If there is one thing that I have learned about sustainability in the past year, it is that it is not by accident that the theme is on the agenda now. The ‘now’ in this last sentence does not refer to this specific year (although there are plenty of good reasons to think about sustainability in 2005). Rather, it refers to the current era, a now in sustainable context, so to speak.
The discussion about sustainability probably started in the 1970’s with the report of the ‘Club of
Rome’. It put a lot of people to think about sustainability, but it also triggered doubt and resistance. And maybe that doubt and resistance was not so much about the ‘limits to growth’, but more so about the limits of the dream of the Enlightment: that we as humans can take charge of our future, and spape it. It is not a dream that can be limited easily.