Written By: Jonas Burke
What does Sustainability mean?
All too often politicians, scientists, and environmentalists throw around the word sustainability, without an agreed upon definition. Sustainability is a hard word to pin and define but the failure to produce a good working definition of sustainability is responsible for a great deal of confusion. Therefor it is worthwhile for us to set out as to define sustainability.
One classical definition of sustainability is having the capacity to maintain a certain rate or level. To put it simply this definition of sustainability is related to the capacity of a certain species to endure. I however favor a different definition –to me sustainability is not a noun, but a verb. Sustainability is the act of conserving an ecological balance by avoiding the depletion of natural resources and thus ensuring the overall health of planet earth. Our fossil-fuel based energy consumption combined with our rampant throw-away consumerism has sickened our planet. To ensure the continuation of our species –and all others as well—we must all become more sustainable.
It would be easy if there was a technological solution to our current predicament, but simply increasing technological efficiency is “Band-Aid cure”. The immensity of challenges poised by climate change requires social innovation as well as technological. A change must occur between how an individual view’s his or her own role within the larger ecosystem –put simply we must re-evaluate our relationship with nature. I do not delude myself that a large-scale change to our social paradigm is a difficult task –but it is difficult not impossible.
Sustainability implies that we are trying to sustain something, but I think different competing factions have not agreed on what it is we are sustaining. Thus, it is important to begin a philosophical dialogue and by doing so identify the goals of the new environmentalist movement.