Defining Goals and Conditions for a Sustainable World

Sustainable development is being approached component by component--socioeconomic, sustainable agriculture, transportation, forestry, energy use, cities, and the like--but, leaving a habitable planet for future generations will require the development of a widely shared paradigm. Further, the paradigm should be ecological from a scientific point of view. This development will be facilitated by a discussion of goals and those conditions necessary to meet them. The presently shared paradigm is that economic growth is the cure for all of society's problems, such as poverty, overpopulation, environmental degradation, and the increasing gap between rich and poor. A paradigm shift from growth to sustainability might result either from suffering painful consequences of continuing to follow out-moded paradigms or by discussing what sort of ecosystems will be available to future generations. The purpose of this paper is to help initiate such a discussion.