permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

>Anyone ever heard of/know anything about
>The Natural Step

They have a web site at http://www.naturalstep.org/direct/index.html; I saw
a talk about the program by Paul Hawken at The Bioneers Conference; he's
active with them. There are informal contacts between some PC and Natural
Step people, but I don't know of formal links. They've done a good job of
moving into the "suit-wearing" niche for the sustainability crowd, working
with a number of large corporations and foundations, and grounding their
message in respectability by getting big-name scientists to endorse them.
Seems to me they're doing a very good thing. I've reprinted their
conditions in the original wording below (complete with superfluous use of
the pompous phrase "in order for." But that's just the editor in me is
nitpicking again). Their website explains these in less abstract language
and gives examples; I'd go there before arguing with them. I would argue
with condition 1, since life has always extracted substances from the earth
via roots, bacteria, and fungi (poisoning the whole planet with oxygen a
couple billion years ago). But I understand what they mean.

THE NATURAL STEP'S FOUR SYSTEM CONDITIONS

1. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and
diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of
substances extracted from the earth's crust.

2.  In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and
diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of
substances produced by society.

3. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and
diversity are not systematically impoverished by physical displacement,
over-harvesting or other forms of ecosystem manipulation.

4. In a sustainable society resources are used fairly and efficiently in
order to meet basic human needs globally.



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