Is the non-principle of “sustainability” about to collapse under the weight of its own mushy contradictions? News this week from the seemingly unrelated areas of biofuels and health policy provide some hope. Sustainability has been smuggled into the policy lexicon as an Orwellian dumber-down of debate. Who would promote unsustainability? It has become the weasel word and policy tic of our time. Corporate chieftains, politicians, consultants and public intellectuals all bow the knee before this founding concept of environmental Newspeak. Its origins as a subversive political principle lay in the United Nations’ Brundtland report, which coined “sustainable development” as a...