Issues Facing the South
Sustainability
"Sustainable" is a word that is used a lot, because it sounds good. However, much of the time, it is being misused as a meaningless sound bite. Sustainability is all about finding a balance where a good standard of living can be maintained forever – an equilibrium where everything coexists in such a way that there are no more threats of resources running out because they are being used in a sustainable way. Nothing could be less sustainable than the proposed mass-building programme that the government intends to thrust upon us, yet the word appears countless times in the planning documentation.
Probably the fundamental factor with sustainability is population. Unless a stable population size can be established it is very difficult to balance anything else. Currently our population is growing and there is no population policy. Unfortunately, sustainability and "economic growth" cannot truly coexist either. A good example of this is the air travel industry. We know that in 100 years time or so, there will be next to no oil left (and planes can’t fly without fuel, unfortunately), yet we are still proposing that airports across the land be expanded so that the number of flights can treble in the next twenty years...