C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

Sustainability
Environment, Economy,
Markets, Community

Lyle A. Brecht
January 10, 2009 v.1

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

It all looks beautifully obvious – in the rear mirror. But there are
situations where [one] needs great imaginative power, combined with
disrespect for the traditional current of thought, to discover the
obvious. – Arthur Koestler

S u s t a i n a b i l i t y : Environment,
Economy, Markets, Community
Sustainability Defined Sustainability involves responding to today’s
planetary emergency by reengineering interconnected systems that are
transitioning from high EROI (Energy Return On Investment) energy inputs to low
EROI sources. 1 Sustainability is the process of transforming these systems
undergoing change into complex and adaptive dynamical systems that are
resilient when shifting to lower thermodynamic states. Systems are sustainable
when thermodynamic state shifts do not cause disruptive nonlinearities - abrupt
changes of the system to an unanticipated, less-complex state.2

Complex systems are adaptive. Interconnected systems make life possible. Complex systems are dynamical.

What Sustainability is Not Sustainability is not about leaving things the

way they were or about returning to some natural state in the far past, a Garden
of Eden. Biblically, the Garden of Eden was a symbol for humankind’s perfect

1In 1930, EROI of oil, natural gas, coal was 100:1; for every unit of energy invested, we got 100
units back in return. In 1970, EROI of oil and gas dropped to 25:1; today EROI of oil, gas, wind is
15:1; large hydropower 11:1; conventional coal 10:1 (when we add cost of CO2 emissions); newly
found oil, photovoltaic solar 8:1; “clean” coal 5:1 (better emissions control but coal ash and heavy
metals pollution); fuel cell, geothermal, nuclear 4:1; oil shale and Alberta tar sands 3:1; LNG 2:1;
ethanol (from corn) 1.3:1; hydrogen 0.8:1; nuclear fusion (unknown). See, Charlie Hall, “Ballon
Graph;” The Oil Drum (www.theoildrum.com); Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down:
Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Washington, DC, Island Press, 2006).
2For example, instead of global GDP going from $60 to a projected $240 trillion (in $2005
purchasing power parity) by 2050, GDP declines to $6 trillion.

Lyle Brecht Page 2 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

state of relationality with God, with nature (the environment), with neighbor
(Adam & Eve), and with self. This Garden did not exist in historical time. It
existed outside of and before the historical time of humankind.3 Thus, the
Garden might be thought of as a deep symbolic yearning, not of what has been
lost, but a destination for humankind’s history to reach towards. 4 The Garden is
a marker for our history: “Are we moving towards relationality with God, our
neighbor, the environment, and our selves, or away from this relationality?”
Paradise or Heaven is defined by this sustainable relationality, not by some
idealized and isolated vision of place, such as imagining the Garden as one of
the National Parks, e.g. Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain National Park without
the crowds. In terms of place, the Garden is the Earth, at least from
humankind’s present knowledge of this solar system, nearby star systems, and
the difficulty in reaching other galaxies with current technologies. But, it is
humankind’s sustainable relationship to this place - the Earth - that defines
whether that relationality is sinful and falls away from our human destiny or it
has meaning and moves toward taking care of the Creation we have inherited.

Sustainability that matters occurs at the collective level: household, community,

State, regional, national, ecosystem, global level. Today this involves reallocating
our labor and our capital to invest in decarbonizing economic activities, reducing
violence with our neighbors, and, in the West, reducing consumption. The
economic, environmental, market and community difficulties we presently face in
the world are, at least partially, due to the development of unsustainable
systems that are crashing. Thus, the present situation in the world suggests that
the only responsible development is sustainable development, as everything else
leads to collapses: (1) by changing and erasing environments that support life
and economic activity; (2) by introducing alien species of organisms that wipe-
out existing populations and cause pandemics; (3) by generating changes in
climate that alter living conditions that, in-turn, speedup system crashes.

3 “Human existence in history begins with this, that the person is where God is not.” All of human
history is outside the Garden. There is no prelapsarian state from which to Fall. See Claus
Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Publishing House, 1984), 270.
4Instead of a message of alienation and lost hope for an Edenic paradise, a state of perfect
happiness or bliss, my premise is that the Biblical writer may have had something very different in
mind and that the narrative of Genesis 2-3 may actually celebrate a God who sacrifices his desire in
a dramatic kenotic act to give hope to humankind and all creation.

Lyle Brecht Page 3 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

Sustainability is the Process of Developing Sustainable Complex

and Adaptive Dynamical Systems Complex systems are composed of
networks of linked activity nodes. Flows of energy, materials, and information
are exchanged by way of these links among the nodes. However, to keep these
flows moving smoothly, the system must receive ongoing investments of labor
and capital to keep them operating efficiently and well maintained. Networks two
main types are random and scale-free:

Random networks resemble the interstate highway system: nodes are cities
and towns and links are the highways between these nodes. No node has a
large number of links to other nodes.5
Scale-free networks resemble the air-traffic control network with most nodes
having few connections with other nodes and a few hubs with connectivity to
many nodes. Scale-free networks include most ecosystems, the Internet, the
U.S. electric power grid, the global oil refining and distribution system, the
global banking system, most water distribution systems, and modern food-
processing and supply networks.6
Each complex systems is interconnected with other complex systems.
Generally, the systems that support modern life are complex systems that
exhibit emergent 7 properties unpredictable from their component parts.8

5 Random networks are relatively easy to disrupt (Homer-Dixon, 117).

6Scale-free networks are relatively difficult to disrupt unless one attacks the hubs (Homer-Dixon,
117-120).
7 “Emergence refers to ‘the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during
the process of self-organization in complex systems.’ The common characteristics are: (1) radical
novelty (features not previously observed in systems); (2) coherence (meaning integrated wholes that
maintain themselves over some period of time); (3) A global or macro ‘level’ (i.e. there is some
property of ‘wholeness’); (4) it is the product of a dynamical process (it evolves); and (5) it is
ostensive - it can be perceived” (Wikipedia).
8 Is global warming, for example, an emergent property of disaster capitalism? Disaster capitalism
refers to making a huge fortune from natural and planned disasters exacerbated by poverty, social
tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions. Disaster
capitalism’s raison d'être may be the promotion and generation of market inefficiencies – pricing
signals that distort real prices for goods and services and their real cost to the environment, public
health, and social justice. See Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007).

Lyle Brecht Page 4 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

The links between nodes and the interconnections between systems become
brittle if accumulating stresses have eroded a system’s resilience over time.
Systems are resilient if, under stress, they reorganize themselves and
continue to function.9 Complex systems that can do this are adaptive.
Complex systems tend to go through adaptive cycles of growth, collapse,
regeneration, and then growth again, but with differing thermodynamic flows
and interconnection novelty that result in dynamical, nonlinear behavior. 10
All systems have a tipping point, a set of stresses (an overload beyond a
threshold rate of change of inputs) beyond which they breakdown (loose
complexity and cease to function within normal ranges) and sometimes
collapse (recovery is uncertain) or suffer deep collapse (multiple systems
experience synchronous failure when systems are tightly coupled). As failure
continues, moments of contingency arise.11
Sometimes systems contain amplifiers, positive feedback loops, that can
make these systems highly sensitive to small forcings. Thus, even small
forcings can end up producing large changes in thermodynamic flows.12

9“Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing
change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.” See
Brian Walker, C.S. Holling, Stephen Carpenter, and Ann Kinzig, “Resilience, Adaptability and
Transformability in Social-Ecological Systems,” Ecology and Society 9, no. 2 (2004): 5. Available at
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/print.pdf quoted in Homer-Dixon, 398, note 62.

Complex systems exhibit dynamical, non-linear behavior. This behavior is described by the
10

mathematics of chaos theory. Chaos is a paradoxical state where unpredictable behavior occurs in a
system governed by deterministic laws. See Steven Strogatz, Chaos DVD (Chantilly, VA: The
Teaching Company, 2008).
11Some climate scientists believe that “Our home planet is dangerously near a tipping point at which
human-made greenhouse gases reach a level where major climate change can proceed mostly
under their own momentum. Warming will shift climate zones by intensifying the hydrologic cycle,
affecting freshwater availability and human health.” See James Hansen, “Tipping Point in 2008-2009
State of the Wild” (Island Press) at http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/28/tipping-point-a-non-
technical-perspective-by-hansen/ (accessed 12/19/08).
12For example, “just one small change in ocean circulation caused by drifting continents” can
change weather patterns that causes rock erosion that alters soil formation that produces changes
in flora or fauna that triggers reactions in the cells that causes changes in how DNA coded proteins
are expressed that ultimately impacts climate by creating niches for new life that raise O2 levels. See
Michael Boulter, Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man (New York: Columbia University Press,
2002), 147.

Lyle Brecht Page 5 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

All systems will collapse, given certain forcings beyond a tipping point. As
system forcings are amplified in positive feedback loops, they may in-turn
impact other, interconnected systems in unpredictable ways that can lead to
system collapse. 13 For example, anthropogenic carbon-loading of the earth’s
atmosphere is a system forcing that may lead to collapse of the earth’s
current climate regime.14

Sustainability is about Reengineering Systems In the West (1.2 billion

people), reengineering economic and environmental support systems involves
primarily rethinking how systems are interconnected to reduce brittleness, de-
carbonizing outputs, conserving inputs, and adding resiliency to systems. In the
Global South (5.3 billion people, soon to be 7.8 billion people), reengineering
economic and environmental support systems involves developing basic support
systems that work amidst failed economies and massive environmental
degradation, without the large subsidies from cheap oil. 15

Many sustainability and economic stimulus initiatives will not accomplish their
intended purpose because these initiatives sit on top of systems that are

13Soil formation rates and water availability due to climate change are two of the primary forcings
that have led to collapse of civilizations in human history. Around 600 BCE agricultural production in
Judah collapsed due to the clearing of primeval forests and plowing hillsides eroded the land. Less
tress produced less clouds, the rains failed and drought ensued. When it did rain, then flash floods
ensued due to runoff from barren hillsides. All this is recorded in Book of Jeremiah in the Old
Testament of the Bible. Both Aristotle and Plato wrote about how land use had degraded soil in
Bronze Age Greece. Extensive deforestation and plowing rapidly degraded the rich soils of central
Italy and North Africa during Roman times. The soils of central Mexico were severely degraded by
Mayan farming practices and contributed to the collapse of this civilization. See *David R.
Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Berkeley: University of California Press,2007), 51,
57-65, 77.
14The normal temperature for the earth is very hot with little or no permanent ice, unsuitable for
human life. As life has evolved, the earth has trended toward cooler temperatures. Over the ages,
climate history of earth has been that with little or no warning, there have been “dramatic shifts in
temperature, storminess, and precipitation,” on both regional and global scales. See Doug
Macdougall, Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2004), 141, 227.
15While sixty-three percent of U.S. households own a pet, and pet industry expenditures totaled
$36.3 billion in 2005, 1 billion children (nearly half the children in the world) are malnourished; 4,000/
day die.

Lyle Brecht Page 6 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

themselves collapsing and are designed primarily to prop-up these collapsing

systems. This is a recursive loop that can only fail in the longer-term, even as
short-term results may seem promising.16

Complexity has a cost; greater complexity costs even more. 17

Society’s investment in complexity to solve problems eventually produces
diminishing returns on this investment. Greater complexity tends to
produce lower EROI over time due to two factors: (1) changing resource
availability increases input costs over time, and (2) operating and
maintenance costs (O&M) to keep the system running smoothly are
neglected. This propensity of system mangers to defer O&M expenses to
the future sometimes results in catastrophic system failures. 18

Sustainable Economy The present economic crisis in the United States

embodies strategic issues of importance to the economy equal to those
presented to the nation at the end of WWII. One of the unsustainable economic
policy decisions made at the end of the war was to spend resources on building
a nuclear deterrence. This nuclear deterrence, Mutual Assured Destruction

16“While initial investments by a society in growing complexity [as a means to solve societal
problems] may be a rational solution to perceived needs, that happy state of affairs cannot last.”
Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
195 quoted in Homer-Dixon, 221.
17The costs are measured in thermodynamic units (EROI), not money. For example, the government
policy can hide through subsidies the true economic costs of operating and maintaining a failing,
unsustainable system, even making the system appear profitable in the current period when in the
longer-term, no economic profits are being produced and it would be the best economic decision to
retire the system and build a new, sustainable system (Homer-Dixon, 221).
18 Recent examples include: the collapse of the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in
Minneapolis, MN [Bridge 9340] on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 during rush hour and the December
22, 2008 spill of ~5.4 billion cubic yards of coal ash from the TVA Kingston coal electricity plant into
the Emory River and across 300 acres in Roane County, Tennessee, both due to inadequate
expenditures on O&M. Another example is the recent collapse of the financial markets in the U.S.
that destroyed as much as $6.9 trillion of capital during 2008 and over just a few months required
$2.9 trillion in bailouts by the Federal government and Federal Reserve to shore-up 206 banks,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and AIG. One might argue that this financial collapse was, in part, the
result of inadequate O&M spending for required regulatory oversight of financial markets.

Lyle Brecht Page 7 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

(MAD), became a system forcing function 19 that resulted in the expenditure of
almost $45 trillion (in 2008 dollars) for defense by all the world’s economies
between 1946 and 2008. 20 This was capital spent for each country’s national
security after hostilities of the global war that began in September 1939 with the
invasion of Poland by Germany were supposed to have ended.

Today, we are at a similar crossroads of policy choices to promote economic

growth. We can choose policies that establish a framework for technological
innovation and allocating capital to build a sustainable economy or we can
choose policies that, instead, lead to lower economic output, resource wars,
more terrorism, and abrupt climate change hostile to the continuance of life on
earth.21 The recent collapse of the normal functioning of global markets and
international finance reflect this inflection, tipping point. These policy choices of
whether to build a sustainable economy and how we proceed to accomplish
such an objective are the most critical choices of the day.

Two system forcing functions are having an impact on the U.S. economy:
(1) capital is not allocated efficiently to its most productive uses due to
poor market pricing of inputs; and (2) profits from business activities are

19An interesting question is whether this amount of capital was productively spent to avoid nuclear
war between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. or was it instead necessary to spend this amount because
the MAD policy was inherently unstable?
20 Global military spending has averaged about $1,000 billion a year in constant dollars since WWII,
give or take a few hundred billion dollars each year. The point is that this is a very, very large amount
of capital allocated for the purpose of keeping the world safe from aggression, all the while starving
investments in clean freshwater availability, wastewater treatment, soil conservation, adequate food
availability, climate change preparedness and amelioration, the development of renewable energy
sources, developing a brigade of peace negotiators with as much training as we spend for Special
Forces operatives (~$2 million training each operative), etc. As with any allocation of capital, the
question is: “Was this a good way to spend this amount of capital?” There will always be opportunity
costs. See http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending.
21 Technological innovation and the reallocation of capital to more productive purposes are the two
pillars for fostering economic growth. But, only when properly regulated do these factors foster
economic growth by enabling risk sharing and diversification. What government regulations provide
is the trust to make long-term investment commitments necessary to increase the wealth of the
society. See Daron Acemoglu, “The Crisis of 2008: Structural; Lessons for and from
Economics’ (January 6, 2009), 8 and Martin Wolf, Fixing Global Finance (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2008), 20.

Lyle Brecht Page 8 of 9

 C A P I T A L M A R K E T S R E S E A R C H

used to guide investment decisions where, because of faulty accounting,

little or no actual profits have been produced.

An example of poor market pricing of inputs is abrupt climate change. 22

Today’s abrupt climate change is largely due to the anthropogenic loading
of the earth’s atmosphere with CO2. If the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change) proposed ceiling on CO2 of 450-ppm is correct
(presently we are at 385-ppm) before a tipping point is reached, meeting
this target may require $9 trillion of new investment.23 According to the
logic of markets, if this cost had been included in pricing decisions, today
there would be no global warming, at least from anthropogenic sources.
That is because it should have been less costly to prevent GHG
emissions first rather than putting in place system infrastructure that
requires high-GHG emissions to function.24

22 Climate is essentially “a precariously balanced non-linear system that lurches between very
different states of coldness, dryness, wetness, and warmth.” There are many interacting climate
processes that cause “a warm world of flowing water and verdant growth to become a cold world of
dry winds and arid landscapes.” See John D. Cox, Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What
It Means for Our Future (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2005), 65, 183.
23See “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,” The Office of Climate Change, HM
Treasury available at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm
24 If the point of no return is 350 ppm rather than 450 ppm as some scientists believe, then the cost
to achieve this new target may be upwards of $20 trillion rather than the $9 trillion amount to achieve
as 450 ppm CO2 limit previously projected.

Lyle Brecht Page 9 of 9