The weather's recent pleasantness has turned my mind towards environmental matters. All over, Emory included, I am bombarded by one word in particular: sustainability. As it is understood, "sustainability" is a move towards creating ways in which society may persist and develop in a way that is sustainable for both society and the environment.
These are fine enough goals, but we should delve further into the logic of sustainability before we accept it wildly.
Sustainability, first and foremost, is a questioning of the means by which our society "goes about the business" of being a human community. It recognizes the limitations of those natural resources available to us, either in the quantitative sense of what is available to us or the qualitative sense of how those resources are extracted. The accompaniment to this, of course, is that the sustainability movement recognizes that the current means by which society goes about its business are not functional when taking into account the long-term survival of society.
This is a wonderful thing! It shows the sort of forethought that does not come naturally in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. But for all its efforts to reduce waste and create more environmentally-friendly structures, the sustainability movement fails to challenge fundamental structures and assumptions about society itself.
Our society functions on an attitude of exploitation. From labor to resources, the question is, "how can I get mine?" Sustainability initiatives work to make the processes of our society operate in an environmentally smooth way. However, sustainability does not question capitalism or its associate consumerism. So long as the workplace is lit with low-energy bulbs and low-flow toilets, who cares that the worker is still tied to a hellish wage system? So long as our products are 'carbon-neutral,' who cares that we are ceaselessly tossed into an ocean of manufactured desire? No! What is necessary is a rethinking of how society is to operate.
My issue is that sustainability is superficial. It suggests that our environmental issues are to be solved with recycled bath water and safer plastics. And to be certain, our attitudes towards seemingly small acts must change. But the problems confronting us require we undo those systems which focus on maddening pursuit of profit.
Our environmental ideology must be one that advocates a so-called "harmonious" approach. I do not mean this in some dreamy, pastoral way. Rather, we must consider our societies as systems operating within greater systems. What's more, we mustn't even consider society and nature as separate entities. Each is shaped by the other and must be considered holistically. Greater even than that, we must reject all exploitative perspectives. We must reorient towards a system that looks towards the concrete needs of the human community.
It is a curious pleasure of the American liberal to condemn newly developed countries (is the term "developing" even any longer appropriate?) for their poor environmental standards. Never mind the fact that it was the pressure exerted by Western states, either through direct force or as suffocating acts of coercion, that affected the change to radically alter their economic composition. No, it's obviously the fault of the countries and their people, poor fools, who have no regard for the environment. Let us learn from this ignorant attitude and ask what created the opportunity for the many problems facing us. We will find that we, with our exploitative attitudes and attachment to harmful systems, are the authors of these disasters.
Rhett Henry is College junior from Lawrenceville, Ga.
Photo courtesy of JRW984, Flickr
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