I have been most interested in this particular thread, and in this letter
below you touch upon an issue for me: that the 'establishment' wishes to
sustain the status quo.
One of my areas of work is to get sustainability into the schools - not just
environmental education, which is there now.
I was talking to some people last evening about it, and we saw that to get
what we consider sustainability into the schools you are actually asking the
establishment to challenge the core 'values' of modern capitalism. Will we
be able to achieve it?
To date while the documentation talks about the 'environment' and the
integration of learning across disciplines, the fact is the we consider it
to be 'environmental management'.
I also worry that, as you suggest, the word 'sustainability' is being
prostituted by all and sundry, leaving people wondering what it actually
means. I bring this up whenever I can.
Can a society challenge its core values and change (redesign) itself to the
extent we would be suggesting to achieve a sustainable life for the people
on this planet?
I am just a watcher (lurker was a good term used recently by someone)
normally, but have previously forwarded a communication that I work with The
Natural Step here in Australia. To adopt the four system conditions of TNS,
while seeming obvious that we perhaps should, is actually of considerable
complexity in both thought and action.
Patrick Longfield
NSW representative for The Natural Step
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~natstep/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chiaviello, Anthony" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 7:19 AM
Subject: sustainable?
> Enlightening comments, John, that enhance and perhaps sustain the
> conversation (but do we want to?).
>
> My point, as Chris restated in clarion tones, is to decide WHAT we
> want to sustain. I don't believe there is a great amount of agreement on
> this point. I'm afraid the larger, societal conversation on this point is
> nowhere near as clear on this issue as are we on this list.
>
> My fear is that the establishment wants to sustain our society at
> the expense of nature, and just uses the terms, "sustainable/ility" as a
> buzzword to defuse ecological criticism while making only superficial
> gestures toward the environment. For example, insofar as recycling is a
> function of the PR department and not an element in the production
process,
> then it remains such a superficial gesture.
>
> Perley's key use of the construct, "ecological sustainability"
makes
> the essential qualification of WHAT we want to sustain: the planetary
> ecology, of which we humans are a part but not the whole.
> -Tc
> Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> Department of English
> University of Houston-Downtown
> One Main Street
> Houston, TX 77002-0001
> 713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
> "Question Reality"
>
> > ----------
> > From: John Foster[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 10:58 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Environmentalism vs Anti-environmentalism: left vs
> > right?
> >
> > Sustainability means to both maintain and *enhance*. So the conundrum
here
> > is quite obvious. To enhance means and implies also to compare existing
> > practices to some *benchmark* of operability. And that notion of
> > operability
> > must derive from some deduction which cannot be found through empirical
> > comparison or knowledge. There are few controls where antecedent
> > conditions
> > may be known prior to imposition of a sustainbility management regime.
> > Thus
> > all notions of sustainability infer only 'making progress towards
> > sustainability' - otherwise there would be some 'benchmark' or some
> > existing
> > standard of operability which there is not.....except in neolithic
cases.
> > And these examples are about as meaningful to corporate and state
> > governance
> > as is the Dodo bird.
> >
> > The dichotomy between culture and nature cannot be a true dichotomy
either
> > since culture is totally dependent on nature, not vis versa. Humans have
> > lived on earth for perhaps 3.5 million years. The earliest 'symbolic'
> > culture existed perhaps up to 40,000 years ago. Thus if humans are no
> > exactly sure about such primary functions such as *ecological
> > sustainability*, then they cannot be very sure about any other
> > 'judgements'
> > which they may deduce from nature.
> >
> > In fact there are two primary distinctions in life: one is that there is
a
> > world of 'facticity' and (2) there is a world of 'expression'. For those
> > judgements which are no factical, there is only 'human expression'. That
> > which is 'consititutive' and that which is 'expression' thus are two
> > different realms of meaning which are interdependent, but 'human
> > expression'
> > is dependent on the constitutive which is nature, and facticity.
> >
> > Aside from most neolithic societies, there are no examples of the modern
> > form of symbolic culture forming and expressive humans of *maintaining
and
> > enhancing ecosystems* yet in modern history. All civilizations have
failed
> > and damaged their dependent ecosystems to beyond repair or to a point of
> > nearly complete dis-repair. There are a few minor exceptions of
> > 'civilizations' maintaining ecosystems ( a few in North America) but
these
> > have dissappeared because of the invasion of Europeans with muskets,
> > disease, alcohol and residential schools ( in short genocide).
> >
> > The large civilizations are failures of human cultural expression
> > (European,
> > and middle east) and have only survived by spreading to dominate new
> > lands
> > to spoil. The recent decline and fall of the American Empire is only one
> > example of many in the 7000 year history of ecological distruction.
> >
> > chao
> >
> > john foster
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Chris Perley <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 7:15 PM
> > Subject: Re: Environmentalism vs Anti-environmentalism: left vs right?
> >
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