“I think of sustainability as a possibility that human and other life will flourish on Earth forever. Flourishing means not only survival, but also the realization of whatever we as humans declare makes life good and meaningful, including notions like justice, freedom, and dignity. And as a possibility, sustainability spoken in this way is a guide to actions that will or can achieve its central vision of flourishing for time immemorial. Possibilities are unconstrained by the limits to action created by the rules that constitute our reality and rationality. Such rules are the product of past experience, and they limit action to incremental change. If societies can escape the bounds of the existing mode of living, then all is, indeed, possible even that which does not appear available from inside our existing social paradigm. Sustainability as possibility is, then, a profoundly and radically different notion of the future world than those that dominate our current way of thinking. It is a future vision from which we can design and construct our present way of being. It demands that we act unreasonably to bring forth that vision in more familiar terms, to act outside the box.”
- John R. Ehrenfeld
Mostlyharmless
A blog on issues relating to the continued prosperity of our species on planet Earth
