Notes - The Rationale for Sustainability

The following are notes for Working Toward Sustainability Ethical Decision making in a Technological World.

• 70 documented definitions of sustainable development

Sustainability Interlude

• Basic idea is to consume less than you produce
• i.e. if you get interest of 100,000 dollars a year, only use that $100,000 that year, instead of dipping into savings
• To apply this we go to a larger scale, where we have to allocate resources for the entire globe
• how to distribute fairly
• predicting the changing production and consumption

A Response to Crisis

• Crisis of development
• Proportion of those in poverty at about 20%
• World is suffering from environmental crises and lack of resources, stressing the lower income more
• 1983 U.N. convened World Commission on Environment and Development
• later called Brundtland commission
• address sustainability, provide reports on condition of globe
• goals
• basic needs of all humans should be met, poverty eliminated
• limits placed on development because nature is finite
• moral responsibility to future generations

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