This is an invitation for everyone to reply and communicate to me, what your current understanding of "Sustainability" is.
Feel free to elaborate.
I suppose when I see, hear or use the word 'sustainability' I'm more often than not using in an Architecture context since that is what I most work and study on: sustainable architecture. Sustainability to me is the perpetual cycle of surviving in an ecosystem, and not surviving OFF the ecosystem.
To me, to be sustainable, you must, in a housing context:
-be able to generate your own energy using renewable methods
-recycle and harvest water
-produce your own organic fertilizer
-Grow your own vegetables, herbs and fruits using agriculture practices that endeavor to replenish the land as much as to take from it to grow.
-Provide and sustain a secure environment for your family
I suppose those are the basics on a residential scale.
On more of a larger picture, it involves a much larger scope of the tub..
Being able to supply the population renewable energy should be part of it, although, in an ideal sustainable world, there would be no need for power plants to cover large power grids for each complex in future should be able to supply its own energy. There will be for example, places that will need power plants, and Masdar, a completely sustainable city being built in UAE complying to One Planet Living Principles will demonstrate how renewable energy sources can be used to supply energy to a high density population, not to mention, how they are demonstrating how renewable energy is being used for the construction as well.
I think the main focuses for governments in a sustainable world (this is before such systems like TVP have a chance to play out) will be with the health and education of its peoples. Energy will become a factor of politics and war of the past, security I feel won't be such a large issue in a sustainable world...or maybe that's the haze of an ideal perfection clouding my senses.
A sustainable world must be able to support itself and bear the weight of the entire planet's future by finding and applying methods of industry, agriculture, construction and society that will allow the longevity of civilization to be maximized in a world that values and understands the balances between us and the natural ecosystems. I think a mind set that will benefit me in my Architecture career, is looking at the globe as ONE ecosystem and not as a multitude of them all intermingled. People and companies of all shapes and sizes have been and are at fault by using the ideology that "if I do something here at this particular site, it wouldn't affect anyone anywhere else in the globe." We need to understand that as a planet, it is one delicate environment...
and I think I've baffled on a bit...I'll add more as I think of it
Sustainability to me, crafty, is living with the knowledge that YOU are a part of NATURE and that eveything you do has cosequence, action/reaction. We could all learn a lot from the caretakers of this continent to whom sustainability wasn't a coined phrase but respect, (true respect, not modern ideas of the word), certainly was.
Sustainability is the key to continued existence.
We need to learn more about it if we want continued existence.
living in a way utilising only materials and energy sources that are 100% renewable or close to it
What it means to me which is probably different to wikipedia, is not having to rely on government or corporations to supply you and your family with lifes essentials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
Out of curiousity i checked what 'sustainability' meant in wikipedia, interesting read.
I see what you mean @carcus27 , there brings up that dirty dirty word ' Economics '
I like your meaning better than Wiki
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