Communityn Essay: Speaking of sustainability: the potential of metaphor

• Main Author: Thomas Princen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2010-10-01
• Series: Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy
• Subjects: communication; culture (human); social behavior; ecosystem sustainability; world problems
• Online Access: http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol6iss2/communityessay.princen.html

This essay explores how, through metaphor, pro-ponents of sustainable consumption can shift from a worldview that is linear, mechanistic, reductionist, expansionist, and consumerist to one that is cyclic, organic, complex, constrained and, shall we say, productive or self-generating.