My reaction to

"Kansas's Self-Destruct Button: A Bill to Outlaw Sustainability" by Tom Randall
April 09, 2013 - https://tinyurl.com/cjwlmar
brought to my attention by Noah Pulver ( steeltonguedrums.com ).

In this article Tom Randall mentions "sustainable development", a term used
both--by the "Brundtland Report"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Common_Future), and the Kansas' "Committee on
Energy and Environment" (see the article).

This is what I think:

"Sustainable development" is an oxymoron. In a true sustainability, both
ecological and social, the talk would be more about harmony, balance, etc.,
hardly about "development". As it is used in the definition of "sustainable
development"--"development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."--it is
not clear, at all, what it is that would be being developed; from what starting
state to what resulting state. Or would it rather mean an ongoing process (I
cannot help, but think of a dog trying catch its own tail ... ) of sorts?

A happier term could be a "development towards sustainability", but in this case
we would have to know what it is when we say "sustainability". If there are more
than one definition of the term (there are plenty more definitions of
"sustainability, all more abstruse than others), then "sustainability" could
possibly never be reached, because--would it be possible for all those diversely
defined "sustainabilities" to exist side by side?

A way of deciding whether a definition of "sustainability" is viable could be by
modeling a situation that would be constructed according to whichever definition
of "sustainability"/"sustainable", and let it "live" with all that we know about
the Earth and societal processes. If such a situation would be able to "survive"
perpetually in models, then it could be called sustainable. Representing the
definition of "sustainability" by modeling would be superior to doing this in
print--the viability of the term be more accessible by being "visible".

I touch on this subject in "Universal Platform for Developing Sustainable Earth
Vision/Model Cooperatively: Global Citizens Envisioning the Future Together" -
www.modelearth.org/seed.html .

Thank you, Mr. Jan Hearthstone.