We must now achieve, with some urgency, the Sustainability Transition. This will require more deliberate and strategic action than did the previous three transitions. Sustainability refers, crucially, to maintaining the biosphere s physical, biological and ecological systems. This Sustainability Transition will encompass radically new technologies, the replacement of consumption with use and recycling ,a redirection of social investment towards meeting human needs and community development, and a funda- mental commitment to global equity and shared responsibility. These changes should be pursued at all levels -international, national, community and personal.
Actions taken now can ensure both present improvements and future sustainability.
The rapid rise of information technology and biotechnology, if directed to socially and environmentally beneficial ends via societal modulation of commercial activity, holds great promise as part of the Sustainability Transition. Throughout this Transition, measures of human wellbeing and health will provide a central, integrating, ndex of how well we are managing our natural and social environments. One way in which scientists can approach this task is by reference to analogue situations that foreshadow aspects of global climate change. One such aspect ,foreseen by many climatologists, is an increase in the variability of regional climate patterns. Increasing the use of fossil fuels to provide energy will contribute to increases in air pollution and to global warming.