Human Society: The Sustainability Of Human Societies

Put simply, sustainability refers to systems and processes that are able to operate independently over long periods of time (Robertson 2014). Sustainability in terms of development means the maintenance of development over an extended period of time (Elliot 1999). Discussions about sustainability often refer to an idea called the “triple bottom line”, sometimes referred to as the three pillars of sustainability or the “three E’s” (Elkington 2012). The first ‘E’ represents environment and is concerned with the preservation and restoration of the health living systems. The second ‘E’ stands for economy and relates to even distribution of resources over the long term, with each individual being

“Many current discussions about sustainability focus on the ways in which human activity...can be maintained in the future without exhausting all of our current resources… there has been a close correlation between the growth of human society and environmental degradation - as communities grow, the environment often declines” (603).

Sustainability relates to the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life, which means developing ways to ensure that all resources on Earth are used and managed responsibly so they can be maintained for future generations.

As once said by the Once-ler, from the tale of The Lorax, “Complain all you want, it’s never, ever, ever, ever gonna stop.” This is a strong message of a children’s book but it can impact how every life spends each day. The growing economy is directly linked to industrialization, which is damaging the Earth more and more each day. Industrialization is the rapidly growing spread of business and industries within a region, and can be shown in practically any country on Earth. There are many environmental issues that industrialization has caused but one in particular is our overuse of scarce resources, therefore, nations have responded to this issue by using renewable resources.

Sustainability describes how well someone or something is able to thrive and survive. It also can apply to humans, in which there are three general ideas. First is environmental, which is how well humans can help the earth. Second, is economic, which states that everybody deserves the right to make money.

So what is sustainability? It is the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

There is no one best definition for sustainability. The simplest and most fundamental meaning would be “the ability to sustain” or otherwise “the capacity to endure”. It can also be defined as a need for our generation to manage the resources base efficiently so that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations.

The term sustainability is one that been conceptualized since the early civilizations of humans inhabited the earth. During those primative times, everything that allowed civilizations to thrive came from the earth. Humans during those times were more more in touch with their reliance on the environment. In today's society, the reliance on our natural environment seems much further away due to our insulation from modern conveniences. Nevertheless, this conception could not be further from the truth; we are more reliant now on the world's renewable resources than ever before.

Important advantages of Resources on the Earth are limited.That the way we behave now does not make life difficult or impossible for future generations.To achieve sustainable development,we need to carefully consider the need for economic development,where standards of living improve

Economic –“an economically sustainable system must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable levels of government and external debt, and to avoid extreme sectoral imbalances which damage agricultural or industrial production.” (Harris, 2000: 7)

Sustainability is a simple term with a fairly simple definition, a way of doing something that can be continued rather than having a finite limit. However, the much more difficult part is defining what things are actually meet the definition of sustainable. As a concept, we all understand it, but the great challenge is figuring out what it will look like in the real world and, perhaps even more difficult, putting the idea into

The word sustainability has been defined ‘as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their needs’ (Mansdorf, 2010).

Sustainability is a topic that has become very important in recent years. Sustainability is defined as, “the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely.” ("Finding and Resolving the Root Causes of the Sustainability Problem", 2014)

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 1987). The concept of sustainability comprises of four pillars: environmental; economic; political and social; as can be seen in the image below. Environmental sustainability is the use and management of the environment in a way that it does not deplete our finite resources. Economic sustainability is a long term sustainable economy that supports its community and political sustainability is the collaboration of different bodies of government to achieve a sustainable future. Now social sustainability is hard to define as it encapsulates many different factors; however to be very broad it is to achieve social justice. The real objective for sustainability is that all four pillars work together equally in a precautionary principle;

The concept of sustainable development has become a major topic among intellectuals from various fields. Sustainable development has gone through various changes in its definitions and at present does not have a commonly accepted definition. The origination of the concept of sustainable development is debatable. In 1974 at a conference on Science and Technology for Human Development by the World Council of Churches the concept of a “sustainable society” is believed to have been first noted. This early concept focused on equitable distribution of scarce resources and the need for democratic decision making. In 1980 the currently used term of sustainable development emerged in the