Sustainability in Term Two

Our Team Theme for Term Two is Sustainability. We will have to work in with what we plan as a team, but if we use an inquiry method of learning, we should be able to find questions that interest us that we can pursue in our own ways, to some degree.
Their will be key concepts and contexts that we need to understand and we need to actually achieve something real and meaningful to us, in order to make the learning worthwhile.
So, what is Sustainability? Add your own thoughts on the topic and how you would like to learn about it. If you know experts we could talk to or have really good ideas for projects we could try, say so here. Perhaps start a Sustainability blog for your project work, resource gathering, etc.

Wikipedia says:

Sustainability

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right).

Sustainability, in a broad sense is the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.^[1]

Sustainability has become a complex term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on Earth, particularly the many different levels of biological organization, such as; wetlands, prairies and forests^[2] and is expressed in human organization concepts, such as; eco-municipalities, sustainable cities, and human activities and disciplines, such as; sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture and renewable energy.^{[citation needed]} Many sustainable practices are being identified as "green" initiatives.

For humans to live sustainably, the Earth's resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. However, there is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to return human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits.^[3][4]

Since the 1980s, the idea of human sustainability has become increasingly associated with the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres. In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) articulated what has now become a widely accepted definition of sustainability: "[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”^[5]

Sustainable development

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts.^[1]

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations to come. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."^[2][3]

Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems."^[4] Ecologists have pointed to the “limits of growth”^[5] and presented the alternative of a “steady state economy”^[6] in order to address environmental concerns.

The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability.