8/14/2019 Sustainability Essay ~ Fred First / July 2009

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Sustaining the Power of Language for Change 

New words or phrases we hear clearly. ey gain our attention, rising in the radar of common language and conversation. Again and again on the news and at the localcoff ee house we hear them, and they are for a while the buzz.

But then, exploited and hyped and marketed and morphed into jingles to sell ussomething, we take note of them less and less and the thrill is gone: we see mouthsmoving but no longer is the volume at audible levels for the words to reach thethinking parts of our brains.

Sustainable and sustainability are words I would not want to grow weak and empty in this way. I find them arising often in what I read and think about. In the vastbreadth of their meanings, they are words like just or justice. ey have greatportent for our day and we hear them often, but they suff er from having anenormous circumference and they lack adequate single-word replacements.

I don’t want to give up the power for change that the word sustainability holds, so Ihave been turning it in the light to see its facets, to bring its hope and promise fortomorrow back into the meld of meaningful discussion--with others and with myself.

In its frequency of use in our commonlanguage, the term is newly popular. Inbiology class, it is well worn. In the

operation of organisms and organicsystems--habitats, ecosystems andbiomes--sustainability has been part of  what defines their continued existence.

In the same way that death is easier todefine than life, “un-sustainable” isperhaps easier to understand than itscounterpart, and examples are easy tofind: A body without enough calories or water over a span of time is unsustainable asis an animal population that exceeds the carrying capacity of its accessible range.

 A civilization (and the history books are full of them) that is overtaken by prolongedheat or cold, drought, flood or soil loss becomes unsustainable when it cannot adaptquickly enough to the changes. When a species becomes unsustainable, it goesextinct. So unsustainability, while a distinct possibility for towns, states and nations,is not on the table, no matter which side of the political spectrum we come from.

8/14/2019 Sustainability Essay ~ Fred First / July 2009

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In my quest to redeem the terms, I’m looking for definitions that are broad enoughto encompass the whole for the long term without obscuring the particulars for hereand now. ere are a hundred nuances of meaning and application, but here’s my favorite because it brings another essential word into the mix: justice:

“Sustainability represents an idealized societal state where people live long, dignified,comfortable, and productive lives, satisfying their needs in environmentally sound and socially just ways so as to not compromise the ability of other humanbeings from doing the same now and into the distant future. It is, in eff ect, anattempt to merge development and nature conservation eff orts in a mutually beneficial way for the common good of the planet’s present and future generationsalike.”

Sustainability is to include the long-term health of the planet in our lives as citizensand neighbors. It is ecology married to economy. It is dynamic equilibrium at every level of life and enterprise. With that in mind, it just makes sense to operate in such

a way in all aspects of every society. We simply must, as our global human enterpriseof late has been unsustainable on many critical fronts (fresh water, fuel, soil, oceanfisheries and food among others) and change will come whether we’re passive oractive in that future.

Can we chart an intentional, sustainable future for Floyd? What would it mean as amatter of organized intention to satisfy our own needs in environmentally soundand socially just ways? at will remain for future conversations that take care toprotect the power and meaning of a useful word and an urgent but well-wornconcept, new for our times.