Sustainability

This word gets a lot of press lately. It’s become a political platform, a raison de’tere for books, magazines, television shows, etc. But what does it mean?

Generally it implies the idea of modifying our current culture in such a way that it might not depend on fast depleting natural resources, might not produce such gratuitous waste, and might not destroy the environment in ever increasing ways. But generally, it also means to modify our culture as little as possible to reach these goals, to keep the status quo as much as possible.

As of July 1, 2008 the world human population was 6,706,993,000, with every sign indicating its steady rise will continue.

Can this number of human beings be sustainable with the status quo that we currently live by? Under any circumstances, can this population, and its continued rise, be sustainable?

When we speak of building factories which produce one third the waste, or cars which produce one tenth the pollution, or products which last twice as long, are we not just indulging our own egos? Soothing our own consciences?

If we truly mean to embrace the idea of sustainability, we must recognize that its biggest stumbling block is our tremendous population. The only numbers, the only fractional decreases, we should be concerned with are those concerning the number of living, breathing, consuming, waste creating human beings.

Imagine a world with one tenth, one twentieth, one hundredth the current population, and imagine how easy it would be to sustain this current “standard of living,” and to increase it.