A defintition by C.S. Holling:
''Sustainability is the capacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capacity. Development is the process of creating, testing, and maintaining opportunity. The phrase that combines the two, "sustainable development", thus refers to the goal of fostering adaptive capabilities and creating opportunities. It is therefore not an oxymoron but a term that describes a logical partnership."
(emphasis added)
Holling 2001 in Newman and Dale 2005, 'Network Structure, Diversity, and Proactive Resilience Building: a Response to Tompkins and Adger' Ecology and Society 10(1):22
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2 comments:
Come on! You're so lazy regarding blogging!
Keep in mind that sustainable development has been called an oxymoron for other reasons: because they want to say economic growth is compatible with environmental protection and social justice (it will trickle down, you know). That's where they want to bring irreconciliable things together (as our dear Prof. Ted Benton says).
The guys you cite are trying to bring up a different, new definition; they should not be denying the oxymoron.
That's me. I've spoken! :):)
My darling little cynic.
The oxymoron you refer to is a function of practice not the underlying philosophy.
Even the best philosophies can be twisted in practice.
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