Success in addressing environment, sustainability and climatic challenges requires accurate and consistent definition of Terms or Catchphrases deployed including their Principles and Goals. This is necessary to prevent ineffective and piece-meal approach to tackle challenges of the 21st Century including the inadvertent adoption of tunnel-visionary, cost-ineffective practices and maladaptation strategies. Definitions good for Greenwashing Agenda must be avoided and so are the feel-good mottos, tag lines, policies or statements.
Sustainable Development is a Whole-System and Holistic Approach to Development that galvanises the Green Strategy to maintain Economic Resiliency for National Prosperity and Societal Well-Being via the deployment of the Nature and ScienceBased Solutions, Emerging Technologies, Innovation and Sound Economic Instruments with a balanced consideration of Intra and Inter-Generational Interest, Nature- Capital Protection, Regeneration of Built Capital and a Target Oriented NetZero Future.
A Whole-System Approach recognizes the importance of a Holistic and Sustainable solution of a system from its wholeness and interconnected perspective and that all its sub-systems are being considered to reveal their potential synergistic, additive, antagonistic and trade-off interactions thus allowing the generation of accurate data for an effective evidence-based decisionmaking process.
Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) recognize nature's genius and innate benefits and via a suite of science and nature positive actions, protect, restore, manage and regenerate the resiliency and ability of the natural ecosystems and services, thus in doing so, help to solve societal, ecological and climatic challenges as well as attaining a Sustainable and Net-Zero Future.
Net-Zero Future seeks to establish science and nature-based climate positive targets and safe balance of greenhouse gases between anthropogenic emissions and removal or sequestration thereof the equivalent amount from the atmosphere on timescales that allow the maintenance of a planetary-safe operating space and earth regenerative capacity and resiliency that are conducive to human-sustainable habitation.
Resiliency seeks to address a normalcy disruptive problem from a whole system and future-proofing perspective by adopting an integrated approach or process to acquire the necessary capability to withstand, mitigate, manage, recover, restore and adapt including bounce back to its original state of normalcy or bounce forward to such new state of normalcy where the original state of normalcy is no longer appropriate, relevant or beneficial.
Singularity is a point in time in the future where an Artificial Intelligence or Agent created by humans have acquired the necessary capability to undergo selfawareness or self- improvement, or selfmodification to achieve the level of intelligence that surpasses that of the humans that can either positively or negatively alter humanity future.
Copyright ©️Francis C. W. Wong
