The New Urgency of “Sustainability”

From modest origins in the late 1980s, environmental “sustainability” has become a central organizing principle of contemporary global environmentalism. Universities are launching new programs in sustainability studies, major corporations tout their new sustainability credentials, and governments -– all the more so after the recent Paris conference on climate change –- embrace sustainability like never before. Does the ascendance of “sustainability” signal a new environmental renaissance and commitment to long-term human prosperity? Or is it little more than an explosion of “sustainababble” meant to confuse, distract and ultimately justify ongoing processes of environmental decline? Presenting the realities of environmental sustainability Professor Michael Maniates will propose answers to the most important and increasingly urgent questions, Why might we care and, ultimately, what should we do?

Michael Maniates, Professor of Social Science and Head of Studies of Environmental Studies at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, holds a BS in Conservation and Resource Studies and a MA and PhD in Energy and Resources, all from the University of California at Berkeley. Previously a Full Professor of Environmental Science and Political Science at Allegheny College (1993 – 2013), and Senior Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College (2011 – 2013), Professor Maniates joined Yale-NUS College in its inaugural year to guide the development of its environmental-studies program.

Professor Maniates studies the politics of sustainable consumption and the larger “politics of the possible” in mainstream environmentalism.  His current research, with students at Yale-NUS College, investigates hidden assumptions about power and social change propagated by undergraduate environmental-studies programs.  His recent publications include “Make Way for Hope: A Contrarian View” (in Nicholson and Jinnah’s New Earth Politics, MIT Press, 2016), “Power: The Missing Element in Sustainable Consumption” (Journal of Cleaner Production 2015) with Doris Fuchs et al., “Sustainable Consumption – Three Paradoxes” (Gaia 2014), “Teaching for Turbulence” in State of the World 2013 (Island Press), and The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice (edited with John Meyer, MIT Press, 2010).  He lives in Singapore with his wife and two cats, and can claim that for almost a decade he helped manage the world’s largest (in terms of volume) frozen yogurt shop, in Berkeley, California.

Professor Daniel Guttman will be introducing Professor Maniates.