Science and Technology for Sustainable Development Special Feature: Long-term trends and a sustainability transition

摘要

How do long-term global trends affect a transition to sustainability? We emphasize the “multitrend” nature of 10 classes of trends, which makes them complex, contradictory, and often poorly understood. Each class includes trends that make a sustainability transition more feasible as well as trends that make it more difficult. Taken in their entirety, they serve as a checklist for the consideration of global trends that impact place-based sustainability studies.