ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the nature of human sustainability and its dimensions through the Impact-Population-Affluence-Technology lens. It examines how perceptions of the variables that compose it have changed, their interrelationships and how the concept might guide policies that lead to a more sustainable world. Because each of its variables relate to different fields, including the social, physical and life sciences as well as the humanities, an interdisciplinary approach is used to investigate this concept and its related public policy. The relationship between humanity and technology is symbiotic. The interaction of technology with the environment may be positive as well as negative. The extraction of complex forms of matter from the Earth such as metals, chemicals and organic materials will continue as long as humanity foreseeably exists as a civilisation.
