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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Building a sustainable society

Book ·
OSTI ID:5513682

Mr. Brown feels the world needs a land ethic to guide resource planning and an ecological theology to serve as custodian over the thinning topsoil, spreading desert, and growing population. In a sustainable society, durability and recycling replace obsolescence as the economy's organizing principle, and virgin materials are seen not as a primary source of material but as a supplement to the existing stock. The key to national security is sustainability. If the biological underpinnings of the global economic system cannot be secured, and if new energy sources and systems are not in place as the oil wells go dry, then economic disruptions and breakdowns are inevitable. In effect, the traditional military concept of national security grows less adequate in the face of growing non-military threats. 154 notes and references, 6 figures, 41 tables.

OSTI ID:
5513682
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English