[Bowman]

It seems rather perverse that the issue of sustainabilty should ever arise because it defies all logic, common sense, and instinct that unsustainability should be in any way acceptable.

I'm starting to think that isolating some of the problems we face as a global civilization is misleading and actually unhelpful, issues such as global warming, peak oil, destruction of the rain forests, HIV/aids, the war on terror, globalization, etc. While each should have a place in our every day consciousness, sustainability needs to be as instinctive as breathing and needs to be the single most important consideration in everything we do, as individuals, as families, as local communities, at regional, national, and continental, and global level.

There is much more talk of sustainability in the press, especially over the last year, yet the word is always linked to some other issue be it environmental, business, energy etc. I don't recall an article or analysis in the press or media, much less from any politician that addresses sustainability as a value that should be central to every aspect of human activity.

Sustainability needs to be promoted from an epithet to a centralised standard against which everything is judged. So that, I guess, is the challenge and I do believe it will in some quarters at least be met within the next ten years.