Talk:Sustainability/History

Archives
Archive 1: Initial drafts Archive 2: Discussion Archive 3: Penultimate draft Archive 4: Developing the final version

History (final draft)
This is now in Archive 4

21st Century / Closing section
In my view, both these sections need more thought. The fundamental challenge is to cover the "call to action" inherent in current thinking about sustainability without looking non-neutral. The relation of the two sections to each other also needs thought.

21st century: global awareness
More specific and detailed studies have led to an understanding and awareness of the importance of sustainability. There is increasing global awareness of the threat posed by the human-induced enhanced greenhouse effect, produced largely by forest clearing and the burning of fossil fuels. In March 2009 the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international team of leading climate scientists, issued a strongly worded statement:

"'The climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.'"

An ecological economics perspective has emerged to provide an inclusive and ethical economic model for society. Ecological economics seeks to bridge the gap between ecology and traditional neoclassical economics. Emerging concepts include: the Car-free movement, Smart Growth (more sustainable urban environments), Life Cycle Assessment (the Cradle to Cradle analysis of resource use and environmental impact over the life cycle of a product or process), Ecological Footprint Analysis, green building, dematerialization (increased recycling of materials), and decarbonisation (removing dependence on fossil fuels).

The work of Bina Agarwal and Vandana Shiva amongst many others, has brought some of the cultural wisdom of traditional, sustainable agrarian societies into the academic discourse on sustainability, and also blended that with modern scientific principles.

Rapidly advancing technologies mean it is now technically possible to achieve a transition of economies, energy generation, water and waste management, and food production towards sustainable practices using methods of systems ecology and industrial ecology.

Note: I've moved the "Post environmentalism" section to the subpage where we originally discussed it. I've also renamed that page to correspond to the article. So it is now Talk:Sustainability/Transformation. Sunray (talk) 19:15, 5 April 2009 (UTC)