Embracing Sustainability

"Embracing Sustainability: A Warning and a Guide for the Future of Humanity" was written to help people think in terms of sustainability--to help them recognize the unsustainable practices that are all around them and embrace sustainability as the only feasible model on which to build an existence that will last. It is a collection of essays that reflect on sustainability from a variety of angles. Some of the chapters are philosophical, while a few are utilitarian, explaining how and why certain aspects of society need to change to become sustainable. The book includes 65 chapters, eight color photographs and a color plate.

The messages contained in Embracing Sustainability are based on a novel definition of sustainability presented in the preface: Sustainable (adj.) or sustainability (noun) denotes a lifestyle that could be maintained permanently without becoming untenable because of attributes that are only feasible temporarily. A sustainable existence is one in which no aspect of our individual lives or societal operations would accrue any long-term detriment to life on Earth if exercised indefinitely. More specifically, sustainability implies that humanity should exist in a way that does not depend on finite resources, does not use renewable resources faster than they can be naturally replenished, does not produce waste of a kind or quantity that the Earth cannot absorb without harm, does not adversely impact the right of other living things to flourish on this planet, and ensures that all future life will inherit a planet that is no less rich and functional than nature will allow. A sustainable society is one that meets these standards not grudgingly, but willingly, out of gratitude and reverence for the Earth and its resources. Sustainability must come from the heart if it is to last and must be motivated more by a desire to achieve something good than to avoid something bad.