Awareness of ecological problems and bad impact on our environment is a hot topic today. Sustainable approach towards how we live is essential in order to maintain our needs and life quality. However, sometimes I have a feeling that there are too many words and nothing behind them. Once, one of my friends told me, that if you want to get support from the government, or any other organization, you just have to mention something about sustainability, without providing any figures or data. According to him, “sustainability” is just a magic word to attract people, nothing more. I am not sure if this really works this way, but I should agree with him to the point, that sometimes term “sustainable” is used too widely without any meaning behind it. Therefore I decided to look deeper into this problem, and, to my big surprise, found those, who are sceptic about sustainable movement.
On the Internet I have found an article written by Paul Treanor (1). I do not know who he is and what he does, however it was still interesting to read his thoughts about sustainability. He claims himself to be "…against sustainability on all definitions." According to his experience, environmentalist and supporters of sustainability movement “do not even recognize the possibility of objection” and sustainability itself is another ideology of radical-conservatism.
Kathia Castro Laszlo, Ph.D student at Saybrook University claims that: “Sustainability as usual isn’t good enough”, because” Good intentions such as moving “beyond petroleum” made it into corporate slogans, but when it comes down to practical commitments, responsible action is less attractive than double profits.(2)” She thinks, that unless we rethink our approach towards sustainability and focus on our true relationships with world and nature, the impact of any environmental movement will not be good enough. She provides the quote from John Elkington(3), who is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development: “We must now raise our collective sights from technologies and business models (important though they are) to psychological, social, and even civilizational change.”
And what if they are right? What if sustainability is just another utopian idea that will never come true? I questioned myself, if what we do now towards sustainability continues, when do we become sustainable? When would be the end of this environmental race in order to save the world we are living in? I would say never, because such an approach, most likely, will have to be part of our daily life to achieve set goals. But are we ready for this?
