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et al. 2007), proposed a revised model of sustainability based on what they termed a ‘nested concept’ (Griggs et al. 2013: 306). This entails an amendment to the widely accepted definition of the UN’s 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development (chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland), which is verbally modest, but conceptually momentous. Instead of framing sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, the proposed new definition refers to ‘development
the creation of a permaculture, a dynamic culture that is able to adapt to change but which maintains the goal of long-term sustainability for future generations. Chase’s utopian vision of a sustainable country displaced into the future 170 Reading sustainability is an attempt to re-orient American values by introducing an element of universality in space and in time; the work of creating a sustainable permaculture is dependent upon assistance to developing countries and an expansion of these values to the globe: Eventually I think what will happen is that we will
the novel’s proleptic account of Pi’s eventual establishment of ongoing family life and living in Canada. But this projection of 228 Circles unrounded 229 a future world and its wellbeing raises the question of it being possible to account at all for the real beyond grasp, and not just that of some imagined future. Sustainability assumes, moreover, not just such accounting, but – as delineated in the Brundtland definition of sustainable development – the embedding of such accounting in the actions of the present.1 That is, the wellbeing of future generations
Guerrero 1989: 66). Insofar as sustainability subsumes economic, political and ecological rationalities under the single imperative of species survival, it can be said to ‘naturalise’ the human species; however, in doing so, it also evacuates nature of any normative content. If all forms of human behaviour are assessed, sanctioned and perhaps reconstituted with a view to the question whether they might impair ‘the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission 1987: 8), this effort could not produce a ‘more natural’ social order, as long as the
seen as the lifeline of the community, are now identified as part of the problem. Inspector Masalavala’s cranky suggestions to shore up the community include tying educational opportunities to an undertaking to bear a certain number of children. The more stoical prescription of Dr Fitter is for a Parsi time capsule, containing items representative of the culture, to be buried for future generations to unearth when the community has died out. That sense of loss indicative of contemporary Parsi culture in India is articulated by the inspector: ‘To think that we Parsis
often called upon to do in history – reconcile the warring parties. Marriage brings about a peaceful countryside and happy lovers, although in actual practice marriages were supposed to be arranged by parents and guardians, who saw marriage ‘as a way of augmenting and consolidating their lands and rising in political power and influence … [and ensuring] heirs to whom the inheritance would pass and who would safeguard it for future generations’.18 According to May McKisack, ‘failure of heirs constituted by far the most serious threat to baronial stability … [and
broad audiences. 70 Recent exhibitions such as the State Library of Queensland’s Spoken: Celebrating Queensland Languages have displayed Barlow’s manuscript alongside contemporary Indigenous communities’ use of language sources: Central West Queensland communities describe how ‘[w]ords written on scraps of paper recorded by linguists … are now held in great esteem. [Communities use] collections and word lists to build and preserve their words for future generations’. 71 Such collateral and progressive uses of southern colonial print cultures suggest that new
from a new materialist standpoint. She critiques the standard definition of sustainable development from the 1987 Brundtland Report: development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission 1987). For Alaimo, this oft-quoted definition reveals an overarching anthropocentric logic, since the ‘generations’ are normally interpreted as human, and the nonhuman world is reduced to a resource for meeting human needs (2012: 562). The prevailing thinking on sustainability, from this
development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission 1987: 41). The sustainability of animal lives and species populations barely warranted mention in the report. The report raised alarms about increasing extinctions, but couched these in the context of narrow declarations of self-interest, stating that 100 Discourses of sustainability we should be concerned about biodiversity loss because ‘Species and natural ecosystems make many important contributions
Environment and Development, led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, published its report, Our Common Future, in 1987, it defined sustainable development, famously, as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission 1987: 43). As Simon Dresner points out in his discussion of Brundtland, sustainability was ‘conceived as an attempt to bring environmentalist ideas into the central area of policy, which in the modern world is The unsustainable aesthetics of sustainability 179