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.

Pretend for a moment that you have an infallible crystal ball, and it tells you that the only way to ensure the human race is still around in 3011 is for you to abandon your house, live in the bush and eat roots for the rest of your life. Would you do it? Seriously?

As Keynes said, 'In the long run we are all dead'. I'm perfectly willing to take steps to ensure that the thirty years or so left to me are happy and comfortable. If I can make the next decade or so after that smooth and safe for my children, that's pretty good too. But after that, when everyone I know now will be dead and the world changed beyond recognition? Why should I suffer one moment of distress and deprivation on the remote chance that it might benefit total strangers long after I've gone?

Realistically, none of us can have the slightest idea what effect, if any, our actions now will have in fifty or a hundred years time, and it's the height of arrogance to assume that we can. The best thing you or anyone else can do for your great-great-grandchildren is to accumulate all the wealth you can now: and just maybe, if there aren't too many intervening Green or Labor governments, they will get to inherit some of it.

As for posterity, bah humbug! As Heilbronner says, what has posterity ever done for us?

Well, there you go - Jon J has summed up Western mentality in one post!....and we think of ourselves as the "enlightened" ones.

Poirot, if your great-great-grandfather had said: "Our cities are being buried in horse crap! It's unsustainable! I'm going to start a campaign for horses to wear nappies!" -- how, exactly, would that have materially affected your welfare, or that of anyone you care for? Do you really, truly think that YOUR great-great-grandchildren are going to regard you as an ecological hero?

Here's a hint: try asking your children.

*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.*

That is just an easy and lame excuse, Ludwig, for corporations are
nothing but paper entities.

Go down to your lotto outlet next time there is a big draw and see
people in a long line, dreaming of being rich and wanting more.
It is by far the majority of the population. Take a look at the
workers in the NW here in WA, earning 200k$- 400k$ a year and
still wanting more. Yet all you can do is blame the corporate
sector, which is nothing more then the aspirations of individuals.

Fact is its a human foible for a great majority of our population.

I often express the fact to friends and associates that I don't want
more, but am quite happy with my lot in life. People look at me
as if that is really strange.

Poirot has it all wrong too, its not just the West. Go to Africa and
ask your average African if he wants another wife or more children or
some extra cows or more money, he/she will grab whatever they can
get. Most of them simply have less opportunity then we have.

You guys really ignore basic human nature at your peril, but Darwin
had it all worked out when he wrote the Origin of Species. We kid
ourselves that we are above the laws of nature and are certainly
not smart enough as a species, to live sustainably in the long term.

Sustainability is?

Ultimately, sustainability is having enough to eat and drink and being able to breed to produce offspring that have enough to eat and drink and be able to breed to produce offspring that have enough to eat and drink and be able to breed to produce offspring that etc, etc, etc, etc.

That is sustainability in nature.

'Sustainability' is a feelgood catchword sometimes with references to anti- consumerism and environmentalism, though sometimes not.

Nothing is 'sustainable' in the long run. Its a silly word with no meaning.

Very interesting Yabby. I thought that you and I have basically agreed on this issue over the years.

I’m not blaming the corporate sector. I understand the motives for bigger markets, business growth and ever-bigger profits.

The problem lies fundamentally with government. It is afterall supposed to be one of the primary roles of government to protect our future wellbeing and to not allow our environment (humanised and natural) to become degraded and our resource base to become stressed and unable to reliably meet demand. In other words; to achieve a sustainable society.

But governments just fundamentally fail to do this.

You can’t say the quality of government is dependent on the will (or lack thereof) of the people. I think most people would like Australia to have a much lower immigration rate, for Sydney to stop packing in ever-more people, and likewise with southeast Queensland, Perth and so on. And yet our government just keeps right on doing it… and the opposition is aligned all the way.

Most people would like Australia to have a sustainable society, as opposed to an obviously unsustainable one, in which our quality of life remains high for a very long time into the distant future.

Those ‘paper entities’ of yours are very powerful indeed, and are NOT aligned with the wishes of the general community. Not by a long way. And the overall strong bias of government towards never-ending expansionism and hence antisustainability, is way out of whack with the majority view of the general populace.

continued

<< You guys really ignore basic human nature at your peril >>

Yabby, there is more to human nature than just the desire to be rich or have ever-more stuff. Sure, it is a basic human trait and indeed a primary ecological driver in all species, to compete, be aggressive, be greedy, expand your own kind and be highly fecund. But us humans are broader than that. We are capable of highly organised stuff – societies, cities, technology, future planning, etc.

There really is no reason why we can’t achieve a sustainable existence….. or at least there won’t be once we get ourselves past this incredible barrier that we have erected in terms of our political systems.

Our politics and methods of governance are just so strongly biased towards those fundamental ecological principles of greed and expansionism and away from the principles inherent in an intelligent being, particularly future planning. And we’ve managed implement various internal barriers within the political system to keep it that way.

It will change. But not before we have very significant upheavals that jolt us into the necessary adaptations.

<< We kid ourselves that we are above the laws of nature and are certainly not smart enough as a species, to live sustainably in the long term. >>

At present, yes. But after a few almighty upheavals, which I reckon are only just ahead of us, starting 2012, we’ll get the sustainability message driven through our collective numbskulls and it will become one of the most fundamental principles of our existence.

*You can’t say the quality of government is dependent on the will (or lack thereof) of the people.*

Absolutaly I can. Political parties are a bit like advertising
agencies, ie they spend a fortune on figuring out what drives people
to vote for them and in the end, most politicians care more about
being reelected and winning Govt, then they are concerned about the
long term. So people get the politicians that they deserve and
politicians know that when it comes to the crunch, people act out
of self interest before anything.

Corporations don't vote, but politicians know that people put having
a job and feeding the family, wanting healthcare and education services
for that family, above all else, when it comes to the ballot
box. Only once those fundamentals are satisfied, will they start
to show concern about the environment, or the long term, or anything
else that you care to name. As corporations are imperitive to
creating that economic well being, they have an influence. Politicians
don't go giving a Toyota or a Holden, hundreds of millions of $, because
they love them. They essentially do it to buy jobs, thus votes.

If people can't pay the mortgage because the economy is crook, rest
assured that the Govt will be kicked out at the next election.

That is why politicians act as they do. So it all comes down to basic
human nature. People will say lots of things about how they would
like to live. But what actually swings their vote is the most
important question that you have to ask yourself. Not what swings
Ludwig's vote, for like my vote, it does not matter. What influences
the punters out there as a whole, certainly does.

There was once a time not so many years ago when I truly believed that a sustainable world was possible. I no longer hold that view.

I look around and see a large proportion of the population who believes that a god of some sort has given them this world to do with as they please. It's a great pity that they've been so brainwashed (usually from an early age) into believing this rubbish. God does NOT provide! That bit about "don't worry, God will provide" just doesn't wash with me I'm afraid!

Then I see giant corporations who are controlled by a handful of excessively wealthy people who use their power and influence to alter the agenda of Governments world wide. They've managed to cause the average person in the street to believe that if they continue to buy all the mindless junk those corporations produce, they'll somehow end up just like them. Spoiler...... they're simply funnelling your fiat money into their bank accounts at great personal cost to this once beautiful old world.

We're on an unstoppable path to destruction, doomed as a species to suffer the same fate as other over-breeding animals. In good times we thrive. In bad time we die. A handful of very dedicated people think this can be changed, but eventually they'll have to admit defeat.

So spend up big people. Make the rich richer and the church leaders more grotesque. Ride the wave and grab what you can. Burn up the oil and hoard the wealth. If you're very, very fortunate, you'll die just before it all blows up in your face.

*They've managed to cause the average person in the street to believe that if they continue to buy all the mindless junk those corporations produce, they'll somehow end up just like them.*

The problem is Aime, who decides what is mindless junk and what is
something useful for improving somebody's quality of life?

Is an Ipad or an Ipod just mindless junk for instance? Is your
computer just mindless junk?

Originally I had intended to respond to this article by suggesting we could all do our bit for sustainability by settling for smaller more eco-friendly housing, solar power, home veggie gardens, rainwater tanks, recycling, smaller electric or hybrid cars, fewer and more modest holidays, and smaller plasma TV's, etc. We could also use our computers, iPads or iPhones to do away with telephone directories, newspapers and a lot of books and magazines - and thus save forests and make more land available for farms or reforestation. But, after examining threads elsewhere on free trade, protectionism and carbon taxing, I have another, broader suggestion.

As Oz supposedly has only around 1% of arable land, is currently riding on a mining boom which cannot last, imports loads of oil and burns lots of coal, is facing a carbon tax, and would like lots more jobs, I propose a bold technological initiative - the conversion of semi-desert to greenhouse food production based on a set of massive thermal solar concentrator arrays. Cost, massive - including pumping of sea water hundreds of kms, solar desalination, road or possibly rail access for shipping in construction and input materials, shipping out produce, and people movement. All housing would have to be capable of remaining cool on the hottest days, and overnight heating provided by inbuilt heat-capture recirculation. Production base-load would have to be solved by new heat-sink technology, by adjunct hydro storage, or by adjunct coal or gas fired power, depending on topographical facility. There would then also be potential for satellite cities and industries, depending on will, location, vision, investment and the bottom line (in future world context). There could also of course be potential for supplying electricity to seaboard cities, depending again on heat-sink advancements and long distance transmission infrastructure developments.

Forests can and must be saved, along with their habitat values, agricultural land and fuel resources optimised for the long term, and people housed and productively employed. Choices are available for the brave. Are our people and our governments up to the challenge?

In the 1920's the Bradfield scheme already had the foresight to plan for sustainability but as per australian standard when a smart australian has a good idea it was & still is knocked on the head.

"Is an Ipad or an Ipod just mindless junk for instance? Is your
computer just mindless junk?"

I see what you're saying Yabby and "mindless junk" might be a simple over statement, but the world produces so much 'stuff' that we really don't need. Humanity is becoming so disconnected from the reality of resource constraints which is made easier by the seemingly limitless imagination of wizz-kids inventing more and more ways of blinding us to our fate.

From my perspective, I class mindless junk as anything unnecessary to sustaining life. Do we really need I-pods, I-phones and all the other paraphernalia corporations keep coming up with to fleece us of our money? My parents got along just fine without a fridge, a phone and a fancy car. Why does a person feel it necessary to have a mobile phone almost permanently connected to their ear? I have one that I keep only for emergencys. Yes, I do occasionally text to someone who first texts me, but I never use it for conversations and don't give out my number freely. Even my workplace doesn't have it. I simply keep it with me in case I break down in my 1990 car without airbags and computers.

As for my home computer, I use it because I can but could just as easily do without it, but then Yabby, I couldn't send nice thoughts in your direction :-)

*From my perspective, I class mindless junk as anything unnecessary to sustaining life.*

Well Aime, for me there is more to life then simply sustaining it,
but that is just me. I quite like having a fridge, a computer and
even an Ipad!

Like you I'm not a mobile phone fan, but I accept that others have
a different perspective on life, so its not for me to judge them
about how important their mobile phone is or is not to them.

I actually see things made of metals a little different, many just
throw everything into the "resources" bin, without separation.
Metals like aluminium, iron and copper can all be recycled and used
again at some later stage, so why should I object to using them in
the meantime? That is still sustainable.

For me its about ecosystems and our lack of understanding in how
they function, the ocean being a perfect example. In the ocean things
are interlinked in ways that we ignore, so we land up plundering them
rather then using them sustainably. We kept fishing cod until there
were simply none left. The list is endless. The other day I saw
a programme about Japan, where many Japanese fishing villages are
collapsing, because when they go out trawling, all they get are
masses of Nomura jellyfish. Now baby jellyfish are in fact great
fishfood for some species, but if you plunder those species enough,
they won't be around to eat those baby jellyfish, which eventually
grow into monsters, as is happening now. We are doing the same in
rainforests, plundering them for bushmeat, until there is simply
nothing left. Taking the surplus is sustainable, plundering is not.
But it seems we need to learn the hard way, as the Japanese are
doing now

Sorry Yabby. Missed your reply post as I've been on night shift the past couple of days and haven't been near the computer much.

I'm not really judging people. I don't care what they buy as long as they use it in a manner respectable to others within earshot, unlike the idiot truck driver (I found that out from his conversation and how he missed out on a run) who, in a supermarket I happened to also be in, used his mobile to rant and rave about said missed drive and how much he hated the yard boss. His language was absolutely disgusting and I'm no old prude!

Then you get the woman who's children have just rung to get her to buy all manner of snack foods. She walks up and down the isles explaining in a loud voice why they can't have them and that she's not buying them. Eventually she wilts and makes a compromised purchase for the little toe-rags. Surely it would be easier if she turned the damned thing off before the little bathplugs rang? But, I guess some people just love the sound of their own voice!

Of course, people buy all this stuff because corporations say the should. They use clever marketing to convince people we need to use up what's left of the world's resources at an alarming rate, but I will admit that I really shouldn't judge people for being gullible fools!

*Of course, people buy all this stuff because corporations say the should. They use clever marketing to convince people we need to use up what's left of the world's resources at an alarming rate, but I will admit that I really shouldn't judge people for being gullible fools!*

Aime, I think you are claiming far too much power for corporations,
for despite their best efforts, most of the new products that come
onto to the market, are in fact a dismal failure.

The ones which do make it bigtime, are most of the time well researched
products which have stood the test of mass scrutiny.

Take your example of mobile phones. Personally I hardly use mine,
I keep it in the vehicle for emergencies or a possible breakdown.
But I also acknowledge that for say a tradesman or small businessman,
they would be invaluable. An office in their pocket, in contact with
customers, and all the rest. They would in fact save huge amounts of
resources, no more dead miles of travel, saving petrol is just one
example.

I've also been told by parents with daughters, that teenage females
have this innate need to communicate with their friends and tell each
other how they feel. That just seems to be part of their genetic
instinct, AFAIK. Before they had mobiles, they'd hijack the home
phone and occupy it for hours after school.

Some corporations are simply better at figuring out, what really
appeals to the human psyche and corporations giving people what they
really want and often need, is not such a bad idea, IMHO.

Our resources are not just there to be admired and if they can be
recycled and used again, why should I object