Sustainability Illustrated: Human Needs

Enjoy the latest video from Sustainability Illustrated:





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Blog Action Day 2013 - Human Rights and Social Sustainability

Today is Blog Action Day. This year's theme is human rights.  In the context of our conversation here, human rights is essential to understanding sustainability and taking a strategic approach to creating a sustainable society.

The 4th Sustainability Principle -- that in a sustainable society, people aren't subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs -- is essentially a human rights statement.

In thinking about human needs, we use Max-Neef's concept of 10 basic human needs , that are non-hierarchical and constant across time and cultures (although the ways in which these needs are satisfied can vary widely across cultures and between different eras).

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a profound statement stemming from the horrors of WWII.  The world saw what systematic violations of human rights could lead to... and it's not sustainable.  At some point, under such conditions of oppression and abuses of power, human societies will break down into conflict.

Below are the 10 basic human needs, with reference to corresponding articles of the UDHR.

• Subsistence                 (article 3, 25)
• Understanding            (article 26) 
• Creativity                    (article 19, 27)
• Freedom                     (article 1, 2, 3, 4, 9)
• Participation               (article 20, 21, 23, 27, 29)
• Idleness                      (article 24) 
• Protection                   (article 5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 27, 30)
• Affection                    (article 16)
• Identity                       (article 15, 23)
• Transcendence           (article 18) 

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MOOCs - free access to great education

MOOCs -- massive open online courses -- have been a large and growing focus of discussion and debate in the higher ed sector for the past few years.  MIT and Stanford have been leading the way making content available online for free and improving the delivery models.

This TED talk from Stanford's Daphne Koller does a great job describing the process and benefits (and limitations) of this new frontier in education.

Access to education is an important sustainability issue:

First, there are all of the basic benefits we think of regarding a better educated population -- more thoughtful and skilled people, being more productive and supporting better quality of life for all, etc.

Second, education is an effective satisfier of basic human needs - primarily that of understanding, but also indirectly of participation, subsistence, identity, and protection.

Finally, education is necessary for people to understand enough about the social and ecological dynamics of 'un-sustainability' -- how we got to the place we are, how the global economic system cumulatively affects social and natural systems, how the basics of biogeochemical cycles work, etc. -- to be able to create a sustainable society.

I don't see MOOCs replacing universities any time soon, but they are a very cool and potentially powerful tool for accelerating progress towards sustainability.

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Redefining The Good Life

Just in time for holiday shopping season... here's a great animated video diving into the interplay of consumerism, happiness, and meeting human needs.



Sustainability is about meeting human needs - in ways that don't undermine the capacity of others to do so, now or in the future.  Check out this old post about distinguishing between human needs and satisfiers of those needs.

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