I think most people shy away from accepting the true meaning of sustainability because of the implications. Of course, it depends on the meaning but I take the basic meaning of being able to continue indefinitely. Of course, nothing can continue for ever (the planet itself has a lifetime) but if it cannot continue indefinitely, it will end.
For a way of life to continue indefinitely, two things must be true:
1. It must use no resource beyond its renewal rate.
2. It must not damage the environment beyond the environment's ability to assimilate the damage.
Number 1 means that no non-renewable resource can be used. Perfect recycling could enable some fixed size of economy to persist, as in steady-state. But perfect recycling is impossible. The easy to get minerals have been gotten. It now becomes harder and destroys habitat as it goes, transgressing the second rule, anyway.
Even renewable resources are currently being used at about, on average, 1.7 Earth's per year. Clearly unsustainable. Some countries are far worse than that, some use less than an Earth's worth but few people want to live like the average in those countries.
The conventional definition of not compromising future generations of the ability to meet their needs does get close. Obviously using more that a planet's worth of primary productivity is not sustainable and would compromise future generations. Using non-renewable resources would also compromise future generations, since it gets harder and harder to obtain those resources. But the word "need" requires definition. The only true needs are food, water and shelter.
True needs are met by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (and, by all accounts, they were happy lives) and that is probably the only life-style that can be truly sustainable. This is why the word sustainable has been given so many definitions, definitions which stand some chance of keeping modernity sustainable. Except it isn't truly sustainable and, so, must end.
I think most people shy away from accepting the true meaning of sustainability because of the implications. Of course, it depends on the meaning but I take the basic meaning of being able to continue indefinitely. Of course, nothing can continue for ever (the planet itself has a lifetime) but if it cannot continue indefinitely, it will end.
For a way of life to continue indefinitely, two things must be true:
1. It must use no resource beyond its renewal rate.
2. It must not damage the environment beyond the environment's ability to assimilate the damage.
Number 1 means that no non-renewable resource can be used. Perfect recycling could enable some fixed size of economy to persist, as in steady-state. But perfect recycling is impossible. The easy to get minerals have been gotten. It now becomes harder and destroys habitat as it goes, transgressing the second rule, anyway.
Even renewable resources are currently being used at about, on average, 1.7 Earth's per year. Clearly unsustainable. Some countries are far worse than that, some use less than an Earth's worth but few people want to live like the average in those countries.
The conventional definition of not compromising future generations of the ability to meet their needs does get close. Obviously using more that a planet's worth of primary productivity is not sustainable and would compromise future generations. Using non-renewable resources would also compromise future generations, since it gets harder and harder to obtain those resources. But the word "need" requires definition. The only true needs are food, water and shelter.
True needs are met by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (and, by all accounts, they were happy lives) and that is probably the only life-style that can be truly sustainable. This is why the word sustainable has been given so many definitions, definitions which stand some chance of keeping modernity sustainable. Except it isn't truly sustainable and, so, must end.