The term sustainability, which once seemed abstract, has become a common word — packaging, political goals, and fashion groups alike proclaiming its sustainability. In his book, Klaus-Dieter Hopke, professor of geography at the University of Education in Heidelberg, fights against this widespread, often unaffected use of the term.
He explains that there is no such thing as “sustainability” and that only one system can be sustainable. Conflicts exist between economic and environmental sustainability. In doing so, the author opposes an integrated – or in his words “pseudo-integration” – approach to sustainability. Time and time again, he presents environment and economics as near-natural antagonists, and by over-expanding the term, achieving sustainability becomes impossible.
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In order to bolster this argument, the book presents several case studies that are close to everyday life but are incoherent and greatly exaggerated in some cases. This illustrates Hupke’s view that many of the actions we as individuals take toward greater environmental sustainability are ineffectively fading away.
Contrary to what one might suppose at first glance, the work is not a typical non-fiction book, since the author attaches little importance to substantiating his sayings (as already indicated by three scanty pages of bibliographic references to over 200 pages of text). Instead, case studies are accompanied by personal anecdotes.
Unfortunately, the book consists largely of a series of blanket, unsubstantiated judgments – with the author himself accusing the “media” of publishing only claims rather than facts. For example, it supports the theory that recycling in private homes is essentially a “container”. He calls waste segregation “a token business” because very little, if any, is recycled – but it doesn’t provide numbers that would enable readers to understand the claim. As justification he wrote: “Why should the recycling quotas of disposal companies be considered more reliable than, for example, the exhaust gas values of automobile manufacturers?” These doubts are in no way legitimized other than those casually posed in the conspiracy thesis. Since there seem to be no reliable figures for Hupke, it seems superfluous for the argument.
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