Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization

• Published in: Nature (London) 2012-06, Vol.486 (7401), p.68-73
• Main Authors: Ehrlich, Paul R., Kareiva, Peter M., Daily, Gretchen C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 704/158/843; 704/844/685; 706/689; Analysis; Carrying capacity (Ecology); Climate change; Conservation of Natural Resources - economics; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Conservation of Natural Resources - trends; Cultural change; Earth; Economic growth; Economic summit conferences; Ecosystem; Environmental impact; Environmental Policy - economics; Environmental Policy - trends; Equity; Fertility; Futures; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Industrialized nations; Leadership; multidisciplinary; Per capita; Population Dynamics; Population growth; Population number; Poverty - statistics & numerical data; Prosperity; review-article; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sex Factors; Sustainable development
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/nature11157

Increasing population size and per capita impacts are making sustainability a difficult to goal to achieve; this Review explores possibilities for sustainable development. The quest for sustainability The concept of sustainability — usually taken to mean meeting the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same — is widely discussed in the natural and social sciences, pure and applied. But we are further than ever from achieving that goal, with a growing population and per-capita demands that are severely straining Earth's life-support systems. In this Review, Paul Ehrlich, Peter Kareiva and Gretchen Daily examine the latest thinking on how sustainability is best defined and how it can be achieved, focusing on population, natural capital and equity. They conclude that in pursuit of a sustainable future, it is in everybody's interest to reduce both the size of the population and our per-capita impacts. In biophysical terms, humanity has never been moving faster nor further from sustainability than it is now. Our increasing population size and per capita impacts are severely testing the ability of Earth to provide for peoples’ most basic needs. Awareness of these circumstances has grown tremendously, as has the sophistication of efforts to address them. But the complexity of the challenge remains daunting. We explore prospects for transformative change in three critical areas of sustainable development: achieving a sustainable population size and securing vital natural capital, both in part through reducing inequity, and strengthening the societal leadership of academia.