This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | → | Archive 15 |
You will notice my voice getting a little more shrill as my time runs out.
This is the latest (more or less) as I understand it - still under development
These were never discussed before being put up, and were a shock when I first saw them. They do not fit the historical sense of that section, they serve as a loud promotional tool for POVs, and to call a subsection of the History (of sustainability) Sustainability is surely inappropriate. I am not sure if that section belongs there in the first place: it is essayish somewhat, and veers away from the history focus. My suggested theme groups above.
What happened to my Action-guiding principles? I just realized they fell thru the cracks. How can good decisions be made without having clarity on those? I am reading a book on farm management for sustainability and they use several to very good effect.
VB - following your suggestion I've added the phosphorus cycle - see above. Thanks! Looks great.
Granitethighs ( talk) 05:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Granitethighs ( talk) 04:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
The whole exercise we are going through now - trying to understand what sustainability means, how it should be presented to people, how it is to be achieved or attempted, how it is to be measured, and so on - is being repeated around the world in thousands of education institutions, sometimes as part of conservation biology, or environmental science, environmental studies, geography or part of an ecology course - and so on. Where it is taken perhaps a bit more seriously it is being treated as an independent discipline called Sustainability Science. To leave this out of an encyclopaedia article on sustainability would be a major omission. At present in this article it occupies a small space under History. That is fine by me. VB I strongly suggest that although this may be moved or whatever - it should not be left out. Ok, that is fine by me.This point was made in the very early discussion pages of the former article on Sustainability - that it did not even mention Sustainability Science. I would simply like to make the point that descriptive "facts" like this are as important in this article (if not more so) than engaging in a protracted discussion of POV. Granitethighs ( talk) 06:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Granitethighs ( talk) 09:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I am going to add some external links, which it does not seem to have much of. For starters this one... by M. King Hubbert geo-scientist ... originator of peak oil theory and a bunch of other things * M. King Hubbert on the Nature of Growth. 1974 ---- This is a very basic and integral writing concerning sustainability and growth. skip sievert ( talk) 21:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I like this article.. but it seems to be unfocused.. with a lot of great info.. but not presented well. Lets make a concerted effort to focus the information. Obviously without sustainability.. we are all dead. I have added a bunch of other wiki links articles... maybe that will help.. if people look at those, to focus in on important information. A couple of things to focus on ..
Natural resource economics... and
Ecological economics... whether we like it or not .. this is tied into economics.... and the
Price system how ever..
Energy economics offer some rather interesting concepts off the present merry go round ... of growth. The article presently is cluttered.
—The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
Skipsievert (
talk •
contribs) . 20:33, 2008-09-05 (UTC)
There are now quite a few ideas and loose threads floating around. I will try and put them together here (please add things I will inevitably leave out) so that we can archive the above and regroup.
Firstly, the outline, this is the latest:
These were never discussed before being put up, and were a shock when I first saw them. They do not fit the historical sense of that section, they serve as a loud promotional tool for POVs, and to call a subsection of the History (of sustainability) Sustainability is surely inappropriate. I am not sure if that section belongs there in the first place: it is essayish somewhat, and veers away from the history focus. My suggested theme groups above.
What happened to my Action-guiding principles? I just realized they fell thru the cracks. How can good decisions be made without having clarity on those? I am reading a book on farm management for sustainability and they use several to very good effect.
I will make a number of points I think have been raised and that we need to address:
but if the world is in conflict the environment will be the last consideration. I would also point out that we are heading into the real possibility of resource wars as things run out and all this has the potential to impact heavily on sustainability (of whatever persuasion). I am running out of time but am prepared to defend each of the headings in the current article. It would help if you could let me know what you think about this so that we can discuss it all - but I've said enough already. What do you think?
If I have time I will put up another scratchpad today. Granitethighs ( talk) 02:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Skip, good to have you aboard. Let me tell you a story. I am newish to Wikipedia and rewrote what I thought was un "unfocussed" article but was soon reminded that the previous article had involved a lot of work. Because I had warned people of my intentions in doing a rewrite my contribution was allowed to remain but we have subsequently worked closely together in the improvement of this page and are presently working systematically through the current content. I have a number of suggestions.
1. Read the archived discussion so that you understand why the current page looks the way it does - do not automatically assume that others have not thought about content, presentation etc.
2. Before you make changes discuss them here, on this page. You might think the Earth Flag is uninteresting, I think a young girl looking for tadpoles in the mud is uninteresting, unimportant, and not appropriate to the character and content of this article. We can discuss our difference of opinion here.
3. You might think the current article is unfocussed and cluttered but I fail to see how placing all your economic information improves this situation - it only makes it worse - assuming it is cluttered in the first place.
4. You have inserted a diagram (Venn circles) of sustainable development. This was recently removed after considerable discussion about its merits and problems. You will find the discussion in the archives. By consensus it was considered inappropriate to this particular article.
5. Why was the phosphorus cycle removed?6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?
6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?
7. All of the above considerations apply to the addition and removal of images and their captions.
Although I am really pleased to have someone like yourself taking an interest in this page (and I also think that you have a valuable contribution to make) I nevertheless propose that your changes be reverted and that, like other people contributing to this article, you discuss on this page what you would like to do before carrying it out.
Granitethighs ( talk) 09:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Suspend your judgement just a bit and look at the adds and subtractions carefully. The phosphorus cycle would be good to add back in ... fitting in with the others... that was a format thing... taking it out .. and it can go back in for obvious reasons. Earth Flag stuff looks political... How much do they cost and where do you order them? The focus is on sustainability and not flags that promote something that can be purchased. The geo scientist is doing something real. I think a young girl looking for tadpoles in the mud is uninteresting, unimportant, and not appropriate to the character and content of this article. We can discuss our difference of opinion here. Try reading the caption... this is an earth scientist monitoring the environment, so I assume you are not looking at the caption. This is a good lead picture here and not a flag that is possibly a commercial enterprise.
3. You might think the current article is unfocussed and cluttered but I fail to see how placing all your economic information improves this situation Whether we like it or not economics is integral to sustainability and if any thing should be stressed even further. The economics of energy balance especially, needs to be stressed here, also environmental economics and ecological economics thermoeconomics econophysics etc.
The sustainability picture not appropriate for the sustainability article? That does not make sense. This is all about balance... that is what sustainability means and is. Obviously no chart or diagram is perfect... and zen for any thing... but this gets the ideas across and some of the key aspects.
6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"? It seemed unfocused, and preachy and not cited much or reference much. P.S. Do not focus on me such as in the talk page as a caption. This has nothing to do with me ... it is about content .. information .. and format etc. I am not notable and do not care to be focused on. Thanks. I put the phos. cycle picture back in .. it throws the format off a bit and it is not colored like the rest... which it would be better if it was... maybe someone is working on that? Image:phoscycle-EPA.jpg|Phosphorus cycle skip sievert ( talk) 14:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
V.B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.228.183.86 ( talk) 14:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Tried to write a better descriptive passage under the picture on top. The original one there did not mention much information as to subject. Now it has some connectors to other info. skip sievert ( talk) 16:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm off for over a month or so but, having invested a great deal of time and effort in the current article, I would like to say a few things, seeing as this is my last chance for a while. Although I have invested a lot in this article (time, emotion, thought, energy) I realize that it is a collective effort. One aspect of this is that any changes are discussed by the group before being put up on the main page. Sudden changes are very startling when, after long discussion and consensus between a group of people, someone completely alters an agreed section ... no matter how reasonable that person might think they are being. I say this from the experience of being an uncompromising startler myself back in the bad old days.
The next issue is - if everybody is throwing in thoughts on all aspects of an article, from the pics to captions, content, politics, economics, sociology etc. then it is unlikely that there will be much progress. You can Skip the archives (excuse the pun) if I explain some history of the article. As this article evolved it was agreed by those in what might be called the "sustainability discussion group" (those who used this discussion page) that there would be an attempt to convert this article into a GA or Feature article and, by consensus, an outline or work plan was set up to achieve this. This has been placed at the top of this page. As you will see the group feels it has established, according to good Wikipedia procedure, the lead (introduction) and Definition sections - they have the ticks. Good headway is being made on other sections. It has been agreed that there is a degree of "clutter" (described as a "link farm") and this is being systematically addressed. Also, as people become concerned about the picture at the top, let me point out that the pictures and their captions were agreed as a distinct phase of this article's reorganisation. Before I am accused of being some sort of fascist who thinks he owns this article, I am simply suggesting that progress will be much more rapid and effective if we tackle one thing at a time in a systematic way - a 'first pass' of content and presentation if you like - with the goal of a Featured Article. That means an ordered discussion topic by topic, reaching a consensus as far as possible (an "agreed" way forward for each) before it is put up on the main page. An outline has already been established but is open to change. And of course, the article will never be "final", but it can be a valuable foundation for others to build on. The alternative seems to be an extended and disorganised shouting match.
Bye and good luck. See you in about 5-6 weeks.
Granitethighs ( talk) 00:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
skip sievert ( talk) has been making changes to the lead, seemingly unaware of the project that is going on here (despite the banner at the top of the article directing folks to the talk page). skip sievert: Please take a look at the "To do" list at the top of the page to see what needs working on. The process we have agreed on is to propose changes here. Other editors will comment, or work on them. When there is consensus, the changes go into the article. Sunray ( talk) 03:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I've been thinking that maybe we shouldn't have subsection headings in the history section. I think it is confusing to readers to see headings like "Sustainability" (which is, after all, the name of the article) and "Sustainable development," which it the name of another section. Any problem with me removing the subheads? Following that, I will give it a quick edit and then we are done with that section for now. Sunray ( talk) 05:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
A combination of some of this material in the history section would be a good start as to developing the history section. Although this is focused on Ecological economics that is the category that gets the closest to sustainability in the current economic structure... as it uses environment over money (or so they claim), as to choice of what to do as far as decision making. That is why of all the disciplines in the article ... it might be good to stress ecological economics the most... it most deals with sustainability as its focus.
The first book with the title Ecological Economics was published in Europe by Juan Martinez-Alier (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987) tracing the history of ecological critiques of economics since the 1880s to the 1950s. European conceptual founders include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, William Kapp (1944) and Karl Polanyi (1950). [1] [2] Furthermore, some key concepts of what is now ecological economics are evident in the writings of E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) was published just a few years before the first edition of Herman Daly's comprehensive and persuasive Steady-State Economics (1977). [3] [4]
The antecedents can be traced back to the Romantics of the 1800s as well as some Enlightenment political economists of that era. Concerns over population were expressed by Thomas Malthus, while John Stuart Mill hypothesized that the "stationary state" of an economy might be something that could be considered desirable, anticipating later insights of modern ecological economists, without having had their experience of the social and ecological costs of the dramatic post-World War II industrial expansion. As Martinez-Alier explores in his book the debate on energy in economic systems can also be traced into the 1800s e.g. Nobel prize-winning chemist, Frederick Soddy (1877-1956).
In North America, conceptual founders include economists Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly, ecologists C.S. Holling, H.T. Odum and Robert Costanza, biologist Gretchen Daily and physicist Robert Ayres. Daly and Costanza were part of the institutional founding of the field - resulting in the establishment of the academic journal Ecological Economics and the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). Some attribute origination of ecological economics as a specific field per se to professor Herman Daly, University of Maryland, a former economist at the World Bank. Ecological economics has been popularized by ecologist and University of Vermont Professor Robert Costanza. CUNY geography professor David Harvey explicitly added ecological concerns to political economic literature. This parallel development in political economy has been continued by analysts such as sociologist John Bellamy Foster.
The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994), who was among Daly's teachers at Vanderbilt University, provided ecological economics with a modern conceptual framework based on the material and energy flows of economic production and consumption. His magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), has been highly influential. [5] skip sievert ( talk) 16:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Mostly new history section. Retained previous information and expanded to give sense of time... place and history of subject.
Start
The first book with the title Ecological Economics was published in Europe by Juan Martinez-Alier (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987). It traces the history of ecological critiques of economics since the 1880s to the 1950s. Connected European conceptual founders include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, William Kapp (1944) and Karl Polanyi (1950). [6] [7] Furthermore, some key concepts of what is now ecological economics, the study of which is integrally linked to sustainability issues, are evident in the writings of E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) was published just a few years before the first edition of Herman Daly's comprehensive and persuasive Steady-State Economics (1977). [8] [9]
Some of the antecedents of current sustainability discussion track back to the Romantics of the 1800s as well as some Enlightenment political economists of that era. Concerns over population were expressed by Thomas Malthus (see Malthusian catastrophe), while John Stuart Mill hypothesized that the "stationary state" of an economy might be something that could be considered desirable, anticipating later insights of modern ecological economists, without having had their experience of the social and ecological costs of the dramatic post-World War II industrial expansion. The debate on energy economic systems can also be traced into the 1800s e.g. Nobel prize-winning chemist, Frederick Soddy (1877-1956). [10]
In North America, economists of environmental focus such as Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly, ecologists C.S. Holling, H.T. Odum and Robert Costanza, biologist Gretchen Daily and physicist Robert Ayres, discuss environment and sustainability concepts. Daly and Costanza were part of the institutional founding of the field - resulting in the establishment of the academic journal Ecological Economics and the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). Some attribute origination of ecological economics as a specific field per se to professor Herman Daly, University of Maryland, a former economist at the World Bank. Ecological/Environmental economics has been popularized by ecologist and University of Vermont Professor Robert Costanza. CUNY geography professor David Harvey explicitly added ecological concerns to political economic literature. This parallel development in political economy has been continued by analysts such as sociologist John Bellamy Foster. One reason many environmental activists and information providers of sustainability concepts focus on ecological economics, is this disciplines claim, to put ecology first... rather than money.
The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994), who was among Daly's teachers at Vanderbilt University, provided ecological economics with a modern conceptual framework based on the material and energy flows of economic production and consumption. His magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), has been highly influential. [11]
Hotelling's rule is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or " Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource. The Hartwick's rule provides an important result about the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources.
Beginning with the environmental movement of the 1960s, heralded by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and underlined by the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1975), there has been an increasing awareness that human use of the Earth is approaching a range of environmental and resource limits and that this trend, rather than diminishing, is escalating at an alarming rate. [12] [13] [14]
International concern over global environmental sustainability, strongly linked to health and poverty issues in the developing world, has resulted in the United Nations sustainable development programs. This has not always been supported by the environmental movement.
End skip sievert ( talk) 18:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Added this to the beginning of that article section to predicate the U.N. material... also added the article link to Environmental science atop that section now (Environmental issues section).
Environmental science is the study of interactions among physical, chemical, and biological components of the environment. Environmental Science provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. [15] skip sievert ( talk) 16:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Skip moved the table that was lower down to this section. I am wondering if anyone has a cite for the table, which seems based on wishful thinking. V.B. ( talk) 16:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Consumption of renewable resources | State of environment | Sustainability |
---|---|---|
More than nature's ability to replenish | Environmental degradation | Not sustainable |
Equal to nature's ability to replenish | Environmental equilibrium | Steady-state economy |
Less than nature's ability to replenish | Environmental renewal | Sustainable development |
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | → | Archive 15 |
You will notice my voice getting a little more shrill as my time runs out.
This is the latest (more or less) as I understand it - still under development
These were never discussed before being put up, and were a shock when I first saw them. They do not fit the historical sense of that section, they serve as a loud promotional tool for POVs, and to call a subsection of the History (of sustainability) Sustainability is surely inappropriate. I am not sure if that section belongs there in the first place: it is essayish somewhat, and veers away from the history focus. My suggested theme groups above.
What happened to my Action-guiding principles? I just realized they fell thru the cracks. How can good decisions be made without having clarity on those? I am reading a book on farm management for sustainability and they use several to very good effect.
VB - following your suggestion I've added the phosphorus cycle - see above. Thanks! Looks great.
Granitethighs ( talk) 05:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Granitethighs ( talk) 04:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
The whole exercise we are going through now - trying to understand what sustainability means, how it should be presented to people, how it is to be achieved or attempted, how it is to be measured, and so on - is being repeated around the world in thousands of education institutions, sometimes as part of conservation biology, or environmental science, environmental studies, geography or part of an ecology course - and so on. Where it is taken perhaps a bit more seriously it is being treated as an independent discipline called Sustainability Science. To leave this out of an encyclopaedia article on sustainability would be a major omission. At present in this article it occupies a small space under History. That is fine by me. VB I strongly suggest that although this may be moved or whatever - it should not be left out. Ok, that is fine by me.This point was made in the very early discussion pages of the former article on Sustainability - that it did not even mention Sustainability Science. I would simply like to make the point that descriptive "facts" like this are as important in this article (if not more so) than engaging in a protracted discussion of POV. Granitethighs ( talk) 06:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Granitethighs ( talk) 09:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I am going to add some external links, which it does not seem to have much of. For starters this one... by M. King Hubbert geo-scientist ... originator of peak oil theory and a bunch of other things * M. King Hubbert on the Nature of Growth. 1974 ---- This is a very basic and integral writing concerning sustainability and growth. skip sievert ( talk) 21:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I like this article.. but it seems to be unfocused.. with a lot of great info.. but not presented well. Lets make a concerted effort to focus the information. Obviously without sustainability.. we are all dead. I have added a bunch of other wiki links articles... maybe that will help.. if people look at those, to focus in on important information. A couple of things to focus on ..
Natural resource economics... and
Ecological economics... whether we like it or not .. this is tied into economics.... and the
Price system how ever..
Energy economics offer some rather interesting concepts off the present merry go round ... of growth. The article presently is cluttered.
—The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
Skipsievert (
talk •
contribs) . 20:33, 2008-09-05 (UTC)
There are now quite a few ideas and loose threads floating around. I will try and put them together here (please add things I will inevitably leave out) so that we can archive the above and regroup.
Firstly, the outline, this is the latest:
These were never discussed before being put up, and were a shock when I first saw them. They do not fit the historical sense of that section, they serve as a loud promotional tool for POVs, and to call a subsection of the History (of sustainability) Sustainability is surely inappropriate. I am not sure if that section belongs there in the first place: it is essayish somewhat, and veers away from the history focus. My suggested theme groups above.
What happened to my Action-guiding principles? I just realized they fell thru the cracks. How can good decisions be made without having clarity on those? I am reading a book on farm management for sustainability and they use several to very good effect.
I will make a number of points I think have been raised and that we need to address:
but if the world is in conflict the environment will be the last consideration. I would also point out that we are heading into the real possibility of resource wars as things run out and all this has the potential to impact heavily on sustainability (of whatever persuasion). I am running out of time but am prepared to defend each of the headings in the current article. It would help if you could let me know what you think about this so that we can discuss it all - but I've said enough already. What do you think?
If I have time I will put up another scratchpad today. Granitethighs ( talk) 02:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Skip, good to have you aboard. Let me tell you a story. I am newish to Wikipedia and rewrote what I thought was un "unfocussed" article but was soon reminded that the previous article had involved a lot of work. Because I had warned people of my intentions in doing a rewrite my contribution was allowed to remain but we have subsequently worked closely together in the improvement of this page and are presently working systematically through the current content. I have a number of suggestions.
1. Read the archived discussion so that you understand why the current page looks the way it does - do not automatically assume that others have not thought about content, presentation etc.
2. Before you make changes discuss them here, on this page. You might think the Earth Flag is uninteresting, I think a young girl looking for tadpoles in the mud is uninteresting, unimportant, and not appropriate to the character and content of this article. We can discuss our difference of opinion here.
3. You might think the current article is unfocussed and cluttered but I fail to see how placing all your economic information improves this situation - it only makes it worse - assuming it is cluttered in the first place.
4. You have inserted a diagram (Venn circles) of sustainable development. This was recently removed after considerable discussion about its merits and problems. You will find the discussion in the archives. By consensus it was considered inappropriate to this particular article.
5. Why was the phosphorus cycle removed?6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?
6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?
7. All of the above considerations apply to the addition and removal of images and their captions.
Although I am really pleased to have someone like yourself taking an interest in this page (and I also think that you have a valuable contribution to make) I nevertheless propose that your changes be reverted and that, like other people contributing to this article, you discuss on this page what you would like to do before carrying it out.
Granitethighs ( talk) 09:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Suspend your judgement just a bit and look at the adds and subtractions carefully. The phosphorus cycle would be good to add back in ... fitting in with the others... that was a format thing... taking it out .. and it can go back in for obvious reasons. Earth Flag stuff looks political... How much do they cost and where do you order them? The focus is on sustainability and not flags that promote something that can be purchased. The geo scientist is doing something real. I think a young girl looking for tadpoles in the mud is uninteresting, unimportant, and not appropriate to the character and content of this article. We can discuss our difference of opinion here. Try reading the caption... this is an earth scientist monitoring the environment, so I assume you are not looking at the caption. This is a good lead picture here and not a flag that is possibly a commercial enterprise.
3. You might think the current article is unfocussed and cluttered but I fail to see how placing all your economic information improves this situation Whether we like it or not economics is integral to sustainability and if any thing should be stressed even further. The economics of energy balance especially, needs to be stressed here, also environmental economics and ecological economics thermoeconomics econophysics etc.
The sustainability picture not appropriate for the sustainability article? That does not make sense. This is all about balance... that is what sustainability means and is. Obviously no chart or diagram is perfect... and zen for any thing... but this gets the ideas across and some of the key aspects.
6. Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"?Why was "Barriers to sustainability removed"? It seemed unfocused, and preachy and not cited much or reference much. P.S. Do not focus on me such as in the talk page as a caption. This has nothing to do with me ... it is about content .. information .. and format etc. I am not notable and do not care to be focused on. Thanks. I put the phos. cycle picture back in .. it throws the format off a bit and it is not colored like the rest... which it would be better if it was... maybe someone is working on that? Image:phoscycle-EPA.jpg|Phosphorus cycle skip sievert ( talk) 14:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
V.B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.228.183.86 ( talk) 14:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Tried to write a better descriptive passage under the picture on top. The original one there did not mention much information as to subject. Now it has some connectors to other info. skip sievert ( talk) 16:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm off for over a month or so but, having invested a great deal of time and effort in the current article, I would like to say a few things, seeing as this is my last chance for a while. Although I have invested a lot in this article (time, emotion, thought, energy) I realize that it is a collective effort. One aspect of this is that any changes are discussed by the group before being put up on the main page. Sudden changes are very startling when, after long discussion and consensus between a group of people, someone completely alters an agreed section ... no matter how reasonable that person might think they are being. I say this from the experience of being an uncompromising startler myself back in the bad old days.
The next issue is - if everybody is throwing in thoughts on all aspects of an article, from the pics to captions, content, politics, economics, sociology etc. then it is unlikely that there will be much progress. You can Skip the archives (excuse the pun) if I explain some history of the article. As this article evolved it was agreed by those in what might be called the "sustainability discussion group" (those who used this discussion page) that there would be an attempt to convert this article into a GA or Feature article and, by consensus, an outline or work plan was set up to achieve this. This has been placed at the top of this page. As you will see the group feels it has established, according to good Wikipedia procedure, the lead (introduction) and Definition sections - they have the ticks. Good headway is being made on other sections. It has been agreed that there is a degree of "clutter" (described as a "link farm") and this is being systematically addressed. Also, as people become concerned about the picture at the top, let me point out that the pictures and their captions were agreed as a distinct phase of this article's reorganisation. Before I am accused of being some sort of fascist who thinks he owns this article, I am simply suggesting that progress will be much more rapid and effective if we tackle one thing at a time in a systematic way - a 'first pass' of content and presentation if you like - with the goal of a Featured Article. That means an ordered discussion topic by topic, reaching a consensus as far as possible (an "agreed" way forward for each) before it is put up on the main page. An outline has already been established but is open to change. And of course, the article will never be "final", but it can be a valuable foundation for others to build on. The alternative seems to be an extended and disorganised shouting match.
Bye and good luck. See you in about 5-6 weeks.
Granitethighs ( talk) 00:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
skip sievert ( talk) has been making changes to the lead, seemingly unaware of the project that is going on here (despite the banner at the top of the article directing folks to the talk page). skip sievert: Please take a look at the "To do" list at the top of the page to see what needs working on. The process we have agreed on is to propose changes here. Other editors will comment, or work on them. When there is consensus, the changes go into the article. Sunray ( talk) 03:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I've been thinking that maybe we shouldn't have subsection headings in the history section. I think it is confusing to readers to see headings like "Sustainability" (which is, after all, the name of the article) and "Sustainable development," which it the name of another section. Any problem with me removing the subheads? Following that, I will give it a quick edit and then we are done with that section for now. Sunray ( talk) 05:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
A combination of some of this material in the history section would be a good start as to developing the history section. Although this is focused on Ecological economics that is the category that gets the closest to sustainability in the current economic structure... as it uses environment over money (or so they claim), as to choice of what to do as far as decision making. That is why of all the disciplines in the article ... it might be good to stress ecological economics the most... it most deals with sustainability as its focus.
The first book with the title Ecological Economics was published in Europe by Juan Martinez-Alier (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987) tracing the history of ecological critiques of economics since the 1880s to the 1950s. European conceptual founders include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, William Kapp (1944) and Karl Polanyi (1950). [1] [2] Furthermore, some key concepts of what is now ecological economics are evident in the writings of E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) was published just a few years before the first edition of Herman Daly's comprehensive and persuasive Steady-State Economics (1977). [3] [4]
The antecedents can be traced back to the Romantics of the 1800s as well as some Enlightenment political economists of that era. Concerns over population were expressed by Thomas Malthus, while John Stuart Mill hypothesized that the "stationary state" of an economy might be something that could be considered desirable, anticipating later insights of modern ecological economists, without having had their experience of the social and ecological costs of the dramatic post-World War II industrial expansion. As Martinez-Alier explores in his book the debate on energy in economic systems can also be traced into the 1800s e.g. Nobel prize-winning chemist, Frederick Soddy (1877-1956).
In North America, conceptual founders include economists Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly, ecologists C.S. Holling, H.T. Odum and Robert Costanza, biologist Gretchen Daily and physicist Robert Ayres. Daly and Costanza were part of the institutional founding of the field - resulting in the establishment of the academic journal Ecological Economics and the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). Some attribute origination of ecological economics as a specific field per se to professor Herman Daly, University of Maryland, a former economist at the World Bank. Ecological economics has been popularized by ecologist and University of Vermont Professor Robert Costanza. CUNY geography professor David Harvey explicitly added ecological concerns to political economic literature. This parallel development in political economy has been continued by analysts such as sociologist John Bellamy Foster.
The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994), who was among Daly's teachers at Vanderbilt University, provided ecological economics with a modern conceptual framework based on the material and energy flows of economic production and consumption. His magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), has been highly influential. [5] skip sievert ( talk) 16:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Mostly new history section. Retained previous information and expanded to give sense of time... place and history of subject.
Start
The first book with the title Ecological Economics was published in Europe by Juan Martinez-Alier (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987). It traces the history of ecological critiques of economics since the 1880s to the 1950s. Connected European conceptual founders include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, William Kapp (1944) and Karl Polanyi (1950). [6] [7] Furthermore, some key concepts of what is now ecological economics, the study of which is integrally linked to sustainability issues, are evident in the writings of E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) was published just a few years before the first edition of Herman Daly's comprehensive and persuasive Steady-State Economics (1977). [8] [9]
Some of the antecedents of current sustainability discussion track back to the Romantics of the 1800s as well as some Enlightenment political economists of that era. Concerns over population were expressed by Thomas Malthus (see Malthusian catastrophe), while John Stuart Mill hypothesized that the "stationary state" of an economy might be something that could be considered desirable, anticipating later insights of modern ecological economists, without having had their experience of the social and ecological costs of the dramatic post-World War II industrial expansion. The debate on energy economic systems can also be traced into the 1800s e.g. Nobel prize-winning chemist, Frederick Soddy (1877-1956). [10]
In North America, economists of environmental focus such as Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly, ecologists C.S. Holling, H.T. Odum and Robert Costanza, biologist Gretchen Daily and physicist Robert Ayres, discuss environment and sustainability concepts. Daly and Costanza were part of the institutional founding of the field - resulting in the establishment of the academic journal Ecological Economics and the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). Some attribute origination of ecological economics as a specific field per se to professor Herman Daly, University of Maryland, a former economist at the World Bank. Ecological/Environmental economics has been popularized by ecologist and University of Vermont Professor Robert Costanza. CUNY geography professor David Harvey explicitly added ecological concerns to political economic literature. This parallel development in political economy has been continued by analysts such as sociologist John Bellamy Foster. One reason many environmental activists and information providers of sustainability concepts focus on ecological economics, is this disciplines claim, to put ecology first... rather than money.
The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994), who was among Daly's teachers at Vanderbilt University, provided ecological economics with a modern conceptual framework based on the material and energy flows of economic production and consumption. His magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), has been highly influential. [11]
Hotelling's rule is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or " Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource. The Hartwick's rule provides an important result about the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources.
Beginning with the environmental movement of the 1960s, heralded by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and underlined by the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1975), there has been an increasing awareness that human use of the Earth is approaching a range of environmental and resource limits and that this trend, rather than diminishing, is escalating at an alarming rate. [12] [13] [14]
International concern over global environmental sustainability, strongly linked to health and poverty issues in the developing world, has resulted in the United Nations sustainable development programs. This has not always been supported by the environmental movement.
End skip sievert ( talk) 18:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Added this to the beginning of that article section to predicate the U.N. material... also added the article link to Environmental science atop that section now (Environmental issues section).
Environmental science is the study of interactions among physical, chemical, and biological components of the environment. Environmental Science provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. [15] skip sievert ( talk) 16:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Skip moved the table that was lower down to this section. I am wondering if anyone has a cite for the table, which seems based on wishful thinking. V.B. ( talk) 16:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Consumption of renewable resources | State of environment | Sustainability |
---|---|---|
More than nature's ability to replenish | Environmental degradation | Not sustainable |
Equal to nature's ability to replenish | Environmental equilibrium | Steady-state economy |
Less than nature's ability to replenish | Environmental renewal | Sustainable development |