Sustainability—What is it?
By Katherine Hannigan, author of Ida B . . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World
People have used a variety of terms to describe our connectedness to each other and the world around us—ecology, human ecology, and environmental awareness are just a few. “Sustainability” is the prevalent term right now. But what is it? Here are a couple of definitions that may seem a bit technical, but they’re a start:
“Sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (from Our Common Future, UN World Commission on Environment and Development)
“The practice of sustainability is about creating ways to live and prosper while ensuring an equitable, healthy future for all people and the planet.” (The Natural Step)
Still not much clearer? It took me some reading and looking at websites before I started to catch on. And I’m still learning. Here are some basics, though:
Lots of people are concerned with the way we’re using resources and treating the environment and, ultimately, each other. They know that we’re acting in ways that don’t support our own health, the health of the planet, and, in particular, the health and survival of future generations of people and other species. These people (including me) are aware that we’re using natural ‘resources’ faster than they’re created by the earth, we’ve got the global warming thing going on (which is disrupting habitats, crop-growing cycles, and even destroying coral reefs), water pollution (it’s unsafe to eat the fish from lakes and streams in 28 of our 50 states because of mercury poisoning), air pollution (more than half of American families—over 160 million people—live in places where air quality is below federal standards). And we have millions of people in this world who can’t support themselves given the resources available. Then there’s the future—it doesn’t get better, and it only gets worse, unless we make changes.
Shoot. Yikes. I’d rather go read a good book, too.
Okay, try this on for size, instead—it’s how I look at the way things work, and how I can help them work better:
I need air (and clean air, at that), water (clean again), healthy soil, food, fuel, and a few other essentials just to survive. Basically, I need a healthy earth if I want to go on living. In order for the earth to be healthy, though, it needs human creatures to nourish it and to not muck it up with toxins and non-biodegradable waste. The earth is dependent on the lives of millions of other species of plants and animals to stay healthy, too. For example, trees and green plants produce the oxygen we and other animals need to breathe. There are plants and animals that actually clean the water, insects that pollinate plants so we have food, birds and bats that eat the bugs that bite us. We’re all connected, sometimes in ways we can’t detect or duplicate with the most advanced technology. So, to go on living, and being healthy, I need to respect my connectedness to all of those other species, and do whatever I can to keep the earth healthy.
For me, there’s one more part to this, another motivation for acting sustainably: I love being outside. I love being on a river, in a lake, in the woods, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees, the calls of birds I don’t know, finding wild turkey tracks in the snow or a fox hole in a rise. I want those things to remain. I don’t want to lose them. So I’m even more interested in preserving habitats and environments, and reconsidering what some people describe as “progress”.
That’s it. Pretty simple. What can get tricky, and require creativity, is how we go about doing whatever we can to keep the earth healthy. The great part is that the changes we need to make involve doing good things for ourselves (and the planet), and making life simpler and more fun (at least I think it’s more fun). The two questions below are what I ask myself pretty regularly, and they keep me on track with acting “sustainably”:
How do I live in a way that keeps the earth (including people) healthy, or returns the earth (including people) to health? How do I live in a way that respects the connectedness, and the interdependence, of the all of this plantet’s inhabitants?
You might find some ideas for living more sustainably that suit you on the “What You Can Do,” “How I Live,” or “Resources” pages, but I bet you’ll come up with some original and incredible answers yourself.
Whatever you decide to do, I hope you enjoy it, that you know you’re making the world a better place for all of us, and thank you for helping out. If you have time, let me know what you did and how it worked out. I’d love to hear other people’s ideas, successes, and stories, and share them here.
Write to me at:
Katherine Hannigan
c/o Greenwillow Books
HarperCollins Publishing
1350 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York10019