TuneTrack

Sustainability
by morgantj, Snowflake & Wikipedia

Sustainability is the capacity to endure.

For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which in turn depends on the wellbeing of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.

There is abundant scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably.

Returning human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits will require a major collective effort.

The overall driver of human impact on Earth systems is the consumption of biophysical resources.

The Ecological footprint measures human consumption in terms of the biologically productive land needed to provide the resources, and absorb the wastes of the average global citizen.

Scientists have warned of the possibility, under the influence of climate change, of a sudden alteration in circulation patterns of ocean currents that could drastically alter the climate in some regions of the globe.

Trends of concern that require management include: over-fishing; coral bleaching due to ocean warming and ocean acidification due to increasing levels of dissolved carbon dioxide; and sea level rise due to climate change.

Because of their vastness oceans also act as a convenient dumping ground for human waste.

All life depends on the solar-powered global water cycle, the evaporation from oceans and land to form water vapor that later condenses from clouds as rain, which then becomes the renewable part of the freshwater supply.

Biodiversity-rich freshwater ecosystems are currently declining faster than marine or land ecosystems making them the world's most vulnerable habitats.

Historically there has been a close correlation between economic growth and environmental degradation: as communities grow, so the environment declines.

Unsustainable economic growth has been starkly compared to the malignant growth of a cancer because it eats away at the Earth's ecosystem services which are its life-support system.

There is concern that, unless resource use is checked, modern global civilization will follow the path of ancient civilizations that collapsed through over-exploitation of their resource base.

Sustainable business practices integrate ecological concerns with social and economic ones.

One approach to sustainable living seeks to create self-reliant communities based on the principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency particularly in food production.

The earth has a finite capacity to provide resources and to absorb waste, and human demands already exceed that capacity.

Current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption must be changed.