The Right Thing To Do

I read an article recently (http://www.mtu.edu/news/files/abandon-hope.pdf) that talked about hope and how that tends to act against any moves toward sustainability. As an example, it mentioned that the message of recycling is that you should do it because the hope is that if others do the same it will make a real difference but when others don't do the same it demotivates you. But you should reject hope and do it because it's the right thing to do.


I sympathise with the sentiments, though I don't think things like recycling and changing light bulbs is much of an effort towards living sustainably. These sorts of actions, to my mind, always hide the hope that life can go on pretty much as normal (or what people have come to regard as normal) simply by being a bit less wasteful. It's pretty clear that such a thing is a fallacy, when you start to consider what sustainability actually entails.


Richard Heinberg stated the axioms for sustainability pretty well. I characterise them this way: consuming resources beyond their renewal rates, or degrading our environment, is unsustainable. That pretty much tells us that our way of life (or that of developed nations and increasing numbers of people in developing nations) is unsustainable, no matter what we try to do to keep it going. I often hear the term "more sustainable", even by greenies. What the users of that term don't seem to realise is that it still means "unsustainable".


So the question is: "should humans try to live sustainably?" Well, I personally think the answer to that is "yes". Look at what "unsustainably" means. It means things like degrading the soils, killing ocean life, poisoning our water and turning livable land into deserts. It means enabling the next great extinction, with extinctions now running at 100 to 1000 times the average rate. It means making the very habitat that currently support the lives of us humans unable to continue to do that. In other words, an aim of sustainable living seems not only rational but the right thing to do.


But how many of us are actually trying to move to a truly sustainable life-style? I would suggest very few. I don't think the much lauded Transition Towns movement is even trying to do that. It is hard, though, it is damned hard. I don't think many people could do it alone (though some could), especially if it means a complete change to what they have previously done. I think it takes a mind-set change of a bunch of people living close to each other, to enable them to support each other as they all pull in the same direction. It doesn't mean living sustainably from day 1 but it does mean that the direction of all of your group is focused on that target with an evolving plan to get there. Once you have that in place, I'm sure it makes it much easier to gradually make the changes that are necessary.