“Sustainability” has become
somewhat of a buzzword these
days. Like many popular movements,
its direction has been
steered by some who look to gain
from the movement. One need
only to walk through an Urban
Outfi tters location to see such
a process in action. There is no
doubt that some who are trying
to and will co-opt sustainability
and use its momentum to benefi t
themselves. Perhaps the idea of
sustainability is still somewhat
nebulous in the minds of some,
and because they don’t understand
it completely, they become
weary of it and reject it. An examination
of the word and our
history as a species may help us
to understand the philosophy behind
the movement.
To be sustainable is to be
able to endure. Travel back a
few thousand years to before the
advent of the catalytic converter,
the steam engine, or agriculture
to when humans were mainly
hunter-gathers. During that time
period humans were a nomadic
bunch, following herds and gathering
what they could from the
fl ora around them. Human populations
at this time were relatively
low, and we made a negligible
impact on Earth. We were engaged
in a sustainable relationship
with nature.
Time went forward. We
began to settle as we developed
agriculture and began to domesticate
animals. Early on, our forms
of agriculture and animal farming
were fairly sustainable. We planted
multiple crops which complemented
each other ecologically,
and we took advantage of the web
of life to produce our meat: Sun
and rain grow the grasses and legumes,
cows eat the grasses and
legumes, chickens clean up after
the cows, what’s leftover enhances
soil fertility, etc.
As time went on we strayed
from the natural order of symbiotic
relationships that nature
has developed so perfectly. We
began to monocrop, and manufacture
fertilizer with the use of
not solar energy, but the energy
from fi nite fossil fuels. This pattern
of straying from the natural
order continued with a few hints
of the environmental degradation
which could and would come: see
Cuyahoga River.
In time, we realized that the
Earth was not an inexhaustible
reservoir of resources for our use.
We began to set aside particularly
beautiful areas of the country as
protected areas. Soon we had a
vibrant national park system. We
began to see the effect man-made
pollution had on our water and air
so we enacted the Clean Air Act
and the Clean Water Act in the
1970s. We began to understand
the importance of maintaining a
diverse community of plant and
animal species, so we enacted the
Endangered Species Act.
These actions were all done
in recognition that our previous
way of life was not sustainable.
As scientifi c research continued
into the current century, we began
to notice other ways in which we
were living in an unsustainable
manner. We realized that fossil
fuels were fi nite, so we began to
invest in solar and wind energy.
We realized that the concentration
of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere
was increasing, which
leads to an enhanced greenhouse
effect. The list goes on.
The sustainability movement
is a popular movement whose
only goal is to improve the quality
of life on Earth for all of us.
It is easy to become shortsighted.
To see those who serve to gain
from the movement fi nancially
as the leaders and architects of
the movement would be ignorant
to the history of the movement.
Superfi cially, sustainability may
seem to inhibit our unbridled
growth as individuals and as a society.
We may not be able to cut
costs as easily, but what costs are
we cutting? Monetary costs, for
sure. But what costs do we subsequently
incur as a society when
we all ignore the effects of our
“cost cutting” measures on the
environment? It would certainly
be easier for General Electric, and
cheaper, to dispose of their toxic
waste directly into the Hudson
River-and that is precisely what
they did for a long time. Now
they and we have realized what
a fl awed decision that was, and
they are attempting to rid the river
of the contaminants that they released
into it.
Sustainability is a movement
built on the recognition of how
nature works, and that no matter
how much we may think we have
conquered nature, we will always
owe our success and failure as a
species to the environment that
we live in. If we destroy our environment,
we destroy ourselves.
This fact is what compels and
implores us to act to protect it.
To sustain it. To do so we must
understand the effects of our actions,
however small or seemingly
innocuous. There may be
times when we have to make sacrifi
ces in order to ensure the rich
biodiversity that is slowly eroding,
and to ensure a high quality
of life for as many as possible.
But we have made them before,
and there is no reason why we can
not continue to in our attempt to
live more harmoniously with the
world around us.