The higher the society sets its targets for material standard of living, the greater its risk of exceeding and eroding its limits. Putting off the reduction of throughputs and the transition to sustainability means diminishing the options of future generations at best, and precipitating a collapse at worst. There is no time to wait for unmistakable signals, recognizable by everyone everywhere, that force an end to growth. Given the delays in the system, by the time those signals appear, it will be too late to avoid collapse. There is no time to waste, and there is also no reason to waste time.
Sustainability is a new idea to many people.
It may be difficult to understand. But all over the world there are people who have entered into the exercise of imagining a sustainable world. They can see it as a world to move toward not reluctantly, not with a sense of sacrifice or regret, but joyfully. It could be a very much better world than the one we live in today.