Changing the framework

Friday, Dec. 2 — Progress is usually measured by a country’sgross domestic product, but that framework may not be the best way to livewithin our planet’s means, the founder of MSU’s Office of Campus Sustainabilitysays.

Terry Link spoke at the Mid-Michigan Environmental ActionCouncil’s monthly luncheon today about moving toward a more world-encompassingdevelopment view that would factor in Earth’s environmental limitations intodevelopment.

“Bottom line — single planet, it provides us life,” Linksaid. “There’s a limit to that.”

The current framework assumes that if a country’s GDPincreases, the population will be better off, but that’s not always true, Linksaid. According to the general progress indicator line, which measures infantmortality, crime and other similar factors, America’s progress leveled off inthe 1980’s even though GDP continued to increase, Link said. A different study,which measures Americans’ happiness and has been administered since World WarII, showed that progress in that regard stopped even earlier.

“We were happiest during Ozzie and Harriet, folks,” Linksaid, referring to a popular family sit-com in the 1950s and ’60s. “Ourhappiness is declining even though (GDP’s) going up. Our dominant framework fordevelopment needs to get thrown out with the bathwater.”

Link stressed that the answer for this new framework, whichwould encompass environmental limitations such as how much food can be grown ina certain area, would have to come from everyone working together as a wholeand not from any one individual.

“We are in this together,” Link said. “We can’t have Detroitfail and assume Michigan is going to work. We can’t have Africa fail assume theworld is going to work.”

Link said people’s attitudes have to change so that they areno longer battling about who’s idea is better. Instead, an open dialogue thattakes the best ideas from multiple people and weaves them together would yieldthe most creative solutions to the problem at hand.

“These issues are so complex and our lives are sointertwined that we really need democratic processes,” Link said. “I don’t havethe answers, and I think we have to be really careful wedon’t think there is an answer. I have an answer, but I also know there mightbe better answers.”

Link said the new framework would have to be flexible enoughto adapt to changing circumstances and new information as it comes in whilelistening to each person who wants to participate in the dialogue with theirideas.

“There’s an African proverb: If you want to walk fast, walkalone. If you want to walk far, walk together,” Link said. “I think it’s timefor us to take that long walk together.”