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Sustainability and the Future of Humankind: Two Competing Theories of Infinite Substitutability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

John Cairns Jr.
John Cairns Jr.*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
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Abstract

Toward what kind of future is humankind now tending? Is human society engaged in a global gamble based on the assumption that technology, aided by human ingenuity and creativity, can remake the world and manage its resources for immediate material benefit to humanity without regard to natural law and the fate of other species? Infinite substitutability of species has been tested over evolutionary time, but infinite substitutability of resources is a relatively recent hypothesis based on a faith in human creativity and technological prowess. The choice made will affect both the future of human society and of many other species.

Type
The Future of Humankind
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 27 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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