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Science 12 December 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5652, pp. 1919 - 1920
DOI: 10.1126/science.1090001
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Viewpoint

New Visions for Addressing Sustainability

A. J. McMichael,1* C. D. Butler,1 Carl Folke2

Attaining sustainability will require concerted interactive efforts among disciplines, many of which have not yet recognized, and internalized, the relevance of environmental issues to their main intellectual discourse. The inability of key scientific disciplines to engage interactively is an obstacle to the actual attainment of sustainability. For example, in the list of Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 2002, the seventh of the eight goals, to "ensure environmental sustainability," is presented separately from the parallel goals of reducing fertility and poverty, improving gains in equity, improving material conditions, and enhancing population health. A more integrated and consilient approach to sustainability is urgently needed.

1 National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
2 Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tony.mcmichael{at}anu.edu.au

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