48 Ethics and Systems Thinking
manner it is possible to understand and present the ‘environmental concern’ as
either a concern of the state of the immediate system, or of the environmental
supra-system at large – but, and most significantly, only when that knowing (sub)
system reaches an epistemic state that supports such a construction!
Therein lies the challenge of engagement with the quest for environmental
sustainability and for the design of systems that are appropriately stable, resilient
and influential to that end. Therein also lies the foundations for the provocative
claim that all systemic acts of sustainable development in the material and social
worlds are quintessentially functions of the epistemic development of those actors
who need to critically engage with the issue. And the source of the provocative
claim that all acts of development in the context of systemic sustainability will
depend on the systemic appreciation (and thus epistemic development) of all of
those who need to act in those circumstances.
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