Understanding and achieving sustainable systems through contingency planning and education

In the last decade of the 20th Century, there are indications that people who will live in the 21st Century, more than those of any previous century, may have to contend with conditions that threaten some forms of life on the planet and hence the conditions for human survival. For more than two centuries, the human population has increased exponentially and an increasing number of people have raised their levels of consumption far beyond subsistence level. These two conditions have placed colossal demands on the natural environment which has already become degraded and polluted. Concerned scientists and their supporters have begun to doubt whether sustainable systems can be designed and implemented so that future generations can survive.