Back to ModelEarth Links

Contact



Defining Sustainability.
(an ongoing draft)

It appears that as the subject of "sustainability" is gaining popularity, the definition of sustainability is becoming less focused; although there is a myriad of projects whose concern is professedly "sustainability", "sustainability" is becoming progressively less likely achievable, because it is hard to achieve something that we don't know clearly what it actually is.
It is not that individuals would not know what "sustainability" might mean to them, but it is that each person's "sustainability" might be very different, if not even at odds with, from what "sustainability" might mean to others.

Not the least problem with "sustainability" is that mercenary concerns rate, in most instances, higher than any other; thus "sustainability" might just be an excuse for achieving higher economical gains. This distorts the meaning of "sustainable"/"sustainability" considerably even further.

"Sustainability" could be modeled, creating a "picture" of what an ideal "sustainable" future of any geopolitical entity on Earth should be, using as input all the various ideas that virtually all people might have about what "sustainability" might mean together with the sum total of what we know of Earth in order to see how each and any of those ideas would fare under "real" conditions in a model.
The Earth is facing unprecedented hardships caused by human ignorance, and by modeling the future we would eliminate the very costly process of deciding what works and what doesn't--in trying to remedy the situation--by the currently used "hit, or miss" method.

The Earth future, at any point of time, is a result of the actions all the inhabitants of the Earth take in order to ensure a satisfactory future for themselves and for those whose future matters to them. But because our desires for a satisfactory future are, not infrequently, at odds with the desires of others, the final outcome--the future that we experience now-- usually pleases only a few.

It would be different should all the differences that there are among all the individuals' wishes for future resolved harmlessly in a model, rather than with often tragic consequences in real life.

Such modeling of our common future would be a profound educational experience for all those who would participate in this modeling process, because individually we usually have but a very limited view of all the factors that go into making a future to happen, and the modeling process would show clearly where all those deficiencies might lie. In the modeling of our common future we would learn what we actually need to learn for a satisfactory future to happen.
By directly participating in designing our own future in a model our education would become meaningful to us; furthermore--we would learn at our own pace, and only that that would make sense to us--we would learn "on-the-job". We would not be learning something that would not have a direct connection with our lives.

We have all the technology necessary for designing of the future. By using "distributed computing", for an instance, software for which is available in the form of "open source", the model could "reside" on all of the participants' computers thus eliminating the need for any physical structures. The process would be accessible to anyone interested in having a hand in the creation of one's future--something that our current reality denies to most.

Would there exist a model of what to all an optimal future should look like, the currently available process of creating our common future that currently is in the hands of people whose interests are not necessarily identical with that of those they represent would benefit by the fact that every one could compare the performance of those who govern to that what actually should be happening.

The possible uses for such a model would be many.

Please, let me know what you think of the idea. There is more about the idea at:
http://www.modelearth.org

Thank you, sincerely - Mr. Jan Hearthstone.

Notes.
A general observation pertaining to the sustainability of a solution to problems of sustainability could be that simpler, more "transparent", less complex social structure permits easier monitoring of processes affecting the ecological conditions, and, vice versa, that simpler solutions to ecological sustainability problems require a less complex society to implement those.



CREDIT and DEDICATION

Back to TOP

Copyright - Creative Commons
Domain Name Registered by pairNIC

Things for an "indie" website maintainer.

"W3C" HTML 4.01 compliant