Thanks to the author for bringing up this important issue but he merely skims the surface. Sustainability is inherently about ecological sustainability. Currently the world is in "overshoot" in terms of our using natural resources faster than they can be replenished and faster than the biosphere can absorb our wastes. A number of strategies are required to get us back within the carrying capacity of the Earth. These include a reduction in population (down to at most 5 billion and probably down to two billion or less); reduction in consumption by the wealthier countries; application of efficient technologies that ensure we maximise energy efficiency; and a wholesale move away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Once we have got the extinction rate of other species back down to normal levels (1000 times less than now), we may consider that we have achieved sustainability.

The Sustainable Population Association invites all interested parties to the following:

The history and future of human sustainability
Richard Cassels
Director, Climate Leadership

Saturday 17 Sept 2011
Brisbane Square Library Meeting Room
5:30 pm Refreshments
6:00 pm Presentation

We will visit MOSES (the Museum of Social and Environmental Sustainability)
soon after it has opened its doors to the public in Roma, Queensland in the year 2050.
We will review the sustainability revolution of 2010 to 2050 AD in its historical context.

All Welcome
Presented by Sustainable Population Australia - SEQ Branch

Sustainability is quite simple.
It means that there is not enough “planet earth” for the amount of people that are trying to survive on it.

Sarnian,
Yes, problem is that far too many people don't use what they'd need as an individual but use as much as reveal individuals would need. It's called selfishness, greed etc.

oops, several not reveal.

What are the barriers to sustainability?

Well, in Australia and probably most of the world, it is politics. It is the political system that is so profoundly based on growth and which is just incapable of separating the good fraction of growth (improved efficiencies, etc) from the bad fraction - endless rapid expansionism.

Our political system is incapable of properly managing the all-powerful push from the big business sector for ever more of everything, and basically just panders to it.

If there was a political entity which could espouse sustainability, including population stabilisation, and if it could survive the wrath of the vested-interest continuous-growth merchants of doom, it would do very well indeed. The desire for a sustainable future is there in the general populace, just waiting for the right political entity to act as a focal point.

It is our political system and the inability for government to act independently of the vested-interest antisustainability sector, which is doing us in, both nationally and globally.