Understanding and communicating sustainability: global versus regional perspectives |
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Authors: | Alexey Voinov |
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Institution: | (1) Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, 590 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405, USA |
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Abstract: | While there is no single definition of sustainability, most would agree that it implies that a system is to be maintained
at a certain level, held within certain limits. Sustainability denies run-away growth, but it also precludes any substantial
set backs or cuts. This sustainability path is hard to reconcile with the renewal cycle that can be observed in most living
systems developing according to their natural intrinsic mechanisms. Besides, since different human dominated systems are in
significantly different states and stages of development, sustaining those states assumes maintaining social disparities in
perpetuity. This creates a challenge in communicating the ideas of sustainability in different regions. Systems are parts
of hierarchies where systems of higher levels are made of subsystems from lower levels. Renewal in components is an important
factor of adaptation and evolution. But then sustainability of a system borrows from sustainability of a supra-system and
rests upon lack of sustainability in subsystems. Therefore by sustaining certain systems beyond their renewal cycle, we decrease
the sustainability of larger, higher level systems. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to agree that the biosphere
as a whole with humans as one of its components is the only system which sustainability we are to seek.
Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue. |
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Keywords: | Renewal cycle Hierarchy Release Adaptation Initial conditions |
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