Submitted by joshua on Thu, 2006-08-10 21:56.
General Discussion on the Approach as a Whole
Recieved by Email on July 17th 2006 and posted here with permission
"I have had a chance to look at the Five Core Principles by Michael Ben-Eli and admire his efforts to establish core elements of sustainability--not an easy task. There is clearly much that is useful here."
"At points, I wish it had been written in less wordy, more straightforward language, and there are things I don't understand--like why the Laws of Thermodynamics (which I studied in college as a biochemistry major) are included--and there are things I don't agree with--like the Spiritual Domain being the central core."
"For me, there is no question that the central principle, the basis of it all is The Domain of Life. In our chapter on Ecosystem Services, all the services support life, but there are core ones, without which none of the others could exist. That is the definition of a core to me."
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Dr. Eric Chivian is the founder of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School
The book chapter cited above is from his soon to be published book,
Sustaining Life: How Human Health depends on Biodiversity
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To learn more about the Center go to: http://chge.med.harvard.edu/