ABSTRACT
A genuine ecological paradigm shift has occurred within three human generations. The consensus forged in the 1990s at Rio de Janeiro, when sustainable development became the shared target on the horizon, was then further reinforced in the 2000s by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Humanity’s ecological problems are numerous and serious. Optimists such as University of Maryland Business Professor Julian Simon contend that history reflects continuous human progress in health, environmental quality, safety, welfare, and standard of living. Optimists therefore predict that ingenious technological solutions will defeat our most vexing problems. Scholars therefore use metaphors to bring global ecology into sharper relief. Dennis Meadows’ simile of a lily pond provides another conceptual hook on which to hang the idea of global limits. The way Westerners conceive of humanity’s relationship with the environment has been challenged recently by another new mode of thought.
