When applied to material things, the term "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron.
SUSTAINABILITY
The terms "sustainable" and "sustainability" burst into the global lexicon in the 1980s as the electronic news media made people increasingly aware of the growing global problems of overpopulation, drought, famine, and environmental degradation that had been the subject of “Limits to Growth” in the early 1970s.
A great increase of awareness came with the publication of the report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, the Brundtland Report, which is available in bookstores under the title “Our Common Future.”
In graphic and heart-wrenching detail, the report places before the reader the enormous problems and suffering that are being experienced with growing intensity every day throughout the underdeveloped world. In the foreword, before there was any definition of "sustainable," there was the ringing call:
“What is needed now is a new era of economic growth - growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable.”
One should be struck by the fact that here is a call for "economic growth"
that is "sustainable." One has to ask if it is possible to have an increase in economic activity without having increases in the rates of consumption of non-renewable resources. If so, under what conditions can this happen? Are we moving toward those conditions today? What is meant by the undefined terms, “socially sustainable” and “environmentally sustainable?” Can we have one without the other?
As we have seen, these two concepts of “growth” and “sustainability"
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