Ed, there are many ways to try to be "sustainable", most of which are
not viable in my view, as well.
Most people seem to think we can preserve, or at least restore, ecosystems
to some sort of "natural" cybernetic state so that humans will once again
live in a sustaining and sustainable environment.
I do not think that is an option any more. Maybe two hundred years ago.
Maybe 2000 years ago. Not now.
The only "sustainable" future I can imagine (and it is very difficult to
imagine too) is that prefigured in the title of Walter Truett Anderson's
book of a decade ago: "To govern evolution."
We need to understand that nature is essentially dead. Killed by human
activity. If we humans wish to survive, then we need to envision and
create a sustainable artificial environment.
I think humans MIGHT be able to do that, though the odds are against us. I
am almost certain we humans will NOT do that, or even try in time.
But obviously some kind of a "sustainable" (evolvable) environment is
necessary; equally obviously (to me) our current "capitalist" economic
system (maybe aided in fact by our present-oriented "democratic" political
system) is simply eating massive chunks of the future faster and faster
rendering sustainability less and less likely.
Jim Dator
