• DOI:10.1080/15487733.2005.11907966
• Corpus ID: 154526333

Sustainability science – and what’s needed beyond science

@article{Reitan2005SustainabilityS,
  title={Sustainability science – and what’s needed beyond science},
  author={Paul H. Reitan},
  journal={Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy},
  year={2005},
  volume={1},
  pages={77 - 80}
}

• P. Reitan
• Published 1 April 2005
• Political Science
• Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

Abstract Why would anyone write outside of their field of certified expertise? Why would an author venture beyond known and “safe” disciplinary boundaries? I do, of course, think beyond “safe” boundaries and I have ideas that I want to discuss with others. For many years I “stretched” my environmental science students to consider the necessarily uncertain long-term implications of the science and some of the associated moral issues. I have also begun to try to stretch – just a little – the traditional boundaries of the sessions at meetings of the Geological Society of America (GSA), and for several years have shared my concerns about the potential of successfully sustainable future with a stimulating group of colleagues in the Critical Issues Caucus of GSA. Today, I write this essay for Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policyto stretch my thinking yet further to new readers in hopes of pushing them to think hard about the value of looking for solutions to environmental problems in links among seemingly disparate fields. And also, in truth, as a grandfather, I worry about the world my grandson will have to live in, and that motivates me to take the risk in the hope that what I write might constructively contribute – just a little – to a future I’ll not see.