About the Book

The Nature of Sustainability is intended:

  1.      to make the case that a number of important systems, structures, and institutions are no longer working well, and that we cannot fix them with the same mindset that created them.
  2.      to show that at its core all sustainability is based on physics, but that our more complicated systems surpass the predictive limits of physics, meaning that many systems that are designed according only to logic are bound for failure.
  3.      to show that there is a higher order of sustainability patterning at work in nature, and that these patterns can be observed, distilled, and applied to human contexts.
  4.      to provide steps that allow anybody to carefully evaluate or design any complex human system, structure, or institution—based on the physics of sustainability and nature’s sustainability patterns.

The sustainability principles and design processes can be applied at potentially any scale and to an unlimited number of situations, including large or small corporations, economies, communities, governments, politics, laws and legal systems, traditions, cultures, sports teams, schools, clubs, families, health care systems, infrastructure, the environment, etc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I:  NOTES FROM THE SIXTH GENERATION
•Ÿ     Introduction
    Chapter 1 Our New Lives
    Chapter 2 Why is this Happening?
    Chapter 3 Sources of the Problems
    Chapter 4 Solving the Problems
PART II:  THE PHYSICS OF SUSTAINABILITY
    Chapter 5 Introducing Functionality and Sustainability
         5.1 A Superball Example
          5.2 A Glacier Example
         5.3 Definitions of Functionality and Sustainability
         5.4 More with the Superball
         5.5 Feedback Loops
         5.6 Independent Forces
          5.7 A Watermill Example
          5.8 Introducing Complex Systems
          5.9 Compatibility
         5.10 Compatibility of the Waterwheel
         5.11 A Village School Example
         5.12 The Village School Example, continued
         5.13 Discussion: Designing a Village School and Complex System Analysis
PART III:  NATURAL SYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY
    Chapter 6 Natural Systems
         6.1 Translation to Complex Human Systems
    Chapter 7 Dynamics and Hierarchy
    Chapter 8 Dependence and Interdependence
    Chapter 9 Income, Wealth, and Waste
    Chapter 10 Competition, Cooperation, and Succession
    Chapter 11 Time
    Chapter 12 Group Decision Making
    Chapter 13 Expression, Protections, and Group Formation
    Chapter 14 Government
    Chapter 15 Resilience
    Chapter 16 Diversity
    Chapter 17 Innovation and Management
PART IV:  APPLICATION
    Chapter 18 Return to the Village School
         18.1 Pattern Review
         18.2 Sustainability Profiles for the Alternatives
         18.3 Sustainability Pattern Application Summary
          322 Total pages