The reality is that what surrounds the issue of sustainable development is not so much a question of balance, but one of hard choices. Based on a future-oriented research project conducted more than a decade ago involving nine different societies in Europe, Asia, and North America, we identified six ethical questions that had both local and global implications. Embedded in these questions are some of the hard choices that need to be made:

1. What should be done in order to promote equity and fairness within and among societies?
2. What should be the balance between the right to privacy and free and open access to information in information-based societies?
3. What should be the balance between protecting the environment and meeting human needs?
4. What should be done to cope with population growth, genetic engineering, and children in poverty?
5. What should be done to develop shared (universal, global) values while respecting local values?
6. What should be done to secure an ethically based distribution of power for deciding policy and action on the above issues?

(Parker, Grossman, Kubow, Kurth-Schai, & Nakayama, S., 2000, p. 153).

Though some may want to add to this list in the light of more recent history, it seems to be that this type of list has the potential to provide an interesting framework for continuing the discourse about sustainable human development and its relationship to multiple dimensions.