Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Science; Present Address: Institute for Ecological Economics, P.O.Box 38, Solomons, MD 20688, USAe-mail: voiniv@cbl.cees.edu

Abstract

Some problems and controversies of sustainability are treated within the fra-mework of system analysis. It seems difficult to reconcile the concept of sus-tainability with such system categories as hierarchy and cycling.