Thinking in Terms of System Hierarchies and Velocites. What makes Development Sustainable?

Abstract

In order to understand the context for sustainable development policies it is necessary to understand how different rates of evolution and velocities of change within social and ecological systems affect interactions between and the co-evolution of those systems. Sustainable development policies will bear fruit only when we can discuss sustainable development not only of separate interdependent or nested systems in a global hierarchy, but also in relation to their widely varying, but interrelated rates and courses of development and evolution.