This page 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. |
Content that was here moved back to "measuring sustainability"
Outline the key principles and concepts of sustianability, environmentalism, progression, evolution, holism, etc (actually these are under "People and the Environment")
Many of the key principles of sustainability have their roots in the observation of natural ecosystems. Recycling, such as the use of wastes as food, and other forms of interdependence, mean ecosystems can be complex and beautiful while requiring minimal inputs and producing effectively no waste.
At a global level, all life is linked through
biogeochemical cycles, most notably those of
water,
oxygen,
carbon,
nitrogen and
phosphorus. There is now clear scientific evidence that human activity is resulting changes in all of these cycles.
[1]
There is also evidence that human activity is having a rapidly escalating and potentially critical impact on the
biodiversity of
ecosystems, reducing their resilience and their capacity to support humans and life in general.
[2]
[3]
social context description, social justice, community ownership, progressive sustained social systems, include links to relevant main articles
The concept that humans have a place within the natural world has found expression in diverse cultures:
A range of social movements including environmentalism, holism, the green movement and deep ecology seek to reduce human impacts and to restore balance between the priorities of humans, and the protection of the natural world.
Many governments and companies actively promote "more sustainable" choices using the tools of social marketing; engaging individuals as consumers and seeking to point out the individual benefits of "green" choices. Overall, because human impacts are increasing, these efforts are almost certainly insufficient. There is increasing recognition of the need to engage people at the level of their values [4], rather than simply pointing out the benefits of a specific "green" product or behaviour choice.
economic context description, progression of current economic systems, grassroots economics, underground economics, etc, include links to relevant main articles
describe sustainable resource use and ecological contexts, may or may not require subsections, include links to relevant main articles
sustainable water management
include subjects such as the sun, wind, geothermal, include links to main articles on renewable energy
include concepts such as C2C, toxic material separation, sustainable materials, dealing with existing toxins & links to main articles
sustainable mining? is there such a thing?
Just thoughts to throw into the arena at this stage: I feel we need to have established by this stage that we are talking about "sustainability" in the sense of the sustainability of the biosphere with the future of humanity as the major concern. In fact, we are talking almost exclusively about human impact on the biosphere (are we not?). Human impact, it seems to me, can be spoken about on many levels. For example - I like Ehrlich and Holdren's start - saying environmental impact = population x affluence x technology. However, this is not very "practical" so other people would take a more obvious approach by discussing human direct impacts on land, water and atmosphere ... logging, mining and such. However, these direct impacts are the result of a long causal chain starting with human consumption, lifestyle etc. For me these are key principles and concepts. Then, although it seems to really annoy a few people, I think there are three key operational concepts: (a) sustainabiity science (or environmental science if you like) providing underlying conceptual analysis (b) sustainability accounting (which is now I imagine by consensus sustainability measurement) as the evidence-based quantitative data used to guide sustainability governance (or implementation of sustainability policy if you like). On the latter it is important to allow for decisions made by individuals (and other agents) independently of the formal political process. There must be a simple way to express this? Anyway - I think we can spend many happy hours and days on this section but it will be a fabulous exercise. Of course a lot of this is already in the existing article.Perhaps I could make an effort to put ideas in point form to gert a scratchpad going (give me a little time). And I'm sure other people might have a completely different take on this. Also it is a major challenge to get "big picture" and "small picture" stuff in some sort of juxtaposition (see the scratchpad thoughts at the top of the page).
I have left out what is probably the most important concept of all - one that sounds so simple and that we all (I'm worst) ignore it all the time. And that is that we manage and conceptualise sustainability on many scales and timeframes. For example in talking about measuring sustainability it makes sense to use the Ecological Footprint as a measure of the global human impact on the planet. But it is surely perfectly valid for me or my council to calculate whether our little bit of the whole is sustainable. It is possible for a subset of an unsustainable whole to be sustainable. Anyway I am explaining (very poorly, it is way past my bedtime) that we need a bit on ecological and biological organisational hierarchies of various types (although this idea is familiar to ecologists and others I suspect the expression is a neologism Skip) ( Granitethighs ( talk) 11:08, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
We've got to organise the content we currently have into the proposed outline and source content that we don't have. In this section we are explaining/describing the various aspects of how sustainability is applied to various systems (resource management, water management, buildings, social systems, economics, etc). Remember, we're going to be explaining how these concepts, proposed systems and ideas can be applied in the "Application/Implementation" section later on in the article. Nick carson ( talk) 01:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
May not be warranted as it is covered currently in Sustainability/Measuring sustainability area of article. It may be important to keep as simple and uncomplicated in presentation as possible. Having a guideline is always a good idea. When it needs amending or rethinking, being open for reasons of flow and presentation is important also. It appears the information currently related to this page is either already in the other section Sustainability/Measuring sustainability or could be. So... it may make sense to get rid of this sub category, or rename Sustainability/Measuring sustainability to something like Describing and measuring sustainability. For that reason it is proposed that this particular sandbox page probably could be deleted, to simplify things and make sure the focus goes to the other page mentioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sustainability/Measuring_sustainability. skip sievert ( talk) 16:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
We seem to be at a stage where it is not so much "content" that is a challenge, as "structure". There is a danger of unnecessary repetition, presenting ideas in an illogical way and so on. I think it is worth revisiting our section headings and coming to an agreement about how we tackle what is left. There was general agreement that the "Description" section was the next hurdle and I have proceeded along those lines. The following is an attempt to get the reader into a mind set that will help in reading the rest of the article. I have tried to incorporate the major concepts that people will encounter and give an overall perspective (I've also included a lot of what has been presented on this page) Let me know what you think. If you like it it may be necessary to reconcile current content with this. More key ideas can be added in here and left out elsewhere - anyway, we'll see. Granitethighs ( talk) 05:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
It may not be warranted as it is covered currently in Sustainability/Measuring sustainability area of article. It may be important to keep as simple and uncomplicated in presentation as possible. It appears the information currently related to this page is either already in the other section Sustainability/Measuring sustainability or could be. So, it may make sense to get rid of this sub category, or rename Sustainability/Measuring sustainability to something like Describing and measuring sustainability. It is proposed that this particular sandbox page probably could be deleted, to simplify things and make sure the focus goes to the other page mentioned where this material is being covered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sustainability/Measuring_sustainability. Also, things like you have listed Grassroots democracy - involving people and communities in understanding problems and developing new solutions ... is probably not really connected or could be interpreted in a lot of ways... so as to be sort of empty sounding or political sounding. Democracy as a concept should probably not be knocked around here... or it seems like sloganeering. Also trying to link things to a page you created which is under question as to notability and sourcing, Sustainability science may not be a good idea. skip sievert ( talk) 05:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
All human activity influences sustainability, which is managed by integrating environmental, social and economic factors and is carried out at many scales of human and environmental organisation. [5] . In most instances management involves the interplay of the three pillars as they relate to the consumption and use of biophysical resources (water, energy, food, materials, biodiversity).
A number of key goals for global sustainability have been isolated: [6]
The three pillars are used to manage both direct human impacts on land, waterbodies and atmosphere and the indirect impacts of resource use at many scales and in many contexts e.g. sustainable cities, eco-villages, sustainable agriculture, sustainable living and a number of general approaches are now applied at all scales. Traditionally resource use needs have been met by increasing the supply but there is now increasing demand management), and for all goods and services sustainability management can be improved using renewable resources where possible but, if not, by knowing their embodied resources in order to minimise resource intensity while maximising resource productivity over the whole life cycle (see life cycle assessment). This monitoring process will be assisted over ther years to come by increasingly sophisticated methods of sustainability measurement and improved environmentally sensitive technology. Other methods of managing resource consumption are listed below:
Granitethighs ( talk) 05:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
MEA1
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite web}}
: Unknown parameter |name=
ignored (
help)
Biodiversity & sustainability |
---|
Energy & sustainability |
---|
Food & sustainability |
---|
Water & sustainability |
---|
Part of a series on |
Environmental law |
---|
Pollution control law |
Natural resources law |
Reference materials |
Related topics |
|
Once we have covered the general principles of sustainability in the early stages of the article there is then the task of including what might be called "small-scale sustainability" which is hugely diverse and topic-dense but extremely important: it is also largely ignored by the sustainable development article. What I mean is the whole host of sustainability programs and practices at more grass-roots level - some that have been around for yonks and athers just beginning. I have worried about how we deal with all this. One approach might be to discuss general ideas in the main text and use side bars to give the reader a taste of some of the many small-scale approaches to sustainability. See the following as a sample of the sort of thing - what do you think? Granitethighs ( talk) 08:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
This page 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. |
Content that was here moved back to "measuring sustainability"
Outline the key principles and concepts of sustianability, environmentalism, progression, evolution, holism, etc (actually these are under "People and the Environment")
Many of the key principles of sustainability have their roots in the observation of natural ecosystems. Recycling, such as the use of wastes as food, and other forms of interdependence, mean ecosystems can be complex and beautiful while requiring minimal inputs and producing effectively no waste.
At a global level, all life is linked through
biogeochemical cycles, most notably those of
water,
oxygen,
carbon,
nitrogen and
phosphorus. There is now clear scientific evidence that human activity is resulting changes in all of these cycles.
[1]
There is also evidence that human activity is having a rapidly escalating and potentially critical impact on the
biodiversity of
ecosystems, reducing their resilience and their capacity to support humans and life in general.
[2]
[3]
social context description, social justice, community ownership, progressive sustained social systems, include links to relevant main articles
The concept that humans have a place within the natural world has found expression in diverse cultures:
A range of social movements including environmentalism, holism, the green movement and deep ecology seek to reduce human impacts and to restore balance between the priorities of humans, and the protection of the natural world.
Many governments and companies actively promote "more sustainable" choices using the tools of social marketing; engaging individuals as consumers and seeking to point out the individual benefits of "green" choices. Overall, because human impacts are increasing, these efforts are almost certainly insufficient. There is increasing recognition of the need to engage people at the level of their values [4], rather than simply pointing out the benefits of a specific "green" product or behaviour choice.
economic context description, progression of current economic systems, grassroots economics, underground economics, etc, include links to relevant main articles
describe sustainable resource use and ecological contexts, may or may not require subsections, include links to relevant main articles
sustainable water management
include subjects such as the sun, wind, geothermal, include links to main articles on renewable energy
include concepts such as C2C, toxic material separation, sustainable materials, dealing with existing toxins & links to main articles
sustainable mining? is there such a thing?
Just thoughts to throw into the arena at this stage: I feel we need to have established by this stage that we are talking about "sustainability" in the sense of the sustainability of the biosphere with the future of humanity as the major concern. In fact, we are talking almost exclusively about human impact on the biosphere (are we not?). Human impact, it seems to me, can be spoken about on many levels. For example - I like Ehrlich and Holdren's start - saying environmental impact = population x affluence x technology. However, this is not very "practical" so other people would take a more obvious approach by discussing human direct impacts on land, water and atmosphere ... logging, mining and such. However, these direct impacts are the result of a long causal chain starting with human consumption, lifestyle etc. For me these are key principles and concepts. Then, although it seems to really annoy a few people, I think there are three key operational concepts: (a) sustainabiity science (or environmental science if you like) providing underlying conceptual analysis (b) sustainability accounting (which is now I imagine by consensus sustainability measurement) as the evidence-based quantitative data used to guide sustainability governance (or implementation of sustainability policy if you like). On the latter it is important to allow for decisions made by individuals (and other agents) independently of the formal political process. There must be a simple way to express this? Anyway - I think we can spend many happy hours and days on this section but it will be a fabulous exercise. Of course a lot of this is already in the existing article.Perhaps I could make an effort to put ideas in point form to gert a scratchpad going (give me a little time). And I'm sure other people might have a completely different take on this. Also it is a major challenge to get "big picture" and "small picture" stuff in some sort of juxtaposition (see the scratchpad thoughts at the top of the page).
I have left out what is probably the most important concept of all - one that sounds so simple and that we all (I'm worst) ignore it all the time. And that is that we manage and conceptualise sustainability on many scales and timeframes. For example in talking about measuring sustainability it makes sense to use the Ecological Footprint as a measure of the global human impact on the planet. But it is surely perfectly valid for me or my council to calculate whether our little bit of the whole is sustainable. It is possible for a subset of an unsustainable whole to be sustainable. Anyway I am explaining (very poorly, it is way past my bedtime) that we need a bit on ecological and biological organisational hierarchies of various types (although this idea is familiar to ecologists and others I suspect the expression is a neologism Skip) ( Granitethighs ( talk) 11:08, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
We've got to organise the content we currently have into the proposed outline and source content that we don't have. In this section we are explaining/describing the various aspects of how sustainability is applied to various systems (resource management, water management, buildings, social systems, economics, etc). Remember, we're going to be explaining how these concepts, proposed systems and ideas can be applied in the "Application/Implementation" section later on in the article. Nick carson ( talk) 01:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
May not be warranted as it is covered currently in Sustainability/Measuring sustainability area of article. It may be important to keep as simple and uncomplicated in presentation as possible. Having a guideline is always a good idea. When it needs amending or rethinking, being open for reasons of flow and presentation is important also. It appears the information currently related to this page is either already in the other section Sustainability/Measuring sustainability or could be. So... it may make sense to get rid of this sub category, or rename Sustainability/Measuring sustainability to something like Describing and measuring sustainability. For that reason it is proposed that this particular sandbox page probably could be deleted, to simplify things and make sure the focus goes to the other page mentioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sustainability/Measuring_sustainability. skip sievert ( talk) 16:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
We seem to be at a stage where it is not so much "content" that is a challenge, as "structure". There is a danger of unnecessary repetition, presenting ideas in an illogical way and so on. I think it is worth revisiting our section headings and coming to an agreement about how we tackle what is left. There was general agreement that the "Description" section was the next hurdle and I have proceeded along those lines. The following is an attempt to get the reader into a mind set that will help in reading the rest of the article. I have tried to incorporate the major concepts that people will encounter and give an overall perspective (I've also included a lot of what has been presented on this page) Let me know what you think. If you like it it may be necessary to reconcile current content with this. More key ideas can be added in here and left out elsewhere - anyway, we'll see. Granitethighs ( talk) 05:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
It may not be warranted as it is covered currently in Sustainability/Measuring sustainability area of article. It may be important to keep as simple and uncomplicated in presentation as possible. It appears the information currently related to this page is either already in the other section Sustainability/Measuring sustainability or could be. So, it may make sense to get rid of this sub category, or rename Sustainability/Measuring sustainability to something like Describing and measuring sustainability. It is proposed that this particular sandbox page probably could be deleted, to simplify things and make sure the focus goes to the other page mentioned where this material is being covered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sustainability/Measuring_sustainability. Also, things like you have listed Grassroots democracy - involving people and communities in understanding problems and developing new solutions ... is probably not really connected or could be interpreted in a lot of ways... so as to be sort of empty sounding or political sounding. Democracy as a concept should probably not be knocked around here... or it seems like sloganeering. Also trying to link things to a page you created which is under question as to notability and sourcing, Sustainability science may not be a good idea. skip sievert ( talk) 05:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
All human activity influences sustainability, which is managed by integrating environmental, social and economic factors and is carried out at many scales of human and environmental organisation. [5] . In most instances management involves the interplay of the three pillars as they relate to the consumption and use of biophysical resources (water, energy, food, materials, biodiversity).
A number of key goals for global sustainability have been isolated: [6]
The three pillars are used to manage both direct human impacts on land, waterbodies and atmosphere and the indirect impacts of resource use at many scales and in many contexts e.g. sustainable cities, eco-villages, sustainable agriculture, sustainable living and a number of general approaches are now applied at all scales. Traditionally resource use needs have been met by increasing the supply but there is now increasing demand management), and for all goods and services sustainability management can be improved using renewable resources where possible but, if not, by knowing their embodied resources in order to minimise resource intensity while maximising resource productivity over the whole life cycle (see life cycle assessment). This monitoring process will be assisted over ther years to come by increasingly sophisticated methods of sustainability measurement and improved environmentally sensitive technology. Other methods of managing resource consumption are listed below:
Granitethighs ( talk) 05:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
MEA1
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite web}}
: Unknown parameter |name=
ignored (
help)
Biodiversity & sustainability |
---|
Energy & sustainability |
---|
Food & sustainability |
---|
Water & sustainability |
---|
Part of a series on |
Environmental law |
---|
Pollution control law |
Natural resources law |
Reference materials |
Related topics |
|
Once we have covered the general principles of sustainability in the early stages of the article there is then the task of including what might be called "small-scale sustainability" which is hugely diverse and topic-dense but extremely important: it is also largely ignored by the sustainable development article. What I mean is the whole host of sustainability programs and practices at more grass-roots level - some that have been around for yonks and athers just beginning. I have worried about how we deal with all this. One approach might be to discuss general ideas in the main text and use side bars to give the reader a taste of some of the many small-scale approaches to sustainability. See the following as a sample of the sort of thing - what do you think? Granitethighs ( talk) 08:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)