Today I want to define a key word in this text. I want to look first at sustainability.
I will use the definition in the Wikki which is really useful as it identifies two distinct issues: the idea of impact, and the ecological origins of the term.
Sustainability, in a general sense, is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely. In recent years the concept has been applied more specifically to living organisms and systems. As applied to the human community, sustainability has been expressed as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The term has its roots in ecology as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future. To be sustainable, nature’s resources must only be used at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. There is now clear scientific evidence, (environmental science), that humanity is living in an unsustainable way, by consuming the Earth’s limited natural resources more rapidly than they are being replaced by nature. Consequently, a collective human effort to keep human use of natural resources within the sustainable development aspect of the Earth’s finite resource limits is now an issue of utmost importance to the present and future of humanity.
This also helps to identify what sustainability is not - namely, it is not a term that can be usefully applied to practices that in any way serve to detract from meeting the needs of future generations, nor can it be applied independently of its ecological origins.
Quote of the day...
“Time is our scarcest resource. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognise. These deadlines are set by nature. Nature is the timekeeper, but we cannot see the clock."
Veteran US environmental campaigner Lester Brown, publicising his latest book 'Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
No comments:
Post a Comment