Sustainability.
It’s a BIG area. According to some conceptions it is everything, it is affected by everything we do, make and how we choose to behave. That’s huge, and intricate and broad and deep.
To call oneself a sustainability professional implies that one has a handle on the gammut of the issue. The breadth AND the depth of one of the most difficult issues we are dealing with. While this is inspiring and ensures constant challenges, it can also be overwhelming and lead to a sense of guilt that you cannot ever hope to cover the breadth and depth of what it means for us to be a truly sustainable society.
Point 1: do you need to? Or since one of the key tenets of sustainability is society/community, perhaps this is actually about contributing to your area of interest/expertise and working with others on theirs. So what if you don’t understand and cannot advocate for cycling in urban environments as a core transport option, perhaps your contribution is understanding how forest communities interact with their ecology and ways to ensure they are empowered to do so. Both are needed.
Point 2: Break it down. An article in SD Scene earlier this year spoke of the 3 challenges we face:
- Biodiversity Loss
- Climate Change
- Depletion of Resources
Pick one area, for me it’s Depletion of Resources. Work in that area to make a difference, and trust that others will be working in the other areas to make a difference too. Just because you are not, for instance, an expert in climate change does not de-value your contribution to the other areas of challenge.
Want more? Articles from other sites that may be of interest:
- Essay 1 Cause/Effect – Biodiversity Loss: It’s Kind of Our Fault (envirowriters.wordpress.com)
- The sustainable seafood myth (mantrameds.wordpress.com)
