Comments on: In praise of unsustainability http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/07/in-praise-of-unsustainability-2.html Challenging Climate Orthodoxy Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:56:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ramdial http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/07/in-praise-of-unsustainability-2.html#comment-15088 Ramdial Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:27:42 +0000 http://www.climate-resistance.org/?p=376#comment-15088 The line taken by sustainability supporters in this article isn't sustainability at all, but hard, uncompromising environmentalism that ignores the necessity and benefits of social and economic progress . Sustainable Development means taking into account economic, social and environmental well-being. You can't ignore any of the 3 otherwise a solution won't be viable in the long-term; a balance between wealth, social wellbeing and environmental stewardship can be attained. SD should properly encourage us to live, produce and consume within our means, and support investment in technological and scientific solutions to expand those means and to find solutions to environmental problems--which is what China is investing in, in order to take care of its own environmental damage--something it could not do if it didn't already have significant economic growth to fund it. Ideas like Industrial Ecology, "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" etc are all highly useful but incomplete solutions on their own. The Sustainable Development debate is simplified by some environmentalists and politicians. The reality is more complex, because you have to take in a wider scope and a longer-term view, but makes for harder sloganeering and sound bites. The line taken by sustainability supporters in this article isn’t sustainability at all, but hard, uncompromising environmentalism that ignores the necessity and benefits of social and economic progress . Sustainable Development means taking into account economic, social and environmental well-being. You can’t ignore any of the 3 otherwise a solution won’t be viable in the long-term; a balance between wealth, social wellbeing and environmental stewardship can be attained. SD should properly encourage us to live, produce and consume within our means, and support investment in technological and scientific solutions to expand those means and to find solutions to environmental problems–which is what China is investing in, in order to take care of its own environmental damage–something it could not do if it didn’t already have significant economic growth to fund it. Ideas like Industrial Ecology, “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle” etc are all highly useful but incomplete solutions on their own.

The Sustainable Development debate is simplified by some environmentalists and politicians. The reality is more complex, because you have to take in a wider scope and a longer-term view, but makes for harder sloganeering and sound bites.

]]> By: Stephen Ibbitson http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/07/in-praise-of-unsustainability-2.html#comment-6508 Stephen Ibbitson Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:21:32 +0000 http://www.climate-resistance.org/?p=376#comment-6508 Somebody once said that 'there is no greater force on earth than vested interest in the guise of moral concern'. Back in the early 1990's when I first encountered 'environmentalism' (now sustainablism) being deployed against planning, I changed the 'moral' to 'environmental'. Somebody once said that ‘there is no greater force on earth than vested interest in the guise of moral concern’.

Back in the early 1990′s when I first encountered ‘environmentalism’ (now sustainablism) being deployed against planning, I changed the ‘moral’ to ‘environmental’.

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