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Shannon May
To cite this article: Shannon May (2008) Ecological citizenship and a plan for sustainable
development, City, 12:2, 237-244, DOI: 10.1080/13604810802168117
Download by: [NUS National University of Singapore] Date: 07 October 2016, At: 04:59
CITY, VOL. 12, NO. 2, JULY 2008
Shannon May
Taylor and Francis
I
n early 2003, outsidersChinese and of 800 million rural Chinese (Harvard
American alikebegan periodically Business Review, 2006, p. 7).
driving down a dusty road in rural On 21 May 2005, McDonough and the
Liaoning Province and going behind closed other leaders of the ChinaUS Center for
doors to discuss the shared vision between Sustainable Development (CUCSD) held
the Chinese government and US corporate an opening ceremony in honor of the
leaders to leapfrog past limitations and construction of the first house in their
accelerate sustainable development by sustainable development demonstration
building Chinas first rural sustainable village, and for the first time invited the
community1 in this valley (CUCSD, 2002). residents of Huangbaiyu to witness the
Led by William McDonough, the China project that sought to remake the way they
US Center for Sustainable Developments would live their lives.
project in Huangbaiyu has been heralded We see this project as a gift that you
by renowned environmental commentator share with us, and we share with you,
Elizabeth Economy as perhaps the most McDonough told the hundreds of residents
ambitious multinational effort to help redi- of this valley who had come to see what this
rect China on to a new development path new-found outside attention would mean for
(2006, p. 182). McDonough has himself their livelihoods.
lauded his project as the sustainable rural
village that the government hopes will We see this project as a project for the
serve as a prototype for improving the lives children. Why have we all come to
divide between the USA and China, and the path currently taken in addressing global
between urban and rural populations within climate change, and is representative of
China. What is at stake in Huangbaiyu is not ecological logic. Operating through a modal-
only of consequence to the persons who have ity of implosion (Haraway, 1997; Bowker,
inhabited its spaces, but to all those who are 2005), carbon emissions measurement and
encountering the ethical claims operational- pricing renders the smoke wafting toward the
ized by ecological citizenship, or are thinking sky from indoor subsistence stoves in
of making such claims on others. Huangbaiyu and the exhaust sputtering from
In order to understand the context of the a car commuting on Interstate-5 in Los Ange-
explicit and implicit practices of resource les into market commodities. In this logic, it
distribution in the Huangbaiyu master plan, is only by accounting for the value of the
it is necessary to gloss the dominant modality shared atmosphere of the earth, that it can be
and temporality of responses to global climate preserved. Suddenly, previously incommen-
change, and then introduce the ChinaUS surate things are made comparable, implod-
Center for Sustainable Development as an ing the complexity of singular histories into a
institution acting out ecological governance. remainder that can be measured, counted and
exchanged: 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide.
In order for the threat to the ecosystem to
Implosion and stasis in ecological logic be quantified and valued through market
calculations and then managed, currently
There is a rising social consciousness in the unruly, non-systematized carbon emissions
21st century that is fraught with the develop- must be brought into the market. In terms of
mental paradox of energy consumption: basic daily life practices, this means extending
will humanitys desiring appetite for living public systems of gas, electricity and water to
compromise the material basis of life itself? all persons so that audits can be performed and
With the earth now popularly conceived as a energy use centrally managed. It is because
planet in peril, the lifestyles of all popula- public services are extended to a population
tions are now widely discussed in terms of as is the plan for sustainable development in
how they contribute to or mitigate global Huangbaiyunot in order to facilitate state
warming (UNEP, 2006; CNN, 2007; Daily economic growth, but to manage ecological
Show, 2008). harm that analyzing these emergent relation-
Global warming is more than a natural, if ships through the terms of ecological citizen-
human-influenced, process through which ship is particularly apt. Moreover, the
changing carbon cycles raise the average motivation for such revolutions in commu-
temperature of the earths surface. It is also a nity structure often arise from the visions
social and political process. Following Bruno formed between various actorsor transna-
Latour, I consider it a hybrida complex tional conglomerateswho do not have legal
intersection of social practices and natural ties to the population, but act in the name of
processes captured by a single signifier (1993). protecting their shared ecosystem, the earth.
The danger of such hybrids is that their mate- The political and ethical effects of this
rial basis elides the extent to which the modality of implosion are exacerbated by the
complex signified is itself contingent, and homeostatic temporality of much of the domi-
socially constructed. The carbon cycle has nant discourse responding to global climate
definite pathways, but these themselves are change. The defining of an ecosystema
modeled through human-generated abstrac- closed environment the internal dynamics
tions, and the paths of human engagement and of which generates lifetakes conditions
reaction are infinite, until politics paves them. observed in the present as eternal norms that
The measurement and equation of carbon must be preserved. Present hierarchies are
emissions is just such a paving stone marking naturalized as internally necessary dynamics
240 CITY VOL. 12, NO. 2
of the ecosystem itself. This homeostatic logic threatens the conditions of possibility of
is evidenced by the rhetorical method of those who already live themin the name of
putting the blame for pushing the earth equity. However, these patterns often amplify
beyond its means of sustainability not on the unequal resource distribution through the
lifestyles of populations that are presently management of specific populations (in this
privileged at the top of the food chain, so to case the residents of Huangbaiyu) so as to
speak, and emit the most carbon, but on those maximize the overall benefit to the system
populations who are at the bottom, and desire or ecosystem. Of course, the intention is that
to upset the current balance of power, and the lives of all populations will be improved
desire greater equity. through practices of sustainable development,
Chinas rapid development is often but when there is a difference between
depicted as the source of current ecological subjects and objects of action, the operation
instability and potential future collapse. If of power between persons limits the condi-
each person in China were to consume the tions of possibility for equity.
same amounts of energy as the average
consumption of persons in America, it is said,
China would metabolize more than 80 Instituting ecological governance
million barrels of oil per dayor the entire
worlds current daily supply (Jiang, 2007). The ChinaUS Center for Sustainable Devel-
Even self-styled progressive voices engage in opment emerged, according to its manage-
global warming politics as if the problem is ment, out of a consensus between China and
not overall carbon emissions, but new emis- the USA for the need to create a mechanism
sions that threaten the current state of the for action to promote sustainable practices
ecosystem, and its political and energy hierar- in China. Formed by a Memorandum of
chy. When Paul Krugman positions the Understanding in 1999, the mission of the
march of the meat-eating Chinese who CUCSD is to promote sustainable develop-
are, for the first time, rich enough to start ment design principles through a unique
eating like Westerners as emblematic of the network of publicprivate partnerships. The
integrated global food and energy crisis, he China Secretariat is housed within Chinas
presumes that the present practice of Western Administrative Center for Agenda 21,
consumption is the homeostatic standard that while the Portland, OR-based International
is being threatened by other persons seeking Sustainable Development Foundation houses
more than their proper place in the food chain the US Secretariat (see Table 1). The Chair-
allows (2008). This Malthusian logic is exem- manship of the China Secretariat is taken up
plified by the cover of the January 2008 issue by Deng Nan, Deng Xiaopings daughter.
of Mother Jones, which posed the bristling With McDonough chairing the US Secretariat,
question, The Last Empire: Can the world and following the principles set forth in
survive Chinas rush to emulate the American the book he wrote with chemist Michael
way of life? Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the
Through the modality of implosion that Way we Make Things, the CUCSD argues that
makes all energy use and carbon emissions sustainability is an issue of design.
commensurable and the ecological logic of a Unlike the China Secretariat, the US
homeostatic system, moral equivalence is Secretariat is not housed in a government
given to the lives of all persons in the present office and represented by various ministerial
and future while at the same time normalizing officials. As a non-profit organization, the
present economic hierarchies. This justifies US Secretariat raises funding through a
practices that act on specific populations Founders Circle: mostly Fortune 500
particularly rural Chinese populations whose corporations that make multi-year commit-
desire for contemporary urbanized lifestyles ments of $50,000 per year to sit on the
MAY: ECOLOGICAL CITIZENSHIP AND A PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 241
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US Board of Councilors for the CUCSD. may come from sharing the fruits of capitalism
In this role, US corporate representatives with Chinas vast rural populations engender
are granted high-level direct access to the anger rather than agreement. Rural residents
Ministries of Science and Technology, Land have witnessed the income of their urban
and Resources, and Construction. comrades outpace their own from 3.3:1
In a conference room at the Beijing Hotel (Peoples Daily, 5 December 2005) to as much
in September 2002, the first Joint Board as 6:1, when urban in-kind subsidies are
meeting of the CUCSD concluded with a includedmaking this the largest urbanrural
mandate to develop a rural sustainable income gap in the world (Dong et al., 2006).
community based on cradle to cradle design The promise of Huangbaiyu as a new
principles as a scalable model for the revital- development path, and the basis of its popu-
ization of Chinas rural communities larity in the Western press, is that if the
(CUCSD, 2005).4 The CUCSD worked CUCSD can develop a prototype of rural
through local municipal (Benxi), district urbanization that can be scaled to allow the
(Nanfen) and township (Sishanling) govern- increased quality of life of 800 million rural
ments to implement the project, and selected Chinese without increased carbon emissions,
a local businessman, Dai Xiaolong, to act as then it may be possible to allow the vast
developer and investor. majority of the planets population to enjoy
The CUCSDs focus on rural urbanization the fruits of the next industrial revolution
should be understood within the context of without upsetting the ecosystem that has
ecological rationalities discussed above. In allowed the minority to enjoy the benefits of
2030, China is projected to have a population the first industrial revolution.
of 1.6 billion, 60 percent of which will be It is from this perspective that
urban (Zhou and Lin, 2005; Jie, 2007). If such McDonoughs description of the Huangbaiyu
rapid growth in construction and consump- project as a reciprocal gift should be under-
tion continues in the patterns of the industrial stood: by becoming the object of a radical
revolution, McDonough has warned audi- intervention in their way of life, the popula-
ences across the USA and China of mutually tion of Huangbaiyu gives a gift of security
assured destruction. In valleys such as so that the minority of the worlds popula-
Huangbaiyu, cries over the devastation that tions may maintain their present, industrial
242 CITY VOL. 12, NO. 2
lifestyle through the sacrifices of the rest of scalable, from the outset the residents of
the worlds population. At the same time, Huangbaiyu were supposed to pay for the
from the perspective of the subject of privilege of moving into the master planned
sustainable developmentthose invested in sustainable community. Without government
maintaining the present levels of energy or philanthropic investment in construction
consumptionthis radical intervention is a of the master plan, a burden of $8341 is left on
gift to the people of Huangbaiyu, as it gives each family.
them the improved lifestyle that the CUCSD The median household in Huangbaiyu
perceives they want, while allowing them to would have to work 6.58 years to earn that
remain in the valley. sum, and at the national household savings
rate of 16 percent (IMF, 2005), would have
had already to be saving for more than 41
The plan for sustainable development yearsat this rate and income levelto give
the gift of sustainable development to the
In the narrative accompanying the master developed world. Forty-one years ago fami-
plan completed by William McDonough + lies in Huangbaiyu lived within the commune
Partners, the key principles of the Huang- system, when there was no cash to earn or to
baiyu design are outlined. Required use of saveand where they were then, as now, an
technical and biological nutrients in cradle- object of radical intervention to benefit the
to-cradle cycles and renewable energy development of a larger system.
sources lead the ecological requirements of During Chinas communist apogee it was
building. Relocating all 400 households from private property and accumulation that was
their current residences in 12 distinct areas held as backward, preventing the develop-
into a new centralized community, it argues, ment of socialist subjectivity necessary for
makes renewable energy distribution possi- the equitable relations amongst humanity to
ble, as well as increasing the goals of conve- develop. Now the Huangbaiyu master
nience and comfort. With the community planthrough the modality of implosion
powered by the sun and fuel coming from and temporality of homeostasis evident in
waste positively affecting the communitys ecological rationalitycategorizes the indi-
carbon balance (McDonough, 2004), this vidual house design and construction, and
sustainable community will ensure that household management of forest plots for
growing rural consumption will not alter sustainable wood supplies as backward.
global carbon calculus. Throughout CUCSD planning meetings for
At the groundbreaking of the Huangbaiyu Huangbaiyu, the village residents present
project, it was estimated that total costs for methods of habitation and energy supply
the 400-household development would be were discussed as inefficient uses of national
almost $5,500,0005 over 3 years of phased and natural resources. But inefficient for
construction.6 While government subsidies whom? When? In the Huangbaiyu proto-
for arable land generation would cover a type for sustainable development, the rural
portion of the development cost, $3,300,000 poor are being asked to pay more to eat, to
was left outstanding, or $8341 per house. sleep, to live so that their lives will not
While some journalists who interviewed me increase the carbon that is now seen to be
assumed that as a sustainable development putting the planet in peril.
project in the developing world, the Huang- The lessons to learn from Huangbaiyu
baiyu project was a philanthropic venture come from the failures at the core of the
perhaps reinforced by McDonoughs projects foundations: if the promise of
language of the giftit was not. Following urban sustainability is improvement in the
McDonoughs dictum that commerce is an physical and social experience of a shared
agent for good and that only the market is life, plans for this life must begin from a
MAY: ECOLOGICAL CITIZENSHIP AND A PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 243
rather than designing systems that put the English, has a different historical, political
and spatial denotation than its English translation.
cost of clean-up on the backs of those who It does not imply a voluntary association of
have not yet tasted the fruits of industrial persons, but a planned spatial form within the
capitalism. The market logic that makes all existing government hierarchy. See Bray (2005,
carbon emissions commensurate does not pp. 181193) for discussion.
2 I lived in an existing farmers home within a district
2