Sustainability: A Brief History of the Idea

M. King Hubbert

Peak oil — the "Hubbert curve": a finite resource rises, peaks, declines.

In 1956 he predicted U.S. oil would peak around 1970. It did.

Sparked a recurring peak-oil debate. Still relevant after shale?

Paul R. Ehrlich

The Population Bomb (1968) predicted mass starvation from overpopulation.

Some predictions failed; some conditions he described came to pass.

Framed overpopulation as a global threat — "Malthusian" thinking returns

Rachel Carson

Silent Spring (1962) chronicled the effects of DDT on birds.

Linked pollution to biodiversity loss in language the public could grasp.

Credited with launching the popular environmental

movement — and, indirectly, the EPA (1970).

E. F. Schumacher

Small Is Beautiful (1973): manage non-renewables better

— an early case for sustainable development.

Published amid the 1973 oil embargo.

Challenges "eternal growth" and "bigger is better."

Herman Daly

Toward a Steady-State Economy (1973).

The economy is an open subsystem of the biosphere: resources in, waste out.

Scale matters — an economy can be too big for its ecosystem.

"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse."

The Club of Rome

Commissioned an MIT systems model of population and economic growth.

Result: The Limits to Growth (1972) —

Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens.

Sought a "sustainable feedback pattern" so natural and human systems can coexist.

1972

Stockholm Conference

First UN environment summit; UNEP founded

1974

Cocoyoc Declaration

Environment is not an "add-on" to development.

late 1970s

"Growth with equity"

Development thinking shifts from GDP to distribution.

1980

World Conservation Strategy

First use of "sustainable development."

1987

Brundtland Commission

Our Common Future — the definition that stuck

DEFINITION

"Development that meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their

own needs."

Rio Earth Summit (1992)

Move the environment to the center of development policy.

Account for degradation of nature as a cost: lost environment

reduces GNP.

Third World environmental problems trace to First World

development — so the First World should help pay to redress them.

"No nation can achieve this on its own, but together we can — in

global partnership for sustainable development."

Agenda 21 — and Local Agenda 21

A precursor to the Sustainable Development Goals

(2015).

COP 3 Kyoto · 1997

Binding GHG limits and cap-and-trade — developed countries

only.

COP 21 Paris · 2015

All countries pledge (NDCs); target well below 2 °C

COP 29 Baku · 2024

Climate-finance goal: $300 billion per year by 2035

COP 30 Belém · 2025

First COP in the Amazon; forests and implementation.

COP 31 Antalya · Nov 2026

This November ?

Three key movements emerge in the U.S

CONSERVATION, PRESERVATION, POLLUTION (public health)

Industrialization in Western societies (2 thinkers)

Population — Thomas Malthus

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). Population grows exponentially, food supply linearly → recurring "correction" and "crisis." The idea of natural limits

Human impact — George Perkins Marsh

Man and Nature (1864). The first systematic account of humans reshaping the physical environment. Nature is finite.

1956 – 1973

Thinkers & arguments

Hubbert, Ehrlich, Carson, Schumacher, Daly, Club of Rome.

1972 – today

Multilateral institutions

Stockholm, Brundtland, Rio, Kyoto, Paris — and their limits.