The Concepts Behind Sustainability

Social, Financial and Environmental

Behind the issue of sustainability is the understanding that for our world to be maintained in a liveable form then the three platforms of the social fabric, our economic systems and the environment within which we all live, must be addressed. Explicitly stating these three factors in itself might appear anthropocentric as if "our" survival is the principal thing. The intricate balance of the whole web of life which includes the living and non-living entities in the world, is at stake. In our life times we have witnessed the disappearance of many species, and the scarcity and threatened dissappearance of the mineral resources which human life has come to depend on.

All this while the human species population has been progressing towards the 10 billion mark.

The Malthusian view is that our species population will eventually mean complete depletion of the worlds resources on which human life depends marking the extinction of homo sapiens, which has happened at previous epochs for various species. Why not human-kind too?

The Science

The main focus in the current debate is the rapid warming of the planet, known as global warming.

Global temperatures are known to be rising. Global carbon dioxide concentrations (and other gases known to play a role in the greenhouse effect) have been rising since industrialisation. This has given rise to a "hockey stick" appearance on the graph for both temperature and carbon dioxide levels, with a rapid rise in both.

The phenomena of global ice-ages and warming periods is well established but, gathering pace in the scientific community, is the theory that this time the phenomena can be attributed to human activities due to burning fossil fuels and other activities (such as animal production for food).

Global Warming Sceptics

Although the best known sceptics have been our own Prime Minister, George W Bush and business leaders such as Hugh Morgan, there are credible scientists who remain sceptical on several levels. Some remain convinced that the current warming is no different from what has occurred before in the earth's history. Others dispute the "hockey stick" phenomena claiming that provious ice ages were preceded by similar sharp changes in temperature. Satellite data appears to show that the atmosphere has not warmed to the same extent that the planet's surface which the sceptics argue disputes the greenhouse effect. It is further claimed that the high levels of carbon dioxide now indesputably present in the atmosphere, the highest levels for 400,000 years, are beyond the means of humans to cause.

Over the last few months however, the sceptics seem to be swept aside in a growing tide of assent that the climate is indeed warming and that this warming can in large part be attributed to human activity on the planet.