/* I am currently working on some research to develop an index of
environmental sustainability for agricultural systems, at the field level.
It represents an attempt toward quantification of a "piece" of the overall
sustainability picture: that is, isolating the environmental perspective of
sustainability.
The premise is that the index would serve as a rough meter
stick for gaging the impact of agricultural systems on the environment,
relative to one another.
*/
The first thing I recommend that you do is read up on steady-state
economics. Herman Daly's _Steady State Economics_ (1973/1992) is a
fine place to start. He will tell you that what you should
really do is think in terms of ecosystem services sacrificed per unit
of artifact (eg commodity) service gained. Nothing more remarkable
than a cost-benefit analysis, really.
In order to identify these costs and benefits, you are likely to need
context-specific information about a given production regime and the
values of its operators. "Impact on the environment" is an elusive
measure. There are as many environments as there are farms. (Yes,
this is a plug for "farmers as environmentalists.") You can't just
guage impacts of systems on the environment, relative to one another.
The challenge is to guage the impact of the same systems relative to different
environments as well. This is where the reductionist approaach
bottoms out. It's not that "nothing in farming can be measured."
That was a distortion of Madden's point. The point to bear in mind is
that measurements, like principles, may only hold under specified
conditions. The real value of generalization is in learning to
specify classes of conditions that produce classes of phenomena. I
guess to some, it means nothing more than trying to identify
conditions that can be produced anywhere.
think about this, too;
Inquiry into sustainability poses an important logical problem for
scientists. Saying something like... "systems that last are
sustainable" is not going to cut it. For a long time, biologists
have understood that there is a problem with saying natural selection
operates by a principle of "survival of the fittest." The problem is
that the statement is a tautology; it's self-justifying and therefore
untestable. It's no mere philosophizing; biologists actually expend
effort to formulate theories of natural selection that avoid "fittest
are those that survive" language. Those who seek to study
sustainability should be just as careful.
-- ___________________________________ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ KRONSTADT 1921- NIKOGDA NE ZABYVAEM @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@