Editor’s note: This commentary is by George Plumb, the executive director of Vermonters for Sustainable Population and the initiator of the 2014 report, “What is an Optimal/Sustainable Population for Vermont?”
[W]ith all of the environmental challenges facing Vermont and the Earth at this time including global warming, a 40 percent plunge in the worldwide quantity of wildlife in the last 40 years, pollution of Lake Champlain and other bodies of water, and decreasing Vermont forest cover for the first time in over a century, nothing could be more important in solving these problems than truly living sustainably for the entire human species not only for the greatly over-developed areas other than Vermont, but also for our own state.
The term “sustainable” is regularly used these days by non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, and even businesses. But they rarely, if ever, define what they mean by that term. The most commonly understood definition is that humans will live in a manner in the present time without endangering the lives of future generations. But this is a very vague definition without clear parameters.
Much of what is professed to be sustainable is not truly sustainable. Is industrial farming that depends heavily on fossil fuels really sustainable? Is constructing and maintaining large buildings that have huge ecological footprints really sustainable no matter how well constructed or where they are located? Is there really such a thing as sustainable economic development or sustainable population growth?
The Vermont chapter of the Sierra Club has adopted a more complete definition of sustainable. It is: “Sustainable: means that the people living in a given politically or geographically defined area do not live beyond the limits of the renewable resources of that area for either input (energy and matter) or output (food, material goods, and absorption of pollution). That they purchase or trade from environmentally conscious sources for those necessities that cannot be locally satisfied. And that they live both in numbers and in a manner that allows present and future generations of all life in that area to enjoy a healthy habitat over the long term.”
There are three factors that make this new definition unique and truly meaningful. The first is that when using the term it has to be applied to a given political area and not just to the Earth as a whole. Can a city like Burlington be sustainable in the long run when all the people living in it depend almost entirely for resources imported from all over the world, particularly for their heating, transportation and food? The answer is no. Burlington can and certainly should work towards being more sustainable but never will it be entirely sustainable or even largely sustainable. However, could the Champlain Valley be truly sustainable? Yes, given its much greater natural resources it could depend to a great extent on them for most of what it needs and particularly its food.
Is industrial farming that depends heavily on fossil fuels really sustainable? Is constructing and maintaining large buildings that have huge ecological footprints really sustainable no matter how well constructed or where they are located?
The second factor is that the resources used both to meet its needs and to absorb the pollution generated must come primarily from renewable resources. The Earth is running out of most of the resources we use including fossil fuels, arable land, and even fertilizers like lime. Vermont is slowly moving in the direction of using more renewable resources by generating its own electrical energy and gradually growing more of its own food but we need to make a greater effort at that.
Finally, when we apply the term sustainable it should apply to all life native to that region and not just Homo sapiens. All life has a right to a healthy habitat. However we are now causing the Sixth Great Extinction as well documented by the book of that title by Elizabeth Colbert. That is highly immoral and unfair to other species. As Unitarian Universalists say in their seventh principle, we need to “Respect the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part.” Does that mean that bald eagles should be able to nest in Burlington? No, but shouldn’t they at least be given the right to nest in several places in the Champlain Valley and that right not taken away by continuous shore land development?
As we have board meetings, conferences, and develop programs and courses on sustainability, let’s begin to have a deeper discussion about what that term really means.
If an organization, institution, governmental agency, or business that you belong to does adopt or endorse this new definition, or a modified version of it, then please let me know so that I can add it to an ever lengthening list of state, regional, national, and international ones that already have done so.
