Introduction

Trying to get mature adults to agree on a concrete definition of “sustainability” is by far one of the most difficult jobs. Although various organizations and thought leaders have tried their best to explore, analyze and reduce it to a precise meaning without success, there seems to be a common thread of environment, society and economy that runs through them all. Northwest Environment Watch, a Seattle-based nonprofit research and communication center, has, in my opinion, come up with a definition that is by far the most accurate. He said that sustainability is “an economy and a way of life in which both people and nature flourish, a culture that can endure.” Executive Order 00-07, signed by Gov. John Kitzhaber of the State of Oregon, in May 2000 says that, “Sustainability means using, developing, and protecting resources at a rate and in a way that enables people to meet their current needs and also enables future generations to meet their needs.” own needs.” .” It also goes a step further by saying that “sustainability requires simultaneously meeting environmental, economic, and community needs.” This again almost correlates with the Northwest Environment Watch post. Let us now venture to explore three of the most critical influencers and Let’s discuss their roles in achieving the goal of sustainability.

World population growth

Agenda 21, The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet. (Sitarz 1993) explains very well the relationship between population growth and the environmental health of the planet: “The spiraling growth of the world population fuels the growth of global production and consumption. The rapidly increasing demands for natural resources , employment, education and social services do Any attempt to protect natural resources and improve living standards is very difficult. There is an immediate need to develop strategies aimed at controlling the growth of the world population”. (p. 44)

Scientists, for a long time, have been emphasizing that the Earth, if we believe in the fact that it is a spherical surface, does have a capacity and a limit to which it can transport or support. The Population of the planet, increasing by leaps and bounds, will soon lead to a full utilization of the World’s Natural Resources which are being depleted. As May (May 1993) observes: “…the scale and scope of human activities have grown, for the first time, to rival the natural processes that built the biosphere and maintain it as a place where life can flourish. Many facts attest to this statement. It is that somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of the earth’s primary productivity, from the photosynthesis of plants on land and in the sea, is now appropriated for human use. “. This really is cause for alarm. If we continue population growth at the current rate, we would be in a situation where Sustainability would be a myth. Therefore, at no time should population growth be considered in isolation. Its growth in relation to the depletion of Natural Resources on the planet is what increases concern.

Credible Governments, Associations and Individuals have continually met and expressed opinions that “something” must be done to “save life and the planet”. Global Warming has been a topic on an agenda, in almost all the summits. But all that came out of the discussions and so-called “action plans” are vague terms like “we need to control the population.” It has never moved toward action steps to actually stop population growth. The Report called Agenda 21, The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet, under the title of “National Population Policies” states that: “All nations must fully understand the long-term consequences of human population growth They must quickly formulate and implement appropriate programs to deal with the inevitable increase in population.” (p. 45). Surprisingly, such reports continually contradict each other. First, they don’t lay out concrete steps to stop growth, even as they minimize the total problem at hand. On the one hand, they say that there is an immediate need to “control” population growth in order to achieve the goal of sustainability. With the same breath they point out that population growth is “inevitable.” So when they believe that Population Growth is inevitable after all, their claim to take “appropriate measures” to slow or Control Population growth makes Sustainability sound like an oxymoron. It is not like this?

consumer oriented lifestyle

In light of the definitions of Sustainability stated above, consumer-oriented lifestyle is best analyzed through a Social Practices Approach to the Environment. We have been blaming a growing population for an environmental crisis towards underdeveloped and developing nations until now. Aside from the fact that our homeland is not a lesser evil in this regard either, there is a larger issue of our consumption-oriented lifestyle that is contributing substantially to killing existing natural resources and has become a major issue that needs to be addressed. to achieve the goal of sustainability.

According to Professor Dr. gonna. G. Saracen in his Social Practices Approach to Environmental Policymaking; theory, methodology and policy development for sustainable household consumption, “The Social Practices Approach offers an integrative model to analyze and understand transitions towards sustainable consumption at the level of everyday life”. He also says that individual consumers “make ‘cases’ regarding the environmental dimension of their lifestyles and lend legitimacy and rationality to the choices they make in different segments of their lifestyles.” The three major consumption needs of an individual in a society, namely home and maintenance, food consumption, travel and transportation, have led to rapid urbanization and housing construction, increased vehicle and road construction, preparation of food and factory construction. As you can see, a consumer-oriented approach is directly proportional to industrialization, which in turn directly affects the environment with the depletion of natural resources. When the need of the day is to rapidly increase Agricultural Opportunities to counteract the depletion of the Natural Assets of the Environment, is not a Consumer Oriented Lifestyle with its need for sustenance a contradiction to achieving the goal of sustainability?

Management

The last topic we would explore is the role of stewardship. Sustainability is no longer an individual issue or problem. Although the life of every individual on this planet is affected, the magnitude of the problem is so vast that no department or government can be held responsible. It is a global problem and must be tackled collectively. The neglect up to now of assigning direct responsibility has been one of the biggest problems of not acting in the direction of reaching the goal. Therefore, each individual, each government, each organization or association body, and each educational institution has to be responsible, to take measures to reach the goal of sustainability.

With that said, the second aspect of stewardship that needs to be addressed is “who leads?” We in the United States, being the most developed, have a direct role in guiding the world towards the goal. As they say, the best way to lead is by example. “Our own country is the number one polluter on Earth and generates more greenhouse gases, especially CO2, than any other country. Not a word, but through binding action, our nation has an inescapable moral duty to lead the way toward solutions.” genuinely effective. We … urge our government to change national policy so that the United States begins to alleviate, not increase, the burdens on our biosphere and their effect on the people of the planet.” (Joint Religion and Science Appeal for the Environment “‘MISSION TO WASHINGTON’ STATEMENT” Washington, DC, May 12, 1992) What action steps have we actually taken since then?

conclusion

Bottom line: The word “sustainability” has been continually used so loosely. If it is a sustained effort to cure today for a better tomorrow, what have we done for the immediate present? Every outcome of a meeting, every conclusion of a summit, has been filled with the redundant use of vague terminologies like “efforts will be made”, “control will be exercised”, “population growth reduction”, etc. It has been interspersed with blame games. But no one has ever deliberately answered the specific question of “How”? It is about time we did this, unless all of us alive today, all governments in power and all responsible organizations wish to be held accountable for the total extinction of the human species on earth.