Summary

Incremental improvement and reacting to problems as they arise is no strategy for success in the face of a fundamental sustainability challenge. A universal and intuitive definition of sustainability at the core of cultural consciousness is necessary to ensuring resilience, but it must be defined negatively by the identification of natural constraints within which society must operate. Only mainstream confrontation with the possibility of failing to meet the global sustainability challenge, and widespread contemplation of the implications of such a failure can ensure the development and fundamental incorporation of such a definition.