ABSTRACT
As defined on the Circular Ecology website, sustainability is actually a composite of three different elements: economic sustainability, meaning the maintenance of an ongoing positive balance sheet between all aspects of production and consumption; environmental sustainability, meaning the conservation of natural resources; and social sustainability, or the ability of groups to manage their resources to produce a stable level of well-being. Often, discussions of sustainability focus on one or another of these elements and most often on the environmental ones, for which the evidence of imbalance is steadily mounting in the form of gradual temperature increases, sea level rises, and other effects of changing climate. Population growth mirrors the tensions within sustainability debate. Population growth correlates with sustainability concerns. Increasing population density connects to deforestation and soil erosion even in otherwise affluent countries; in poorer ones, it leads to food shortages that become acute during periodic droughts.
