ABSTRACT
Ingenuity: sustaining ourselves in an unfriendly world In its simplest terms, 'sustainability' refers to nothing more than a comparison of rates of change. If a resource stock - a fishery, a forest, an aquifer, a bank account - is being drawn down faster than it is being replenished, then that stock, or better, that pattern of rates is not indefinitely sustainable. Continuous accumula tion is equally unsustainable - the trees do not grow to the sky. Human nature being what it is, however, the latter form of unsustainability typically presents as some form of pollution or accumulating 'bad', while the former involves running out of 'goods'.
