How Sustainable Is Development?

Do we really know enough to manage natural resources sustainably?

1 minute read

April 3, 2003, 5:00 AM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


David Suzuki opines on what it takes to make development sustainable: "...If we owned a business like a bakery that we wanted to operate and pass on to our children and grandchildren, what would we need to know? I would think before we even got into the question of markets, prices, distribution, advertising, etc, we would need two basic things: an inventory of everything in the bakery and a blueprint showing the role of everything in the inventory. With those two critical pieces of information, we could proceed to market prices, costs, sales, and profit.Unfortunately, when it comes to the natural world, where we find 'resources' galore, too often potential profit is reason enough to begin exploiting them without regard to inventory or blueprint."

Thanks to Laura Kranz

Tuesday, April 1, 2003 in Environmental News Network

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