What is Sustainability?

What is Sustainability?

1.  "A system is a coherently organized set of interconnected elements (Meadows 2008, 188). A property of every system is that its identity is always more than the sum of its parts." (Robertson, 4).

     When I think about this quote, I am forced to think about all of the living and none living things on earth. While thinking about these things, whether they are humans, animals or even in inanimate objects, I realized everything is part of some sort of system or even many systems. For example, let's look at humans. There are hundreds of different systems within the human body which are essential to life including the respiratory system and digestive system.  There are also systems in nonliving items as well. Cars for example, also contain systems that have specific duties that keep the vehicle running.  There is a cooling system which helps keep the car from overheating. There is also an electrical system which monitors different systems and sends indicator lights to the driver is anything is wrong with the car. In my opinion it is really interesting to see how many elements if take to make something a working object.

2. "When sustainability scientists take measure of the current state of the planet, they find that it is not good. In fact, a variety of indicators all point to the same conclusion: the situation is critical and getting worse." (Robertson, 6).

     This statement really puts in to perspective the need to do some about our effects on the environment. This statement means that today the physical health of the earth is worse than it has ever been in the past. Honestly, humans can be to blame for this because we are very destructive and selfish. Humans do not care what happens in the end, as long as it helps or benefits us. The population is growing at alarming rate, and we are going to continue to expand. Expansion means we will have to  cut down more trees and destroy more habitats for other animals. We are purposely destroying the lives of animals in order to accommodate the growth of our own species. The worst part is, we have the opportunity to at least help offset the amount of bad things we do for the environment, but the sad thing is that most of us don't even care enough about the issue to recycle our own water bottles.

3. "An idea you will hear often in discussions of sustainability is one that is sometimes called the “triple bottom line” (TBL) or the “three E’s,” sometimes also referred to as the three pillars of sustainability or as planet, people, profit (Elkington 2012, 55)" (Robertson, 5)

     The one thing that makes this statement stand out to me is that it shows how the environment, economy and equity through out the world is connected. This proves that we not only have responsibility for ourselves, we also have responsibilities in other areas that are just as important. It is safe to say that we need to be held responsible and be conscious of how our actions effect the things around us. The three E's really help break down what it means to be sustainable, and it also expands on the definition of what someone thinks sustainability means.