作者 Donella H. Meadows　02.22.00

　　每年，在阿爾卑斯山滑雪季的高峰期，全世界具有影響力者（最大企業及最富裕政府的頭頭）都會出席在瑞士岱佛斯（Davos）世界經濟論壇（World Economic Forum）。今年，在那裡發生一件幾乎未見報導卻可能有歷史意義的事。與會人士獲得一份世界各國環境永續性的排序表。
永續性評量標準（measure）的研究現在正熱門。聯合國被要求要制定這些評量標準。許多國、州、市正在發展它們自己的評量標準。學術團體為它們爭論不休。這種研究是基於一個好的不得了的問題：我們能持續這樣多久？我狂熱的經濟活動到底損耗掉地球的資源基礎、廢棄物收容能力、以及維生系統到什麼程度？

　　能提出這個問題，當然很捧。就像一個繼承財富但卻揮霍無度的年輕人終於想到「嘿！這些錢會持續嗎？」，或像古早前一些聰明的會計人員首次瞭解資本與收入之間的差異時的突破一樣。

　　你可能會認為，這樣基本的觀念，應該早就用到每一個企業、家庭或是國家及世界會計上，但事實並非如此。我們已被所謂國民生產毛額（GDP）或國民生產淨額（GNP）的評量標準（它們只計算花費）所迷惑。它的用處就跟一個只告訴我們速度，卻不顯示油桶裡還有多少油的儀表板一樣。我們從未妥善追蹤基本形式的資本，包括：維生的自然系統（給我們各種重要物質及能量及清潔的水及空氣）和社會系統（產生、供養、教育、維持、治療、啟發及成就人類的家庭、社區及各類組織）。

　　很難想像自稱資本家的這群人已經用這麼壞的方式計算資本這麼久了，但確實如此。結果，當我們因GDP上升而引以為傲時，森林、土、水、家庭及社區卻在走下坡。終於，像逐漸成熟的敗家子，我們開始注意我們的財富正在減少，並開始問一些只有新評量標準才能回答的問題。
我們其實還不知如何評量永續，這點可以從兩件事呈現：一是在岱佛斯被提出的報告中道歉的語調，二是報告中排序的問題。在該學術報告中，作者們（多數來自哥倫比亞大學及耶魯大學）說：「與環境永續有關的可用資料本身有許多問題與不足之處，嚴重地限制世界相關團體監測最最基本的污染及自然資源趨勢的能力」。「所用的方法尚屬實驗性質，不應被視為是可精準評量環境永續程度的定論」。

　　簡單的說，這些數字仍有疑問，排序也是暫擬的。我們可大略地說，五個「最永續的國家」是挪威、冰島、瑞士、芬蘭及瑞典，五個「最不永續的」國家是辛巴布威、埃及、薩爾瓦多、菲律賓及越南。且美國在所列的五十六個國家中排名十六。

　　這分名單最明顯的問題是，它可能告訴了我們這些國家的相互地理位置，卻未告訴我們它們在永續性的相互位置。挪威的食物幾乎全是進口的，它已捉光了近海豐富的鱈魚群，它的收入及機器主要依賴的是將在幾十年內就會耗盡，且正持續地在改變氣候的原油存量，這些狀況都背離永續。這些現象和埃及也不相上下。埃及不斷增加的人口擠在尼羅河沿岸被污染的、被耗盡的土地及水域。瑞士則是有毒化學物質及核廢料的源頭，而且該國侈奢的消費幾乎全賴進口，所以也不該自誇永續，因為它並不比菲律賓這個耗盡本國森林及漁業，使腐敗的上層富有而使其他每個人貧窮的國家更永續。

　　我不認為這些國家中任何一個可在未來的一百或五十或三十年仍然維持現在的生活方式。我曾在奧斯陸及蘇黎士待過很長的時間，在馬尼拉及開羅也有很多朋友，我不認為這些生活方式有太多與生命目的有關的智慧。

　　我不想對岱佛斯環境永續性名單太嚴酷，我樂見它的存在，而且有機會讓位高權重的人看。我希望有更多此類名單，而且不斷地加強其嚴謹度、正確度，而且與世界上重要的事相連接。我只是不希望在高位的人以為岱佛斯數字可以反映我們損耗不可替代財富的速度或是人類發展的速度。

　　關於永續性，我們無需看太多統計數字，只要多注意河流中被沖走的土，被皆伐移除的森林，正在變化的氣候，城市空氣的味道，地球上被污染得太嚴重而無法在其中生活，或太絕望而無法在其中安全生活的地區，生命中極端地空虛等等，就會明瞭。有一天，我們可能可以數字以評量這些刺目的、非永續性的訊號。在這之前，我們起碼可以承認我們已知的。

　　Donella H. Meadows 是可持續性發展研究所的所長及達特茅斯學院環境研究的助教授

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citizen/citizen022200.stm

版權歸屬　Environment News Service (ENS)，環境信託協會　（王鴻文　譯，李玲玲審校）

by Donella H. Meadows 02.22.00

Every year at the peak of the Alpine ski season, the world's movers and shakers, the heads of the largest corporations and wealthiest governments, head for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This year an event occurred there that was largely unreported but possibly historic. The attendees were presented with a ranking of the world's nations according to environmental sustainability.

The search for sustainability measures is hot right now. The United Nations has a mandate to produce them. Many nations and states and cities are developing their own. Academic groups argue endlessly about them. The search is based on a darn good question: How long can we keep this up? To what extent is our frantic economic activity eating into the planet's resource base, its waste absorption capacity, its life-support systems?
It's great that this question is being asked. It's like the moment when a young spendthrift who has inherited a fortune finally wonders, "Hey, is this money going to last?" Or like the long-ago breakthrough when some bright accountant first realized the difference between capital and income.

You would think that concept, so basic to every business and household, would have been applied long ago to national and world accounts. But it never has been. We have been mesmerized by the measure called GDP or GNP, which counts only spending. That's about as useful as a dashboard that tells us our speed but not how much gas is in the tank. We have never kept good track of our fundamental forms of capital: the natural systems that give us vital streams of materials and energy and clean water and air, and the social systems -- families, communities, all kinds of organizations -- that produce, raise, educate, maintain, heal, inspire, and fulfill human beings.

It's hard to imagine that folks who call themselves capitalists have done such bad capital accounting for such a long time. But we have. As a consequence we pride ourselves when GDP goes up, while forests, soils, waters, families, and communities go down. Finally, like maturing wastrels, we're beginning to notice that our wealth is shrinking and to ask questions that can only be answered by new measures.

That we don't yet know how to do sustainability accounting is demonstrated by the apologetic tone of the report just delivered at Davos and by the silliness of the rankings. "A number of serious limitations in the available data relevant to environmental sustainability drastically limit the ability of the world community to monitor the most basic pollution and natural resource trends," say the authors (mostly from Columbia and Yale) in academic report-speak. "The methods used are experimental and should not be construed as definitive statements about precise levels of environmental sustainability."

In short, the numbers are dubious and the rankings are tentative. We can take with a grain of salt that the five "most sustainable" nations are Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden and that the five "least sustainable" are Zimbabwe, Egypt, El Salvador, Philippines, and Vietnam. And that the United States comes in 16th among the 56 nations listed.

What's most glaringly wrong with this list is that it may tell us where these nations are relative to each other, but not where they are relative to sustainability. Norway -- which imports virtually all its food, which has fished out its rich offshore cod stocks, whose income and machines depend on oil deposits that will run out in a few decades and that, while they last, are changing the climate -- is nowhere close to sustainable. Maybe no more so than Egypt, whose burgeoning population crowds the narrow zone of polluted, depleted soil and water along the Nile. Switzerland, a source of toxic chemicals and nuclear waste and luxurious consumption based almost entirely on imports, has no call to pride itself on being more sustainable than the Philippines, which has decimated its forests and fisheries while enriching a corrupt upper class and impoverishing everyone else.

I wouldn't bet that any of these nations can maintain its current way of life for the next 100 years or 50 or 30. Having spent considerable time in Oslo and Zurich, having friends in Manila and Cairo, I wouldn't say that any of these ways of life contains much wisdom about what life is for.

I don't want to be too hard on the Davos environmental sustainability list. I'm delighted that it exists and that it was delivered to people in high places. I hope there will be more such lists, growing in sophistication, accuracy, and connection to what is important in the world. I just don't want people in high places to think that the Davos numbers give us any idea of how quickly we are spending down irreplaceable wealth or achieving real human development.

We can learn at least as much about sustainability by turning our eyes away from numbers and noticing the soil washing down the streams, the clearcuts where forests once stood, the changing climate, the smell of city air, the places on earth too contaminated to live in or too desperate to be safe in, and the hectic emptiness of our lives. Some day we may have numbers to measure these blatant signals of unsustainability. In the meantime we can admit that we already know.

Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

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citizen/citizen022200.stm