Definition
of Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is a process of human adaptation to a planetary
environment that incorporates the following boundary conditions:
Biogeophysical
1. Substances and materials from the planetary crust are not removed at a
rate greater than planetary processes replace them, or the rate of substitution
of a renewable alternative.
2. That substances produced by humans are, when no longer used by humans,
not accumulating in the environment. That any substances or materials released
into the environment can breakdown into non-toxic components. Non-toxic means
that a plant or animal cell can metabolize it, without disruption of its nominal
functions.
3. The productive capacity of biotic systems are not degraded by human processes.
Harvesting of living materials is at a rate no greater than their rate of
regeneration.
4. Delegation of human production and infrastructure functions that can be
performed by other living things, to other living things when possible.
5. That any material or substance produced by manufacturing that is not part
of a product be a feedstock for another human process.
6. The design of all products and services uses life cycle analysis and full
cost accounting. No externalization to society and the environment of any
costs.
7. Birth control.
Governance
8. Governance structures designed to:
a. maximize diversity in thought
b. Reduce pseudospeciation*
c. Decouple status competition from material objects
9. That economic processes be equitable for the people involved.
10. Allenby Principles
a. A system of problem solving with increasing or stable returns, or diminishing
returns that can be financed with energy subsidies of assured supply,
cost, and quality.
b. The solution space for design is not bounded by simplification or ideology.
c. Evaluation of design solutions considers scale, scaling, and emergent
events across foreseeable time-lines.
d. Technological implementation is evaluated across categories and foreseeable
time-lines, prior to roll-out.
e. Design objectives are defined, and metrics created to measure success
and early identification of feedback in the system.
f. Solutions are resilient and incorporate redundancies, and are not irreversible.
* pseudospeciation.
The
tendency of social phenotypes to behave towards other phenotypes of their
specie, that are not of the same variant or otherwise differ in tags (as
in contingent altruism) as if those that differ are not the same specie.
Examples in Humans include nationality, ethnic identity, ethnic hatred,
"race", racism, religious group, etc.
Sources
The definition I am using is in some part mine, but primarily from other
sources: The Hanover Principles, The Natural Step, Herman Daly's Rules,
The Bellagio Principles, Joseph Tainter, Braden Allenby, and basic science.
Numbers 1,2,3 & 9 are based primarily on The Natural Step.
Number 4 & 7 are from me.
The "Allenby Principles" are from the work of Branden Allenby.
Number 8 (a ,b &c) are from me, (the Creative Instability section
of Air Water Ground )
Assumption(s)
"Boundary Condition" is a concept borrowed from mathematics.
In this use of the term, a condition imposed on a solution so as to obtain
the desired outcome. It could also be viewed as what bounds a solution
space, so as to derive a range of possible solutions to further analyze
and choose from. In this case, the desired outcome, is that humans survive
as a species (or daughter species) for as long as possible.
" It is also assumed that space/time, and all environments are in
a state of constant change.
Jay Moynihan
