Category talk:Sustainability

Sustainable technology project
I'm thinking of launching a sustainable technology project and am hoping to get feedback and gauge interest. I've drafted a project page in my userspace; if you're interested, please check it out and comment on its talk page. Thanks!

—Jwanders 19:24, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Move design-related articles to subcat
A lot of articles here should be moved to the subcategory, Category:Environmental design. E.g. Aquaculture & Autonomous building.

That might not be completely intuitive, so an explanatory note could be added to the page, such as "Technologies, designs and approaches to urban planning with an emphasis on sustainability are listed in the subcategory, Category:Environmental design."

Any objections?

I don't expect to get to it for a month or three - and if someone else wants to start, feel free! --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 17:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

definition
The heading statement to this category needs to clearly make a distinction between "sustainability" as a social movement (essentially associated in some way, however loosely) with the UN program of sustainable development - and "sustainability" as common usage, roughly, a process or activity that can be maintained in perpetuity. I hope the explanation at the top of the page gets close to this. Granitethighs (talk) 07:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I found it a little wordy and have put the opening sentence for the sustainability article in its place. As discussed on my talk page we do need to make it clear to editors as to what this page is for. I am removing many inappropriate articles. Pollution, Peak uranium, Nuclear power, Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program, over-consumption are all articles the DO NOT belong here. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Scope of this category
The sustainability category should be for articles that are relating to sustainable practices. Any articles that are about resource depletion should not be included here since they are UNsustainable. If the article is about an unsustainable practice it can possibly be added to Category:Environmental issues. A less important argument is that limiting articles in this category keeps it within the 200 article barrier. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There are people who say that nuclear power is sustainable, so I see peak uranium as an important aspect of the sustainability discussion. Perhaps the cat should be split into Category:Sustainable practices, Category:Unsustainable practices, and something similar to Category:Issues related to sustainability.  As for CatEnvironIssues, Peak uranium, Malthusian catastrophe, and Mitigation or peak oil are not a viable candidates, while uranium mining might be (according to some POVs).  NJGW (talk) 20:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In WP we have to define a subject as what is commonly accepted (however, we should be able to have a little leeway as to what should be included in a category considering that it is shades of grey and subjective). The sustainability article says "Sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future." I think this is a good and a commonly accepted definition. Under this definition peak uranium indicates the uranium mining and by extension nuclear power are all unsustainable since productivity is not maintained into the future. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the issue isn't that these have nothing to do with sustainability, but that the category needs more subcats. That just seems like the natural progression to maintain an orderly and useful categorization system.  Simply removing the cats removes a meaningful association.  NJGW (talk) 22:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The subcats of this category should still be related to sustainability. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And how is unsustainability not related to sustainability? The whole impetus for discussing the concept sustainability is unsustainability, and without these topics sustainability is a meaningless word.  NJGW (talk) 23:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * They are related by one being not the other . For fear of invoking a black and white argument, it is either sustainable or it is not. If all the sustainability articles and all of the "unsustainability" articles were placed in this cat it would be huge. This category is a specific subset of all WP articles, namely that that have a close relationship to sustainability. Articles about unsustainable practices are placed elsewhere. Not having articles about unsustainable practices does not make the word sustainable a meaningless word. It is clearly defined in the main article an in the category page. It is a bit of a slippery word in the real world but here in the WP cyberworld we have chance to be rigorous in its use. Categories include articles and exclude others for ease of navigation. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I would echo NJGW here and wonder if the application of this word could be a little more expansive... because a lot will be missed if it is not. If the category is very much related to the subject then it follows it should be there. They are related by one being not the other... huh? Not sure I understand that statement.
 * Removing the Sustainability category from an article such as Hubbert peak theory may be a case in point. This article has every thing to do with sustainability and is directly related to Ecological economics and Energy economics which deals in http://www.eoearth.org/article/Net_energy_analysis and a host of related articles like that one, as to tracking Bioeconomics in regard to resource management both of bio category and other categories... All these things are easily measurable. Relating to sustainability issues, water, metals, oil, fish, etc. - skip sievert (talk) 01:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hubbert's peak theory is a classic example of what is NOT sustainable since it explains resource depletion. Sustainability is all about avoiding this situation. If we had a Category: Unsustainable practices as User: NJGW suggests it would be a member of it. That category would have to be a subcat of Category: Environmental issues or Category: Sustainable and unsustainable practices (but that is a little unwieldy). -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sustainability is all about avoiding this situation? Too late for that. Have you checked the level of fossil water in China recently or the remains of some metals that have been dispersed? Did you read the links I gave you? It measures resources. It is classic sustainability accounting. Did you read the article in question and see the links to bioeconomics? It is a way to measure a resource base. - What has 'what is NOT sustainable' to do with the issue? Hubbert peak is not what you are saying at all. It is a way to measure a resource base bio or Geophysical. It gives a comparison of what is in a resource base and what is left... and gives an approximation of time in regard to all aspects of a given resource. How is that interpreted as not being about sustainability? It relates directly... and is a real measurement... that can be used to get a real amount of something and a time frame... which could well stop then a process... that is unsustainable, and encourage a process that is.
 * Please read this article http://www.eoearth.org/article/Industrial_ecology
 * and this http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics and this http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm
 * and this http://telstar.ote.cmu.edu/environ/m3/s3/05account.shtml skip sievert (talk) 06:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hubbert peak theory is an environmental issue and relates to resource economics, sustainability, resource depletion etc. It is in the Category: Environmental economics which is in Category: Environment. Category:Sustainability is also in Category:Environment. I feel that that is sufficient. We have to keep the categories within a boundary that makes for ease of navigation by users of WP. If you peruse Category: Sustainability you will see that it is predominately about the practice of sustainability rather than the theory. Therefore Hubbert peak theory should not be in Category:Sustainability and Category:Environmental economics. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You keep saying that, but it's not true. Hubbert's theories are not environmental issues at all.  There are environmental issues connected to petroleum usage, but Hubbert was talking about the sustainability of depending on a limited resource.  Furthermore, your logic of not allowing a topic to be included in two subcats is questionable.  There is no redundancy involved.  Every article is part of Category:Articles, but we don't use that as an excuse to put each article in only one cat.  It is when an article is in a top-level cat and one of its subcats that the issue of redundancy can be explored.  NJGW (talk) 20:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am questioning only one category, namely Category:Sustainability. I am going to move onto more important work rather than carrying along with this discussion about one particular article category. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by that. Will you now suggest that no article be in more than one category?  NJGW (talk) 05:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I am not saying that at all and that is surely not what you thought I meant to say (especially considering my number of edits). Many articles require multiple categories and I add more than one category when creating or editing articles. What I said was that "I am questioning [the presence of] only one category, namely Category:Sustainability" in the Hubbert peak theory article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)