Stephen Wheeler presenting on "Sustainability: Past Present & Future" at UC Berkeley

The concept of "sustainability" has been around for 40 years now, and has gone through multiple phases. Born within international environmental advocacy circles, it infiltrated the U.N. mainstream in the 1980s, was cautiously approached by professions such as urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture in the 1990s, and gained new urgency in the 2000s due to realization of the seriousness of global warming. Throughout this period, the term has been given different interpretations by different constituencies, and has been the subject of numerous attempts at cooptation. Although "sustainability" has survived to become a touchstone of contemporary consciousness, overall we are further than ever from this elusive goal. After considering the background of the sustainability concept, Prof. Wheeler will argue that the most fundamental issues behind this theme are not yet part of most discussions, and that the ecological consciousness that gave rise to the expression must be more fully embraced in order to make significant progress towards it.