Rethinking a Sustainable Society Alan Mayne The world has already passed
the midway point for achieving by 2015 the eight Millennium Development
Goals for a "more peaceful, prosperous and just world" that were set by
the United Nations in the wake of its inspirational Millennium Dec- 1
laration in 2000. These goals range from combating poverty, hunger, and
disease, to empowering women, and ensuring environmental sustainability.
However Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, conceded in
2007 that progress to date has been mixed. During 2008 the head of the
United Nations World Food P- gramme cautioned that because of the surge
in world commodity prices the program had insuf?cient money to stave off
global malnutrition, and the World Health Or- nization warned of a
global crisis in water and sanitation. Depressing news accounts
accumulate about opportunities missed to achieve a fairer world order
and ecolo- calsustainability: themanipulationofelectionresultsinAfrica,
humanrightsabuses in China, 4000 Americans dead and another nation torn
apart by a senseless and protracted war in Iraq, and weasel words by the
world's political leadership in the lead-up to negotiations for a
climate change deal in 2009 that is supposed to stabilize global carbon
dioxide emissions. It is clear that the parameters of the debates that
drive progressive policy change urgently require repositioning and
energizing. As is shown by the contributors to Rethinking work and
learning, experts in the humanities and social sciences (HASS)
couldhaveanimportantroletoplayinthisprocess.