<b>Physical and historical dynamics in sustainable development

Abstract

The Earth has a long natural history, marked by a short social history. Without temporal differentiation, society´s rhythm in the production of nature resulted in an environmental crisis in the Twentieth Century, which triggered the notion of sustainable development. Current international proposal aims at alternative models of production and consumption of natural resources, solely focused on society´s time without considering nature´s time. Thus, sustainable development requires the distinction between natural and social times. The physical time of natural dynamics contains the periodic rhythm of phenomena on a larger time scale, while the historical time of social dynamics, the events´ aperiodic rhythm, on a smaller time scale. In current globalization of the capitalist mode of production, historical time is unidirectional to physical time, with results of the localized and differential increase of impacts in the short term and of the likely inability of nature´s support in the long one.