Abstract
A broader concept of sustainability was introduced. Ted Heintz introduced the concept of sustainability as a life sustaining property of earth’s biosphere. Ted observed that Life in a wide variety of forms, interacting in networks of evolving relationships, has been sustained for nearly 4 billion years. Sustainability is a property of the system as a whole, a result of the structure of the relationships among its elements and processes, hence an emergent property that is different from the characteristics of the system’s elements. Clearly this awesome and miraculous achievement must be our primary model of sustainability. While in recent times global discourse on sustainability as a societal goal is emerging, sustainability needs to arise as an emergent property of human cultures just as it arose as an emergent property of the biosphere.
Parent Publication
Keywords
monitoring,
assessment,
sustainability,
Western Hemisphere,
sustainable management,
ecosystem resources,
assessment and management applications,
Ted Heintz
Citation
Abee, Albert. 2006. Using Information and Knowledge Required In Assessment and Management Applications for Sustainability. In: Aguirre-Bravo, C.; Pellicane, Patrick J.; Burns, Denver P.; and Draggan, Sidney, Eds. 2006. Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium: Unifying Knowledge for Sustainability in the Western Hemisphere Proceedings RMRS-P-42CD. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 954-955