Sustainability

Sustainability. Global Climate Change. Work on sustainability, and global climate change is included. Sustainability means living, as individuals and as a nation, on a pay-as-you-go basis, having a small foot print, not taking more out of the planet than we put back. Yes, ‘put back’, all that coal, oil, soil. How long can we continue to extract all of that before the planet is irreperably harmed? One generation, two, three? Forever? There are many unthinking, selfish individuals and groups that actually think we can go on as we are, extracting ever more, as China, India, Korea, Brazil and all the other rapidly growing nations seek and achieve their versions of the American Dream, more cars, more paved over land, more people, more consumption. How sustainable is this? One generation, two, three? Forever?

Technology. Technology will save us. Science and technology will find new and better ways so we can keep on living as we are. Science and technology will help, no question, but at best, they will only buy us time. With all our science and technology, the rate of extraction continues to soar. How sustainable is this? One generation, two, three? Forever?

The good life, the American Dream, what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives are psycho-social constructs – thoughts, ideas, feelings, not physical facts. We can change our psycho-social constructs, we can not change the physical fact of our soaring depletion of the planet. We can develop psycho-social constructs that value sustainability. We can develop psycho-social constructs that value the preservation of our beautiful, one-of-a-kind, blue-green world, more than we value the next version of Ipod. We can redefine what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives. Can’t we?

Where will we go when the planet can no longer sustain us, when the oceans are all fished out, the forests are gone, we can’t grow enough food, can’t generate enough electricity, or its too hot or cold to go out; when civilization has broken down because of these failures and there’s no law and its really a dog-eat-dog world with every man for himself? Most mainstream science tells us the planet is dying now and may be beyond repair. We can redefine what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives. Can’t we? Difficult as that is to do, it’s the easiest more intelligent thing to do, isn’t it?