Reply #31: It's a rather simple definition.

[joshcryer]

For me it is simply social equality, equal access to resources, equal access to things of nature. I think one reason the world is falling apart environmentally is that we don't allow for this equal, fair, sharing of planetary resources. This is directly the result of exploitation.

The planet is fully capable of coexisting with us, we don't have to destroy it for our species to thrive at the level of luxuries we've come to take for granted. We must simply stop wasting its resources in ways that prevent the planet from recycling our waste in ecological time frames.

For instance, industrial geoagriculture is a wasteful, unequal process. Only a few large congolmerates feed the world. Around a few million people. They synthesize nitrate fertalizers from natural gas deposits. They drain large aquifers. Those at the bottom of the scale only receive the grain. They don't touch the aquifers, some of the best water you will ever drink comes from the great midwest aquifer, some of that water is quite ancient. Natural gas has few uses, except for maybe heating. But even that is best done with thermally efficient housing.

Waste and pollution is the cornerstone of inequality, imo.