At its May 2005 convention, League of Women Voters of New Mexico accepted a proposal for a
two-year state study leading to a state position on sustainability. During the first year
local Leagues considered whether such a position might have value. It was concluded that
it was at least worth while to proceed with the second year of the study.
CONSENSUS QUESTIONS
Introduction
Sustainability is defined as "meeting the needs of the current generation while not impairing the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Should League support for any position or action
be conditioned on its impact on sustainability?
PRO
Requiring that League support for positions and actions be conditioned on its impact on sustainability
will ensure that the League does not inadvertently work against the long-term interests of society.
It may also prompt a review of some existing positions. This should not be an onerous requirement.
CON
Implementation of this requirement will require a detailed consensus on what a sustainable society
would look like. As many have pointed out, the usual definition, reproduced above, leaves so much to
the discretion of the framer of any position or the proposer of any action that it is unlikely that
any position or action of the League would fail this test.
Here are a couple of questions whose answers might help you decide whether such a statement would be appropriate.
- Do LWVNM members believe that sustainability may be imperiled by human activities that are stressing
Earth's biological and physical support systems?
- The precautionary principle states that when there is reasonable suspicion of harm, lack of scientific
certainty or consensus must not be used to postpone preventive action. Do LWVNM members believe the
precautionary principle should be more widely used in public decision-making, for example in dealing
with greenhouse gas emissions or genetically modified organisms?
Governance
Do LWVNM members believe that active, educated citizen participation in a democratically organized
system of governance is essential for sustainability?
PRO
Of course. The League believes that citizen participation is essential for just about any progress,
including moving towards sustainability. But its relevance to sustainability is particularly important.
What we see happening currently is a drastic fall-off in citizen participation. Virtually all important
decisions are left to elites and ÒexpertsÓ who often serve unsustainable economic and political ends,
resulting in the diversion of resources to military uses, perpetual growth in economic production and
consumption, privatization of social services such as education and health care, and the fragmentation
of civil society.
CON
Of course. The League believes that citizen participation is essential for just about any progress,
including moving towards sustainability. The League supports our existing, constitutionally mandated form
of representative government. In this system, citizens delegate political authority to elected representatives.
It is the job of these representatives to seek out and be guided by expert as well as popular opinion
in developing solutions to complicated issues such as sustainability. As proposed, this statement adds
nothing to the League's positions.
Here are some questions to help you decide how such a statement might be formulated.
- Sustainability will require some global standards, such as standards for atmospheric emissions
and population. How can the development and implementation of international standards be shared
with regional and local governments?
- Would reversing the tendency towards the concentration of power at higher levels of government
improve or reduce the chances of developing a more sustainable society?
- Should the League take a position on issues related to corporate responsibility? For example,
should corporations have legally enforceable responsibilities towards the communities in which they
operate as well as to their shareholders and investors?
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Natural Resources and Economic Development
Do LWVNM members believe that state economic policies and public finance should be more closely
tied to the natural resource base of the economy?
PRO
This is perhaps the part of a sustainability position that would have the most immediate impact on
League actions and positions. State government tends to accept advice from well-meaning but conventional
financial and economic advisors, not all of whom recognize the limitations imposed by the semi-arid
environment of New Mexico, for example. It is under continual pressure from developers, and its
subsidies are not always reviewed critically from a long-term perspective. League positions are not
unambiguous in many of these areas. A statement such as this would help clarify them.
CON
The League takes a national and international perspective. While local economic ventures that
take advantage of the opportunities provided by our natural resources and stunning landscapes are of
course desirable, it is much too restrictive to insist that our entire economy be based on these things.
Currently, for example, military investment accounts for a very significant proportion of our economy;
is the League proposing to discourage that? IsnÕt it better to regulate the new dairy industry than
simply tell them to go away? And while a carbon tax might eventually be desirable, right now there
is no alternative to lengthy drives for people in this large state; reforms of this type would penalize
our poorest citizens.
Here are some more questions that might help you decide:
- What are the economic limitations imposed by the resource base in New Mexico?
What opportunities are provided by resources in which we are rich?
- How can tax and subsidy policies be revised to encourage more careful
stewardship of the environmental basis for the New Mexico economy?
- Should public and private development be regulated to ensure that the biophysical
limits of the local resource base are not exceeded, in order to preserve the ability of
future generations of New Mexicans to meet their own needs? In particular, should a stronger
linkage between land use and water availability be enforced?
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Social Policies
Do LWVNM members believe that social policies should equip all members of society to
participate in and contribute to a sustainable society?
PRO
This is another "of course". The problems that we face are so enormous that they cannot
be left to the "experts" to solve; their solution will require the participation of every citizen.
We will need a new social contract that encourages, rather than discourages, citizens to contribute to all
aspects of social and economic life. Education needs to explicitly foster the ecological systems thinking
that will be needed to solve the problems that confront us.
CON
This is another "of course". Omit the words "a sustainable" and you have the League's
current positions. Implementation of these existing positions would increase awareness of the changes
needed to arrive at sustainability and enable people to work towards that goal.
Here are some things to think about:
- What are the goals of education in a sustainable society?
What do these imply for the design of our educational system?
- How does health care contribute to a sustainable society?
What does this imply for the design of a health care system?
- The "core economy" is economically productive activity that takes place outside the market
and is not measured by traditional indicators such as GDP. It includes all kinds of unpaid household
labor and community work, much of it done by women. Economists have estimated its value at 20 to 40%
of the total economy. Should the social policies of the League acknowledge and support the core
economy as an essential component of a sustainable economic system?
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2005-2006
For the first year of this study,
the proposed study question is:
Should LWVNM adopt a state sustainability position and/or principle?
Subsidiary questions that will be discussed during the first year include:
What should such a position/principle do for the League, in terms of supporting its
educational and advocacy activities? In particular, are there statewide advocacy issues
that could be supported using a new position or principle?
What would be the implications of such a position/principle for League positions and programs?
For example, are there positions, such as our position on state finance, that could be updated
based on such a position or principle?
The second year of the study will take place only if the consensus on this first question is
affirmative, to be determined by the state board in the spring of 2006.
In that case the second year of the study will be devoted to arriving at consensus
on the wording of a sustainability position and/or principle.
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Handouts for unit meetings
A series of articles on the possibility of adopting sustainability as a position or as a
guiding principle is appearing in the 2005 issues of the LWVNM newsletter La Palabra. You can download
the package of all four articles
here (PDF 176 KB) or individually below.
The questions from these articles
have been extracted on a one page handout (PDF 72 KB). A second handout consists of
a list of pros and cons (PDF 72 KB) for the first-year question above.
Hard copies of the four
articles and the questions are being made available to each League in advance of its unit meetings
for those without access to the internet. However, this page provides easy access to the cited
links as well as to other internet resources.
We have also prepared a questionnaire for
the first year of the study. Copies should appear in your local newsletter, or you may download it
here and return it to
League of Women Voters of Los Alamos
att: Sustainability Study
P.O. Box 158
Los Alamos, NM 87544
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