Introduction to Sustainable Development

  Characteristics of SD Thinking

Long-term View

How long is long term? In Western society during the past generation, most official long-term planning has been at most three to five years. Many international stock and currency traders now think of a few weeks as long term. Traditional Native American governance, however, focused on planning for "the seventh generation today." Goals and activities are designed with consideration for their impact on seven generations into the future, ¹ leading to a planning horizon of roughly 150 years.

A planning horizon somewhere in the middle may be both necessary and realistic. Some experts have suggested that as long as each generation looks after the next—roughly 50 years—each succeeding generation will be taken care of. ² Of course, if an effect in the yet further future is foreseen, then it too can be taken into account. No generation can be expected to guarantee results it cannot foresee; but equally, none should be allowed to ignore those it can.

People from around the world are looking ahead and building scenarios about what the future may be like. The scenarios they envision range from a world of resource scarcity and violence to one of increased sharing and technological innovation. Which scenario is most likely to occur? No one is certain.

In an interdependent world, complex interactions are leading to a startlingly high rate of innovation and change. In times of rapid change, the precautionary principle can provide some guidance. It states that when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. ³

1. Linda Clarkson, Vern Morrissette, and Gabriel Regallet, Our responsibility to the seventh generation: Indigenous peoples and sustainable development, Winnipeg: IISD, 1992. p. 4.

2. Michael Jacobs, The green economy: Environment, sustainable development and the politics of the future, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1991, p. 73.

3.Science and Environmental Health Network. "The precautionary principle: A fact sheet." The Networker: The Newsletter of the Science and Environmental Health Network. March 1998- Volume 3, #1.