchait à artificialiser le plus complètement possible le milieu naturel, la révolution doublement verte vise à inscrire le système productif au sein des écosystèmes. La première force la nature via le recours massifs à des intrants, la seconde l’accompagne en recherchant un équilibre entre potentiel interne et apports extérieurs; la première spécialise les productions, la seconde les diversifie pour qu’elles se renforcent mutuellemen t; la première recherche une protection absolue de la production via l’éradication complète des maladies et des ravageurs, la seconde compose et gère le système pour contenir ces envahisseurs” (Parmentier 2007, p. 160).
- 5.
As far as Brazil is concerned, fish farming has a great future in the Amazon region, the Mato Grosso Pantanal, not speaking of the Atlantic coast, so long as a satisfactory solution is found for long distance transportation of fish, more efficient than by road, and cheaper than by plane. Should we give a second chance to the zeppelin, the more so that we can fill it today with non-inflammable gas?
- 6.
This is not tantamount to abstaining from the exploration of the offshore “pré-sal” oil reserves in Brazil. However, utmost attention should be given to the prevention of potentially dangerous ecological accidents. On the other hand, the “pré-sal’ oil could be taxed so as to finance the phasing out in future of fossil energies.
- 7.
The French president, François Hollande, proposed in his electoral programme to reduce the relative share of nuclear electricity from 75 to 50 % by 2025 (Le Monde, 17/12/2011). The French Green Party favors a total phasing out of nuclear energy.
- 8.
In 2007, the OECD contribution was of 0.28 %. Only five countries contributed in excess of the 0.7 % target: Norway (0.95 %), Sweden, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Denmark. The French was of 0.38 %.
- 9.
In 2011, the global GNP reached 70 billion US dollars at market exchange rates and 79 billion US dollars at purchasing power parities (IMF 2012)
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Sachs, I. (2015). Entering the Anthropocene: The Twofold Challenge of Climate Change and Poverty Eradication. In: Mancebo, F., Sachs, I. (eds) Transitions to Sustainability. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9532-6_2
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