The Tensions Between Well-being and Sustainability. Well-being and Sustainability Around 2010

Abstract

This chapter describes, first, the development of well-being between 1970 and 2010 from the perspective of the efforts of the societal midfield, the national government, and the business community. In the second place, the situation around 2010 is evaluated from the perspective of 1970 and a present-day perspective. From the perspective of 1970 material welfare and well-being have developed in a positive sense between 1970 and 2010. Problematic from this perspective is the increase in criminality and unemployment. In the Netherlands the crisis of nature and environment seems to be past its deepest point. The present-day perspective is described using the position of the Netherlands in European rankings for different themes and indicators. It confirms what has been said above in previous analyses: the Netherlands has a high quality of life. But this can be contested for the chances for future generations, especially in relation to human and natural capital. In addition, the Netherlands is more than ever intertwined with international supply chains for her resources and energy. In this way the Netherlands has displaced a part of its sustainability problems to foreign lands. On the other hand, international supply chains-as in the meat sector-have led to more landscape damage and environmental problems within the Netherlands.

Reclaimed ecotones in the climate change era:A long-durée framing of urban expansion in Mumbai, Amsterdam, New York, and Tokyo

“…There were objections to this large-scale project, mostly from a hydrological perspective (Lintsen, 2018). The disappearance of the lake system constituting a drainage outlet for smaller waterways meant that cities would encounter frequent flooding in the future.…”

“…Reclamation has been the fundamental tool for occupying the lowlands of the Dutch delta and its shift from a functional flood defense tool to a sphere holding ecological values only happened in the early 1970s (Vellinga and Klein, 1993: 263). Water management and expansion occurred alongside Dutch urbanization but eventually “reclamations and land consolidation created an ever more monotonous landscape,” putting “natural ecosystems and biodiversity under extreme pressure” (Lintsen, 2018: 370). Only after the environmental awakening of the 1970s in the Netherlands environmental topics such as the loss of habitats, disruption of soil systems, and the disappearance of peatlands had become part of the reclamation discussion.…”