The sphere of social-political sustainability is interesting in that it expands beyond the simple necessity of economic growth and its effect on the natural environment to more directly include the human element in the equation. Social-political sustainability promotes social harmony and continuity of healthy political institutions so that a mechanism is in place for the enactment of the collective will (presumably a will which is favorable to sustainability).

The project of sustainable development has inevitably encountered resistance. Some are eager to point out that any economic pursuit which entails resource depletion is by that very fact unsustainable. But to make this charge is to reduce the debate to semantics; to contend that the impossibility of an absolute application invalidates the endeavor wholesale is to court the ridiculous.

Another more prominent criticism is slightly more troublesome to counter. Available evidence seems to confirm the wisdom that as nations emerge from poverty and amass wealth they are more willing to dedicate a portion of their incomes to combat pollution and other unpleasantries. The wealthy industrialized nations of the world at one time advanced through dirtier stages analogous to the present progress of developing economies. However at that time there were no monitors or whistle-blowers. This school of critics cries hypocrisy. They uphold "dirty" mediums of economic growth that wealthier nations can now afford to bypass as the only hope to elevate massive populations from abject misery. In so doing, they seek to force arbiters of sustainable development into the unenviable position of choosing between the welfare of the earth's poor and that of the earth itself.

In the face of these criticisms, proponents of sustainable development strive for the national and international coordination of environmental, economic and sometimes social policies in the advancement of responsible progress. They are mindful that the world more than ever is a system of actors, none of whose actions bear no consequence for others. Their goal is the day-to-day management of policy decisions such that humanity might enjoy the bounty of our natural environment without exhausting it, and without selfishly revoking the privilege of coming generations to do the same.

Without sounding the bells of certain alarmists, sustainability of this color is to be venerated and upheld. Dilution of the term's strength by those who would seek to hijack its nobility is, on the other hand, to be regretted and indeed resisted.

Copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Lafleche

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