We Want a Sustainable Society not Sustainable Development
摘要
This chapter merges the ideas of justice and sustainability into the context of a sustainable society. Why? because human society’s interaction with the biosphere is in an unsustainable state. While there are skeptics and deniers, we accept the preponderance of scientific data that says that society’s interaction with the biosphere is in an unsustainable state. For example, data supports environmental degradation through increased atmospheric pollution in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and particulates, both surface and groundwater pollution and the over pumping of groundwater, loss of biodiversity, increased desertification, increased ocean acidification, and decreased mineral resources. Data also supports both economic and cultural degradation from increased income inequality and inequity, overcrowding, the general lack of racial and social justice, food and water insecurity and mass migrations of peoples from conflicts and global climate change.