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ryan mearns

Student - BPlan,

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Does the association of "Sustainability" as an environmentalistic belief segregate it from other beliefs (eg. Humansim and Idealism)?

"Sustainability" is widely accepted throughout all environmental groups to be the the silver bullet to achieve a society which has minimal impact on the environment. But because of this wide spread branding of "sustainability" as an environmentalist dream deso it segregates it from all other beliefs.

The Debate is therefore whether sustainability can offer humanstists and idealist a plateform to express there ideals of sustainability, in order to sustain and improve the quality of life of humans? because without this, sustainability is just the branding for environmental protection.

Topics: envirnoment human behavior society sustainability
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    Benny boy

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    Sep 12 2011: I would say sustainability is a principle of life, along with adaptability and functionality.
    whether people believe it or not life will still sustain itself.
    in my perspective anyway.

  • Nikita Yegorov 500+

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    TEDx Organizer
    Sep 10 2011: Yes, it can be such a platform, though an idealistic one.
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    Harald Jezek 50+

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    Associate
    Sep 8 2011: Ryan, first, the concept of sustainability is not a belief. Secondly, sustainability has nothing to do with humanistic or idealistic views, but simply is a practical approach to doing things. In addition, the term sustainability isn't limited to environmental issues, but is true for every walk of life.
    The inevitable fact is that if you constantly take out more of any given system than is put in, this system is not going to be sustainable. That is true for our planet's resources as well as for your own personal finances or for government spending.
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    Allan Macdougall 30+

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    Sep 8 2011: There seems to be little hope for sustainability when it is somehow justified at the highest political level for oil extraction to take place from the Alberta tar sands. Three barrels burned to get one out?..... What??

    While such mind-boggling, unsustainable madness is condoned, then idealism will always win over humanism - until that lifeblood runs out...
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    Erol Toksoy 10+

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    Sep 7 2011: Touche...

    Capitalism basically dismisses humanism so sustainability does only executes elimination process.
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    anthony bruni 30+

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    Sep 7 2011: Sustainability is a prerequisite for humanistic philosophies more than a differing point of view. All sustainable means is that we can continue to perform an action in a likewise fashion for the foreseeable without running into problems, resulting from that activity. Often the word sustainability is used merely as a buzz word and is out of place in the sentence it is being used in. That said it is a necessary concept both on an individual, social, and species wide level. If your diet is making you sick you are not living in an individualist sustainable way. Changes will be made, either consciously by you or unconsciously by circumstances. Likewise If a culture uses up all its resources in order to keep the economy going then a change is going to come as well.

    Now Humanism is the belief we should prioritize people and the place in the world. We cannot though fully live to our potential if every few generations we have to re invent the wheel because our civilization came crashing down. How much cultural wisdom can we really gain in such a short span of time. If we wish to reach or at least make a stride toward our potential we need to build up knowledge generation after generation. There is no way we can do this without first having a sustainable culture that acts as a vessel to hold and transfer information through the generations.

  • Sharief Khan

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    Sep 6 2011: the world today is still in so much turmoil that achieving sustainablity is of the highest priority. Humanists who feel like sustainability is segregating from achieving sustainabilty are sadly mistaken and have to ubderstand that humanism falls right into sustainabilty for human kind. Instead of acknowledging a so called segregation they should get up and start working toward the same goal. It's understandable how sustainability can seem to be branching off of humanism but the lack of sustainabilty is such an epidemic that it's really the only thing to worry about at this point. And it really has no difference from humanism or idealism since all 3 offer prosperity for all. We need people to take action.
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