Routledge Demystifying Sustainability: Towards Real Solutions

What is sustainability? Much has been said about the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ over the last few decades, but they have become buried under academic jargon. This book is one of the first that aims to demystify sustainability so that the layperson can understand the key issues, questions and values involved. Accessible and engaging, the book examines the ‘old’ sustainability of the past and looks to the future, considering how economic, ecological and social sustainability should be defined if we are to solve the entwined environmental, economic and social crises. It considers if meaningful sustainability is the same as a ‘sustainable development’ based on endless growth, examining the difficult but central issues of overpopulation and overconsumption that drive unsustainability. The book also explores the central role played by society’s worldview and ethics, along with humanity’s most dangerous characteristic – denial. Finally, it looks to the future, discussing the ‘appropriate’ technology needed for sustainability, and suggesting nine key solutions. This book provides a much-needed comprehensive discussion of what sustainability means for students, policy makers and all those interested in a sustainable future. Review Essential reading for contextualising the social science of ‘sustainability.’ Spore Magazine ‘Sustainability’ may be the most important word in our language, and also the most misused. This brilliant, deep, accurate, well-referenced book should do wonders to rectify that. It should be required reading for every high-school student, CEO, and politician. Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Stanford University, USA Demystifying Sustainability bids the modern world to abandon magical thinking. It provides just what the world needs most in its time of gathering crisis – a viable, alternative way-of-being that both celebrates the full spectrum of human potential and accurately represents the biophysical realities within which the human animal must function. William Rees, University of British Columbia, Canada Haydn Washington brings wide reading and experience, plus a sharp mind and sharp knife, to cut away the obfuscation and denial that mystify the discussion of sustainability. The book is accessible without any "dumbing-down", and does not evade the difficult questions of overpopulation, overconsumption, deification of growth, and overconfidence in the ability of technology to substitute for morality. Highly recommended. Herman Daly, University of Maryland, USA Washington boils down the 300 definitions of sustainability to distill the potent essence of the term, and then applies it to point us in the direction of a better future. Erik Assadourian, Worldwatch Institute, USA We want a future that is not only sustainable, but also desirable – a future that allows a prosperous and equitable economy embedded in a harmonious society that remains within planetary ecological boundaries. Our current ‘growth at all costs’ system and its trajectory are neither sustainable nor desirable. Haydn Washington has provided a powerful demystification of sustainability and a guide to the future we really want. Robert Costanza, Australian National University, Australia It is hard to have a serious discussion about a subject as important as sustainability when we don’t even agree on what it means. Harder still if we don’t even know that we don’t agree on its meaning. Haydn Washington understands this difficulty only too well and his book succeeds grandly in demystifying sustainability. Peter A. Victor, York University, Canada This book does not beat around the bush. It does not talk in circles. It does not pretend that sustainability is so difficult to grasp that it cannot be achieved. Nor does it pretend that it can be achieved by following business-as-usual trajectory. It does name problems by their name. It does ask difficult but necessary questions. It does propose real solut