Bill writes:

> If we went by today's definition of sustainability, we would all be beelining and getting honey from trees ... today's definition is only an invention to cover the organic movement. Sounds good but does not stand up well to inquiry.

Not so. Sustainability has had mainstream support for quite a while.
The question is not "Do we need it?" but "How do we go about it?"

quoted material:

Humanity faces an unprecedented challenge as our numbers grow, while
Earth and its capacity to support us do not. People across the United
States and around the world aspire to better lives for themselves and
for their children: food, shelter, a safe and healthy environment,
education, jobs, and other material needs and conveniences. Industries
strive to produce more goods, farmers to grow more crops; and human
demands on forests, fields, rivers, and oceans increase.

Our challenge is to create a future in which prosperity and
opportunity increase while life flourishes and pressures on oceans,
earth, and atmosphere -- the biosphere -- diminish; to create a
life-sustaining Earth that supports a dignified, peaceful, and
equitable existence.

It is a powerful vision, and even as we see evidence that damage to
natural systems is accelerating, we also see individuals, companies,
and communities finding solutions that work: new products, new
technologies, changed minds and changed approaches that provide
improved service, better information, and wider choice with
drastically reduced impact on the environment.

From
"Advancing Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the
21st Century" 1999. The President's Council on Sustainable Development

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