Two national scholars explored the meaning of the widely used term “sustainability” and the economic implications of sustainable practices at the Forum on Sustainability Friday afternoon in the Ensminger Room in Kildee Hall.

Richard Howarth, director of the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College, critiqued the contention that taking dramatic steps to reduce emissions would have too negative an impact on economic growth.

“Future generations are a lot better off – potentially better off economically – if we sustain climatic systems and climatic services,” Howarth said.

Howarth said the environment itself can be viewed as a kind of capital asset that provides the basis for economic welfare.

He said that, although greenhouse gas emissions provide short-term benefits, such as enhanced mobility and heating and cooling systems, they also impose environmental costs.

He pointed to forecasts that predict a loss of biodiversity and an increase in intense weather events, both of which have been predicted to accompany heightened global warming.

Howarth said that, although stabilizing emissions would reduce the rate of economic growth by 0.1 percent per year, economic actions such as a carbon tax would recover part of that economic loss.

Also, Howarth said that analyzing the economic costs and benefits of every policy is not enough, and policies should be analyzed on moral grounds.

He discussed the concept of stewardship, in which he said present generations have the right to use the natural world’s resources, but they also have a duty to future generations to avoid imposing harm on them.

Bryan Norton, professor of philosophy at Georgia Institute of Technology, followed Howarth’s presentation by discussing what he called a “schematic definition” of the term “sustainability.”

Norton said a generation is “living sustainably over a given time horizon if, and only if, they fulfill their needs without reducing the ratio of opportunities to constraints faced by [previous generations].”

He said he thought people should have serious discussions about how many generations they should include in that framework of sustainable living.

Norton said some of the questions to be asked when evaluating policies for economic development include whether the policies distribute wealth equitably, how to protect ecological health and regional productivity and how to protect global systems.

Norton said policy makers today may think about analyzing policies for costs and benefits, but he actually prefers emphasizing creating intelligent policies in the first place.

“I put emphasis on smart institutions and individuals who can devise solutions that are good for the present and the future,” Norton said.