Definition of Sustainability

Waht do you think about how Sustainability is defined?

Alex HerwitzIn continuing

Alex Herwitz
In continuing to think about how to disseminate and create artifacts for immediate consumption, we may also go the foundation/non-profit world to channel whatever we come up with. I'm thinking that I will create both the commercial and non-profit companies. I have compiled a list of the top 15 foundations (in terms of endowments) as well as the Bill And Belinda Gates Foundation and the George Soros' Foundation (google search will yield his web-site). There are plans to be made, and enough to keep us all busy for sometime to come if we choose. I have a Bucky type "chronolog" which lists my invention/application ideas. I am certain that we need to compile directly all of our design science ideas and devices and pick the ones that are the best of the best to begin the process of converting energy to cash to get properly funded for full on effort. Right now I am, as earlier stated, most concerned with protecting our children, and moving ourselves out of harms way as the need arises.

response to M. Ben-Eli

Michael:
I would be happy to work with you on what I think I would like to call the demystification of the language. Still, the action side of it is equally vital. This is why I am attempting to form a consortium under the banner of a commercial entity (as stated elsewhere to be called Vortex, Inc. I think B Fuller would have approved of my swirling energy reference!). Certainly such companies exist as individual small businesses/design groups. I am sure, that given the world circumstances, our time is limited. Therefore, it has become my life's and heart's purpose to facilitate the fielding of our best ideas and artifacts using plain language and proven marketing techniques. This company is geared to funnel funds into the hands of those who will use them best, and to foster the survival and betterment of our gorgeous/ailing spaceship and all of us (i.e. all species) who live upon it.

Alex Herwitz

Response to Alex

Would be very glad to talk with you about this but let's do it off the dialogue in order to avoid getting off the subject of the principles themselves. Let's plan to connect, my e-mail:muben@aol.com

opposite definitions

Hmmm...thanks. I liked it too!!
yeah i see your point and I like the way you break it down. However, on the positive tip I think the definitions are not mutually exclusive. You have the increasing efficiency of all equipment and you increase the user's common sense. Ray Kurzweil has said, that we are capable of using our technology innovations to make ourselves and the universe more intelligent. I mean Bucky Fuller was certain about not being able to change anybody's thinking by talking alone. so, if you're gonna use Bucky think then "ephemeralization" of our equipment and the simplifying of our needs, are consistent ideas. Anyway, the ad infinitum point, is probably part of the point. We don't know what the outward limits of our abilities to do ever more with ever less may be. If you look at computers as an example they shrink and shrink while becoming more powerful.
all this stabbing at definitions and so on I think is just to get us going and allow us ways of finding accord and then communicating to others succintly. It also has a takewhat you want and leave the rest option. Of course, in the end, talk is cheap, and anything that costs less these days is good on me!!!
Seriously, action is required, the fielding of ideas is required. Mechanisms for disseminating innovation that is vital to our collective survival are always needed.
As an individual, I seek to live in a world that is ruled by love, compassion, and common sense. I will build this house one brick at a time if need be. Let's keep communicating and decide what we sposed to do and get us and especially the children the hell outa Dodge!!!!

Dick Fischbeck's picture

action

Thanks.

Especially the children. Out of dodge on the next train.

I'm still having trouble thinking of size as frequency, area as triangles and volume as tetrahedrons- but its there.

Action is design followed by artifact. If there is no artifact, there is no action.

language of the definition

I must say that one of the most important things about the definition of sustainability is the way in which it is expressed. Therfore I have applied this general principle: Language requires sustainability also. To wit: language sustainability is, a process of balancing the need to communicate with the capacity of a language to express it with economy and clarity. To reach more than just the choir I suggest this definition of sustainability distilled from Mr. Ben-Eli's posted definition:

Sustainability is a process of balancing the needs of a population with the capacity of an environment to support it.

My further conclusion based on this definition is as follows: This process is, in it’s first stages, fundamentally a simple matter of measurements within a given area and population. This data can be collected in small or large comprehensively defined areas. It would then be possible to generate reports on sustainability of a given group and environment. Cities, generally speaking, are not truly sustainable as they are ultimately entropic in nature. I am aware that the world game looks at sustainability comprehensively, and that there is good data available from many sources, but I believe that we need to promote these ideas in a much more robust way then has been done so far. Certainly Al Gore's recent global warming film has made a splash heard round the world (the puns are intended!). I believe we need to be able to speak to regular folks in plain language and deliver products that speak louder than words to help the so-called "average person" begin to transform the environments in which they live. One town at a time if need be. The company that I am in the process of launching (Vortex, Inc) seeks to do these kinds of things on the National and International commercial stage. I am certain that this is a necessary step in promoting the Fuller legacy and new generations of design scientists. Another general principle here is, that those who have must share with those who have not. We need revenue engines to do these things. My company will be addressing that issue amongst others. I have created a PPoint presentation to show the basics of what we intend to do, and I will be happy to email it to anyone who is interested. Meanwhile, I will quote myself from a recent email to a board member at BFI, "Time may not be linnear, but it is of the essence!!"

Definition

I liked herwitz's suggestion re the definition. Also agree, in general that the principles, the document as a whole could benefit from good editorial effort in conversion to popular language. Would much appreciate help on that score.

I am afraid that Dick's proposed version will not do. It is a linear proposition. Leaving the idea of "balance" out, removes any sense of constraint. The later is of course essential. In a sense by saying, for example, that current structure of the world economy is not sustainable, we are saying that the wrong "constraints" are employed to guide the way that it works.

Dick Fischbeck's picture

constraints

Just a quick thought...

How can there be constraints on needs in general? If you are talking about physical needs, that's one thing and I'd agree(food, water, shelter, healthcare, etc.). Metaphysical needs are without constraints and are limitless. Mind is unconstrainable. There is and should be no constraint on metaphysical needs. We are only beginning to comprehend the possibilities of living. Needs will always grow even though the physical supports of those needs can forever diminish.

Physical and metaphysical are different.

Is overeating physical or

Is overeating physical or metaphysical?

Dick Fischbeck's picture

Re: language of the definition

aherwitz wrote:
To reach more than just the choir I suggest this definition of sustainability distilled from Mr. Ben-Eli's posted definition:

Sustainability is a process of balancing the needs of a population with the capacity of an environment to support it.

I like that you're trying to distill the definition. There might be a problem using of the word balancing. Isn't it a matter of using earth's resources to sustain the needs of humans? It isn't so much a balancing but an increase in performance of existing capacity. In other words, its a one-way street.

If so, then the definition could read:

Sustainability is increasing the performance of resources to meet people's needs.

the opposite definitions

DEF 1:

"Sustainability is a process of balancing the needs of a population with the capacity of an environment to support it."

MEANING:

It might be a good idea to start needing less in order to get into the balance with the environment. (meaning avoid the excess of both over-use or pollution of the environment).

DEF 2:

"Sustainability is increasing the performance of resources to meet people's needs."

MEANING:

Never mind if ther populatoon grows, never mind if the needs grow (and third world wanting the same life standard as the USA). All we need is to increase the performance of resources. Ad infinitum.

It's difficult to find anything in common in these 2 definitions.... my vote is for the first one, since this "ad infinitum" makes the second one quite unprobable...

Dick Fischbeck's picture

less

1. No one wants to be the one who does with less. A world without pollution doesn't equal doing-with-less or decreasing our needs. It has to do with using what we have more intelligently.

2. Yes, everyone wins. No one needs to have a harder life than they do now. Ad infinitum and forever. Ten billion billionaires. The resources are here to do that.

Population decreases as wealth increases. Not to worry. There doesn't need to be some plague to control the population if that's what you think.

Hey Dick, please back up

Hey Dick, please back up these utopian visions. Ten billion billionaires will not/can not happen. We need to figure out how everyone can live free of the economic shell game, not profit from it. If someone profits, someone loses. That's how it works. We are in a culture of increasing consumption, and that vision of "a good life" needs to be changed. Most folks in the US are living with far too much already. Thet need to live with less, lset they evolve into huge, obese lumps of brainless mush.

The resources are here for everyone to live comfortably and sustainably IF there are less "everybody" and we stop living like we want to all be billionaires.

to Dick from Alex Herwitz

I like your take on my distillation. Yeah if you use Bucky's way of thinking sustainability is at least partly a product of "ever more with ever less." Still the word balance, for me, implies reaching an equalibrium between important forces in this case. Whatever we call it I am certain the implication is, that nature/environment/ecology has needs also, that we must steward in order survive. Or we may wish to look at our environments and resources as extensions of ourselves and treat them as we would like to be treated! So we could further our definition by saying that sustainability is, the process of maintaining and furthering our human and planetary health through our ever-growing understanding of both. My email adddress is, timeleaper@gmail.com. Feel free to contact me whenever! Again, if you do contact me I will send you what I am working on and we can continue to discuss. That goes for everyone!

"Balancing"

I would like to suggest the the concept of "Balance" is absolutely critical to a useful definition of sustainability, if that definition at all relates to "population" and the supporting capacity of an environment. BALANCE is the whole point!

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Dick Fischbeck's picture

url?

I don't know how to contact you.

Dick Fischbeck's picture

eutopia

What is the difference between sustainability and utopia(aka.-eutopia). Is it a bridge between here and there, our current practices and the optimal practices? Is it a landmark on the way toward making-the-world-work?

Sustain feels like it has a static quality about it. I'd like to see the definition include something saying sustainability is a minimum condition for humanity's continuation.

your comments

I like your comment about the static quality of the word sustain. However, I think it is a good starting point in terms of speaking about survival in the immediate future under a variety of dire circumstances. Entropy is geopolitically, geologically, ecologically, and pathologically on the rise, as we head towards a paradigm shift in our civilization. I believe it will end well, but in the mean time let's start with sustainability and add whatever we as individuals or groups are moved to add (as you are already).

Sustain Static?

The term sustain and especially the definition of sustainability offered here is absolutely not a static concept. Remember that cetral to the definition is a concept of a particular kind of balance (between a population and the carrying capacity of an environment). Not only is that balance a very dynamic condition in itself depending, at any intant, on many interacting variables, but even more, it is actually a "balance point" which moves with time, as fundamental underlying conditions change. For example, in case of humans, technology has the property of completely changing what is conceived as the environment at any given time, hence expanding the limits in a very real sense. The World to some stone age tribes was completey confined to their very local sorounding. Before the age of the great maretime explorations the "environment" was confined to the known "old world. Even more dramatic, not long after the turn of the century (in the thirties?) science believed the Milky Way to be the extent of Universe...

No quibbles but...

No quibbles, at first read, but I'm not sure what it adds to the Brundtland definition, or to the forays by such folks as Karl-Henrik Robert et al (The Natural Step - which I've found to be the most useful sustainability definition, because of the clarity of both the logic and the vectors), Donella Meadows, or others.

I had difficulties with the

I had difficulties with the Bruntland Definition because of its operational vagueness. No doubt that the idea, or sentiment, is correct, namely the general concern for future generations. But it does not offer more specific operationalizable guidelines. In fact, Sometimes, subscribing to the cross generational "ethics" raises argument which seem to rise from different interpratation of members of the current generation, of needs of future generations.

For example, in evaluating options for handling nuclear waste, a project in which I was recently involved in Canada, two entirely oposing views emerged by groups holding to the same conceren for future generations.

One group held that we created the mess, therefore it is our duty (to those future generations)to resolve it now and not pass on the burden. Other thought, that concern for future generation should manifest in not depriving them of the opportunity to come up with their own, possible supperior solutions in future...
I always felt the members of the bruntland commission selected this definition precisely because of its vaguness. It provided a statement, seemingly very meaningful, that was easily agreeable by all. Any more vigorous attempt would have been a non-starter since to important components of the sustainability equation: population and carrying capacities were considered taboos, each by a different side of the "north/south" devide.

The bruntland aside, I have sought a definition which will be consitent with the frame of the principles and with a view taht is anchord in a concept of stable interactions between components of a whole system.

bruntland definition is

bruntland definition is indeed very ambiguous. i mean it talks about the needs of future generations - what if the future generations have the needs of the average US citizen? can we talk of sustainability?

I agree re brundtland...

I agree re brundtland; it's "mom & apple pie". That's why I find the intellectual clarity, simplcity and distinct vectors of the TNS system conditions uniquely powerful.

(PS: re that canadian dilemma, why not resolve it now and allow future genertions "the opportunity to come up with their own, possible supperior solutions in future"?)

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