Sustainability is a holistic phenomenon.

Multi-faceted, multi-dimensional.

Some of its roots are long term, others mid term, yet others short term.

Green is the Colour of Sustainability but Sustainability is not just Green in the ‘environmental’ sense.

Using the method of reductio ad absurdum (see:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum ) a Green Planet with socio-economic conditions that trigger classical political/religious conflicts can end up nuking itself.

But it is not an absurd notion - we are not that far off if we look at current world affairs.

One belligerent slip, based on a political or religious notion, can bring about a disaster on the scale of that which wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth.

A ‘dirty’ nuclear device explosion in a world city will make Lehmann Brothers 2008 pale so much into insignificance that it will barely be noted in post-Apocalypse history – if indeed there will be a post-Apocalypse era for the human species.

The point is that Sustainability is a combination of a myriad of factors, and subject to the Butterfly Effect.

It was one arrogant slap too many by a Tunisian policewoman on a distraught male street vendor that sparked the Arab Revolutions of 2011.

Humiliated once too often, he torched himself.

Gaddafi himself ended up hiding in a sewer, and was lynched by the Libyan revolutionaries – by some accounts he was even sodomised, which must be the ultimate humiliation for the males of this Great Apes species, i.e. us humans.

(After all that is how we serve up ‘justice’ in South Africa – we turn a blind eye to the worst of human right abuses in our prisons, on a subconscious collective basis that it no doubt ‘serves them [the law breakers] right’. Then we enter places of worship and pray to our respective gods. The problem with this is that we throw the non-violent (the majority of law breakers) among the violent to be preyed upon. Another factor impeding Sustainability!)

For Gaddafi it must have been the most incredulous moment of his life, beaten, sodomised.

The above is only to illustrate that human conflict is a super factor in impeding Sustainability.

But Lehmann Brothers is not insignificant either.

Within that phenomenon is interest.

Interest can be benign, in small doses, but it can quickly spread like the most vicious of cancers when it becomes malignant.

It is almost like sunlight: we need sunlight, even on our skins, but in moderation only.

In excess it will increase our chances for the worst of cancers, skin cancers like melanomas.

Ironically, the wealthy of course have less need for credit, if ever. And when they do it will be at the most attractive rates.

The middle class, trapped in its ‘self respect’ struggles becomes the ‘sucker’ class, the ham in the sandwich.

Young males of the human species seeking to compete sexually strive for the trappings of success, anxious to acquire the symbols that will favour them in attracting the female of the species.

It gets worse in the state of marriage.

Households then compete against each other in the "Keeping Up With The Jones" game, and anxious husbands seek to ensure that they do not lose the favours of their wives to other successful males on the prowl.

After all we only separated from Gorillas ten million years ago, and from Chimpanzees only six million years ago.

We may as well call it as it is, without pretences, still apes even if we aspire to greater notions.

The point is that Interest feeds off the human life struggle.

It was a major issue over the many millennia of civilization.

All religions and cultures have in some way or another sought to address it.

In the lower classes, and deeper still among the poorest, Interest reaches absurd levels.

Usury is common, if not legal, then in practice.

In a sense, it is mercifully quick, the disease down there among the poor.

At the most it is a few miserable possessions, a shack and some furniture, that will go.

The upside is that Restart is quick – if you still have a life, and you can disappear into the masses.

But for the middle classes it is as slow and painful as cancer.

Over the course of a lifetime of work, say 40 years, a monetary unit of credit at 1% above the inflation rate, compounded, will grow to almost 1.5.

That means that you pay back, in real terms, an extra 50%.

Or that for half the time that you worked to pay it back you worked for someone else.

For half of that time you were a – slave!

The best of this trap is that you were not even aware that you were a slave.

Since you probably paid about a quarter what you earned in taxes, your de facto non-slave time is reduced to about 25%.
(By the way Mitt Romney, USA presidential contender for the G.O.P, one of the elite, legally paid less than 15% taxes in the past two years).

Taxes are inescapable, but better a 25% slave than a 75% slave.

There is no escaping the need for credit.

Survival paradoxically requires being a Slave to Life, for Life.

But credit is the Destroyer of middle class families, it spawns domestic strife, and the broken families members are spewed out into society.

Whether they contribute positively or negatively thereafter is a random outcome.

For those trapped in the illusion of the middle classes, credit is the drug that can destroy you if you allow it its way.

At most you need food, shelter, adequate medical cover and education - plus a safe form of transport if you live in areas where public transport is life threatening.

Teach your children well, teach them to not be chimpanzees!