‘Sustainability’ is one of the founding concepts of green politics. Unfortunately, there is no definition of the concept although there are a large number of generalized views about what it means. None of these generalizations has succeeded in winning widescale approval within the green movement let alone the wider community. But the fact that there is no commonly accepted, concise definition of sustainability hasn’t prevented greens from touting it as a self-evident truth. A number of greens and green organizations have outlined their views on sustainability.

The ‘natural step’ is an american organization based in san francisco led by karl-henrik robert. "The natural step is an international network of non-profit educational organizations working to accelerate the movement toward a sustainable society." What gives this organization a considerable degree of credibility is that hermann daly is on its advisory board. It promotes sustainability, although at times this seems as if it is just a shorthand for sustainable development, "In the morning, robert (founder and chairman of the natural step) will present the natural step framework and the science behind the model. He will discuss how organizations and corporations such as mcdonalds sweden, electrolux, volvo, interface, holiday inn, ikea and communities are using the natural step framework as a strategic tool to achieve long term sustainability and profitability."

Daly is one of the great thinkers in the green movement despite the fact that he was, for a time, an economist at the world bank - one of the world’s leading organizations financing the rape and pillage of the Earth’s life support system. He has attempted to conceptualize the nature of the Earth’s life support system in terms which even the most stereotaxic economists might recognize through their planetless conceptual framework. He thus emphasizes the need for protecting what he calls the Earth’s biological capital i.e. the Earth’s life support system - although what he includes and excludes in this concept is not known. He has drawn up three guidelines for sustainability, "Renewable resources should be exploited in a manner such that: (1) harvesting rates do not exceed regeneration rates and (2) waste emissions do not exceed the renewable assimilative capacity of the local environment. Non-renewable resources should be depleted at a rate equal to the creation of renewable resources." As far as is known, daly coined the latter idea which has not yet received widespread attention.

Greens' failure to define one of their most prominent, most well-known, and most fundamental, concepts, may be shocking but it is by no means surprising. The reason for this is that the concept is determined by a vision of a sustainable Planet which, in turn, is dependent upon an understanding of the Earth’s life support system. In other words, the concept of sustainability is shaped by the structure and institutions needed to maintain a sustainable planet which in turn is determined by an understanding of how the Earth works - after all, if greens don’t understand how the Earth works how can they possibly know what needs to be done to make a planet sustainable?

At the start of their book the authors argue .. "a steady state society is one that has achieved a basic long term balance between the demands of a population and the environment that supplies its wants." By the time they have got to the end of their book their opinion has changed, "It is not possible to specify the structural features of the steady-state society."

"There is no more general agreement on the principles of ecology than there is on what constitutes sound economic theory."

"No environmental organization in Britain is offering a vision of what a sustainable society might be like and how we might get there."

"That could be the ultimate challenge of the global environmental movement. To formulate an ecologically sustainable world."

"That definition is very elusive. In fact, there has not been a single, universal definition of what ‘sustainable’ really is - other than simply use that cannot exceed replenishment."

"One reason sustainability has not been defined is the sense that to define it in anything that approaches operational terms is just too complex - that the best we can do is head in the right direction with the hope that we may eventually get to a place we want to be."

"Suppose humanity decided to devote itself to preserving the correct form of the environment. The idea has certain attractions. There is also a drawback: It would be impossible to determine what the Correct environment might be."; "The Earth’s ecosphere is ever in flux, knowing no fixed or proper alignment."

"The very vagueness of the term ‘sustainability’ is both an advantage and a curse."

"It is, perhaps, unsurprising that we have thus far lacked anything resembling a green political theory."; "If there is as yet no distinctively green political thought, it is partly because the radically anti-humanist implications of a ecological world-view have proved indigestible to most greens themselves." This is accurate.

"I will not attempt a crisp, mathematical definition (of sustainability) as purists might like to see it: it would destroy its full meaning. There is no unique state of sustainability." Arguing that he doesn’t want to spoil the full meaning of sustainability by giving it a definition is one of the most ridiculous arguments ever conceived in the green movement and typical of the political ineptness of many greens. Bossel makes the obvious point that on a sustainable planet it is possible to have either a lot people living well or a smaller number living in luxury but that is about all that he has to say about the matter. Even if bossel gave a definition of sustainability it is highly questionable what its use would be given that it wouldn’t include the Earth’s life support system because he doesn’t believe Reforestation is of any significance in combating global burning and stabilizing the climate.

In response to the government’s announcement that it is seeking to develop sustainability indicators, fred pearce points out, "The indicators are supposed to guide britain towards sustainable development but the worrying fact is that there has been no attempt to define what the country needs to do to become sustainable."

There are greens who are proud of not understanding the Earth’s life support system and having no vision of a sustainable planet. They believe there is no such thing as a sustainable planet only individuals concerned about sustainable personal development, "While green politics is .. aiming for radical change, it is one which does not seek to create a new world, but liberate the existing one. It is a strategy firmly embedded in the autonomous development of the living, rather than putting forward a grand design of a perfect society. The way is the goal; the goal is the way." This stance enables begg to suspect it is possible to create green politics in one country .. "if only because we need to know if ‘green politics in one country’ is possible or desirable. .. This suggests that ‘green politics in one country’ would be feasible." Anyone who believes it is possible to create a sustainable climate in one country whilst all other countries suffer from destabilized climates clearly has no understanding of the geophysiological facts of life. And like most other lefties he believes democracy has to be put above the Earth, "The fact that the greens do not speak in terms of grand designs or plans is one reason to believe that they will genuinely seek to empower the ideas and projects of those they ‘represent’ rather than their own ideas." According to this view the planet is whatever humans want it to be.

It is shocking that even major green organizations haven’t bothered to present their vision of a sustainable Planet. In 1994, greenpeace presented an outline of a plan to abolish fossil fuels but stated, 'This is not our ideal'.

Even more shockingly, this failure also afflicts the green party - even though it is usually one of the roles of political parties to point out their vision for the future. Perhaps the reason for this is that they fear that if people knew what a green future looked like they would stick with the over-indulgences of a consumer society.

The reason why the advocates of ‘sustainability’ haven’t presented their vision of a sustainable planet is because they are reformists repulsed by any grand scale curbs on consumerism - what they want is for everyone around the world to be able to indulge in the same appallingly degenerate lifestyles as consumers in the over-industrialized world. They are petrified by demands for a grand scale restoration of the Earth’s life support system. Most greens are irrational. They can provide lengthy lists of the damage being inflicted on virtually every ecological habitat around the Earth and worry about the deterioration in the Earth’s life support system but as soon as it is suggested that action needs to be taken to restore the Earth’s life support system they wilt away and say they have to confine themselves to asking consumers to switch their lights off after leaving a room. In the absence of a definition of sustainability, all that is left for greens to do is to plea that humans should try to act in a more enlightened manner towards the environment - whatever that means. It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to take them seriously.

It would be remiss of this work to criticize greens and capitalists for not having a definition of sustainability without offering such a definition. As a preliminary remark it should be pointed out that the Earth has regulated its life support system perfectly adequately for billions of years - until, that is, the arrival of eco-nazis pursuing a policy of lebensraum over the entire Earth, turning many species into slave labourers, exterminating all other species as superfluous beings (insisting that if they didn’t pay their way then they would have to be put into gas ovens) which has become the biggest mass murder of other species the Earth has ever witnessed, and wrecking the Earth’s life support system - and these are the bipeds who want to whoosh around the universe to meet other species!! A definition of sustainability is anthropogenic by its nature since only humans are capable of both ruining and restoring the Earth’s life support system.

The phrase ‘sustainable development’ has been around since the 1970s. It is often used interchangeably with ‘sustainability’ even though the concepts are distinct. The difference between them became prominent in the mid-1980s as a result of the bruntland commission’s report on the environment. Gro harlem bruntland promoted the phrase sustainable development specifically to get away from the idea of sustainability. In the eyes of many third world countries, the concept of sustainability had a number of negative connotations. The onset of increasing ecological disasters triggered off fears amongst third world people that the over-industrialized world would try to stop third world countries from developing and exacerbating these environmental problems. Third world politicians felt that stopping global development might be acceptable in the over-industrialized world where everyone had a decent standard of living but it was totally unacceptable in the rest of world especially amongst the disintegrating nations where there was widescale poverty - poverty caused in part, of course, by the avariciousness of third world elites who seemed to prefer spending vast sums of money on grandiose militaristic projects, imported cars, and other luxury items, whilst allowing the poor to starve. Bruntland did not condemn third world leaders for their greed, militarism and patriarchalism. She did not condemn them for using environmental issues as a means of extracting donations from the over-industrialized world most of which would end up in their private swiss bank accounts rather than being used to abolish poverty and protect the environment. Instead of denouncing corrupt third world elites bruntland went along with the charade and tried to appease them by acknowledging the need to both protect the environment and increase economic growth. In other words she simply attached the word ‘development’ to ‘sustainability’ as a political compromise to keep corrupt third world leaders involved in the environmental debate. This stance completely undermined the concept of sustainability which assumes the world is currently over-developed and that global ecological equality between nations can be achieved by redistributing current resources. On the other hand, bruntland believes that sustainable development allows the over-industrialized world to become even richer and that global equality can be achieved by miraculous increases in economic growth in third world countries. In the sustainability perspective there would be global equality at much lower levels of economic prosperity than currently exist whereas sustainable development envisages global equality at much higher levels of economic prosperity - levels of prosperity that would almost certainly lead to the devastation of the Earth’s life support system.

The iled claims it was one of the pioneers of the phrase 'sustainable development', "During its twenty years of existence ILED has been promoting a vision encapsulated in the term 'sustainable development'. The founder of ILED, Barbara Ward, first used the term in the mid-1970s to make the point that environmental protection and development are linked ..."

Gro harlem bruntland has been one of the main popularizers of ‘sustainable development’ especially through the work of the bruntland commission. Bruntland defined sustainable development as ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. Whilst the bruntland commission’s report was favourably received around the world by both conventional politicians and by many greens, one of its gruesome implications emerged a few years later when bruntland, the prime minister of norway, supported her country’s demands for a continuation of whaling. Bruntland regards Whales as a natural resource to be harvested as part of norway’s so called ‘sustainable development’. For many people ‘sustainable development’ died on the whalers’ harpoon.

"The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 defined sustainable development, through its action plan Agenda 21, as a multifaceted process involving the full range of environment and development issues and requiring the participation of governments, international organizations and major groups."

David pearce’s capitalist ideas on cost-benefit analysis have been highlighted above. Not surprisingly, he’s another major exponent of ‘sustainable development’. For him the phrase means the simultaneous increase in economic growth and protection of the environment but it has already been noted how little of the environment would be protected as a result of his proposals for compensatory projects. One of the mysteries of pearce’s concept of ‘sustainable development’ is how it is possible for this berk to announce that economic growth protects the environment when his concept of ‘the environment’ doesn’t include any consideration of the Earth’s life support system. How can he insist further construction projects should be given the go-ahead when he doesn’t take any account of the Earth’s life support system? This is just academic fruitcakeism.

Brown’s concept of sustainability is more substantial than the vacuous ideas promoted by bruntland and pearce, "Among the principles of sustainability are the following: Over the long term, species extinction cannot exceed species evolution; soil erosion cannot exceed soil formation; forest destruction cannot exceed forest regeneration; carbon emissions cannot exceed carbon fixation; fish catches cannot exceed the regeneration capacity of fisheries; and human births cannot exceed human deaths." Whilst this definition is quantifiable it tends to legitimize the status quo. The criteria are rooted in the present i.e. when the Earth’s life support system is in a state of gross degradation. Maintaining the current number of species and humans, and the current level of soil and Forests, would simply lock the future into a permanent state of disintegration. To suggest that Carbon emissions should not exceed Carbon fixation is an interesting proposition but it is still not adequate in a couple of ways for protecting the Earth’s life support system. For example, it does not explain where the balance should be - a high level of Carbon emissions and a high level of Carbon fixation or should both be set at much lower levels? In addition, it does not indicate what each countries’ responsibilities should be for bringing about this (unstated) balance.

The following definition is no different from that put forward by bruntland, "A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without jeopardizing the prospects of future generations. This concept of intergenerational equity, profoundly moral in character, is violated in numerous ways by our current society"

These two authors introduce their book on sustainable development by making the grand claim that they will outline policies for the sustainable development of the whole planet .. "we have set out to suggest a policy agenda for sustainable development: policies for a small plant." This would be a revolution in green thinking because most of the green movement seems fixated upon the national policies of their own governments. The authors aim to present a planetary perspective and global policies .. "what we have done in this book is to .. spell out our vision of a sustainable future and the steps necessary to get there." What expectations! We stand here at the pearly gates to green illumination.

Acops is a private, independent, non-political organization enjoying uk charitable status. The primary aim of acops is to promote and implement strategies for sustainable development relating to the coastal and marine environment .."

"Efforts to develop indicators of sustainable development have raised the challenge of defining such a broad subject through quantitative measures. The countries pilot testing national indicators of sustainable development in support of the UNCSD programme on indicators find they need at least 50 indicators to cover the major dimensions of sustainability (Government of the Czech Republic 1998). The UNCSD study calls for economic, social, environmental and institutional indicators covering driving forces, states and responses across all the programme areas of Agenda 21, with 134 indicators identified in the first phase. These activities have made clear how many dimensions there are to development. They also highlight the need to develop clearer targets and goals, and new indicators for the less tangible aspects of development including individual welfare, community cohesion, institutional development, knowledge and culture."

Beckerman’s grandiose hopes for transforming gdp into a measure of human welfare have been criticized above but although he’s a pro economic growth, right winger his criticisms of ‘sustainable development’ are astute. He highlights the changing definitions of ‘sustainable development’, "Over the past few years innumerable definitions of sustainable development have been proposed. But we can identify a clear trend in them. At the beginning, sustainability was interpreted as a requirement to preserve intact the environment as we find it today in all its forms." He argues this definition was soon dropped because it was believed to be morally repugnant to spend money saving every single one of the Earth’s remaining Animals when billions of humans are starving, "When it soon became obvious that the ‘strong’ concept of sustainable development was morally repugnant, as well as totally impracticable, many environmentalists shifted their ground. A new version was adopted known in the literature as ‘weak’ sustainability." Whilst this interpretation may be correct it is a little difficult imagining a meat-eating, pro-whaling, tusk-loving, Fox-hunting supporter like gro harlem bruntland ever propounding the ‘strong’ version of sustainable development i.e. the need to save every Animal on Earth. Beckerman argues that ‘weak’ sustainability is virtually indistinct from current economic concepts and thus redundant. It .. "has been defined in such a way as to be either morally repugnant or logically redundant."

Just like all the earlier proposals for social/environmental measures, ‘sustainable development’ does not indicate the criteria for determining the limits to the destruction of the Earth’s life support system. It has no way of determining how many acres of Forest, Grasslands, Mangrove swamps, Coral reefs, etc there should be around the world in order to stabilize the climate. Such criteria are essential if the geophysiological significance of any particular socio-environmental change is to be assessed. Without such criteria, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ is meaningless.

Most characterizations of ‘sustainable development’ include an inter-generational element. Unfortunately, it is simply not possible to determine how many generations should be included in the share out of the Earth’s resources - a dozen, a hundred, a thousand?

Sustainable development means the continued support for meat eating, Whaling, ivory harvesting, Fox hunting, Bull fighting, the wearing of fur, Animal experiments, etc. It does not propose the abolition of the exploitation of Animals even though the Animal exploitation industry is the biggest cause of destruction of the Earth’s life support system. How is it possible to take the theory of sustainable development seriously when it supports the main industry causing what it is supposed to be stopping?

There are three preposterous assumptions underlying ‘sustainable development’.

The argument runs that whilst capitalism can afford to repair the damage it inflicts on the environment, it is not possible for poverty-stricken third world countries and former east european communist countries to do so. The argument that only capitalism protects the environment is supposed to have been given credence by the ‘discovery’ in the early 1990s of the environmental catastrophes in the soviet union and eastern europe. Whilst the ecological damage created by capitalism in the over-industrialized countries is bad enough the damage it has inflicted on third world countries is so colossal that the overall damage caused by capitalism far surpasses that caused by soviet communism - which, of course, is not to condone the latter in any way. The fact is that capitalists can afford to repair only a small amount of the environmental damage they cause so, ipso facto, capitalism must eventually destroy the Earth’s life support system. Capitalists could avoid this eventuality only if they were capable of using their profits to repair more of the environment than they destroyed which, by definition, is impossible for an economic system which survives only by continual expansion and devastation. There is no industry on Earth which earns so much money that it can repair more of the Earth’s life support system than it damages. It is an absurdity to believe that it is possible to combat global burning using just 3% of the profits obtained from devastating the Earth’s life support system, "It has been estimated that 3 per cent of gross domestic product is the minimum amount needed for environmental protection and restoration. In addition, industry and the public currently allocate more than US$450 000 million a year towards environmental protection. Yet there are still no global-level tools to assess - and, if required, improve - the ways in which such huge amounts of money are spent." Unep argues that, "Business-as-usual will not lead to sustainability." but isn’t 3% just business-as-usual?

The fact is that geophysiological problems can be solved only by geophysiological means such as the restoration of the Earth’s life support system, i.e. the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity. It cannot be done technologically - even by alternative energy or energy efficiency or energy conservation.

Self explanatory.

The phrase ‘sustainable development’ is used primarily by people who realize that unrestrained economic growth is damaging the Earth’s life sustaining processes but who, unfortunately, can’t relinquish the idea of endless economic growth. The phrase promises people that it is possible to have their environmental cake and eat it. In reality the phrase is a contradiction in terms. There is no compatibility between continuous economic growth and the sustainability of the Earth’s life support system because continuous economic growth only destabilizes the climate. One of the main advantages of the phrase is that it enables conventional politicians, including those in the green movement, to promote Earth-wrecking projects as green. Despite all the ecocidal damage that humans have already done to the Earth’s life support system, greens continue to support economic developments which are damaging what is left of the Earth’s life sustaining processes! An analysis of the policies of any green organization, including greenpeace and the green party, reveals that the number of proposed green construction projects which will damage the Earth’s life support system far outweigh the number of projects designed to restore the Earth’s life sustaining processes.

There are a range of accounting systems which are linked to environmental issues which cannot be placed in any of the categories above.

The wwf has developed a ‘living planet index’ to measure the health and vitality of the Earth’s biodiversity. It has also developed a measure of the pressure which humans are exerting on ecological habitats, called ‘consumption pressure’.

The wwf is attempting to quantify the destruction of biodiversity, "The Living Planet Report seeks to present a quantitative picture of the state of the world’s natural environment and the human pressure upon it. Specifically it presents WWF’s Living Planet Index (LPI), a measure of the change in the health of the world’s natural ecosystems since 1970, focusing on the Earth’s forest, freshwater, and marine biomes as these contain most of the world’s biodiversity. The LPI has declined by about 30% relative to its reference point in 1970, which can be interpreted as meaning that the world has lost nearly a third of its natural wealth in that time."

In its ‘Living Planet report’ the wwf also attempt to measure the amount of pressure consumers are exterting on the environment, "The report also analyses global consumption patterns to calculate Consumption Pressure - a measure of the burden placed on the natural environment by humanity." The wwf points out, "There are six components to Consumption Pressure: grain, marine fish, and wood consumption; freshwater withdrawals; carbon dioxide emissions, as a proxy for fossil fuel consumption; and cement consumption as a proxy for land consumption. Each of the six components has been given equal weighting in calculating Consumption Pressure."

This is one of the more revealing environmental analyzes. It also has the benefit of being quantifiable - although it is weak on climate limitations and biodiversity, "An aggregate indicator that makes physical sense is the Ecological Footprint, or the (almost) equivalent Sustainable progress index (spi). It is the total land area that is required to maintain the food, water, energy, and waste-disposal demands per person, per product, or per city."

M Wackernagel and william rees and their researchers at the university of british colombia have developed an environmental analysis called ecological footprinting that estimates that .. "the typical north american consumes resources each year equivalent to the renewable yield from 12.6 acres of farmland and forest to create the flows of materials and energy that sustain our lifestyle. On average, there are only 3.7 acres of ecologically productive land on the planet available for each human living today. In other words, it would require four Earth’s worth of productive land to support the entire human population in the lifestyle of americans."

"There have been several attempts by researchers in the north to determine in quantitative terms what is unsustainable about the northern model. There is william rees and his team at the university of british columbia, canada, who have calculated that the ecological footprints of average canadians .. Similarly, a dutch team under manus van brakel and maria buitenkamp has estimated the ecological space claimed by average dutch citizens, with essential the same result."

There are theorists like murray bookchin and theodore roszak who believe that humans are wonderful, warm-hearted, loving, caring creatures. (In their view humans are only innocently slaughtering vast numbers of Animals around the world in what is by far the biggest abattoir that has ever been erected on this planet since it was formed 4,000,000,000 years ago and, equally, they are only innocently pushing the Earth’s life support system for humans to the verge of collapse). Because humans are such a marvellous bunch of eco-nazis who are only to willing to share all that they have with all six billion, going on 10 billion, soon to be 20 billion, people around the Earth, there is no need for any sort of environmental measuring system to allocate resources equally around the world. News has it that both authors are hoping to pass their eleven plus examinations in the near future.

"Price, resources, personal interests and costs play no role in a moral economy. Services and provisions are available as needed, with no 'accounting' of what is given and taken."

"The ultimate technocracy whose chief project is an on-going, world-wide, environmental impact report and resource inventory."