Sustainable And Sustainable Choice

Our generation wants to be known as sustainable or the ones who care about the environment and are taking measures to protect it, however many of us do not even know what sustainability means. According to Donald Scherer, sustainability is the act of making sure that what is working for us now in order to meet our needs, should hold true for the future generations as well. We should make sure that resources are renewable and come up with substitutions if they are not. On the other hand, we have Dale Jamieson who focuses on climate change. Jamieson feels that with the help of science we can work towards decreasing the rate at which climate change is occurring in order to protect our environment (Jamieson, 372). He would say that sustainability

“To call an energy choice sustainable is to assert that persons like us can make that same energy choice continually and indefinitely” (Scherer, 334). One way to make a sustainable choice would be if the process of making energy available consumed materials slower or at the same rate at which those materials accumulate. The choice you opt to make might be bad in the long run and there might be other factors that might be involved. For example, in different parts of the world people are burning wood and other forms of biomass faster than the biomass grows, making their choice and the use of biomass unsustainable (Scherer, 334). We have the tendency to be anthropocentric, and fail to understand that a resource can only remain renewable if we allow it some time to replenish. As humans, we need to expand our knowledge on such topics, in order to make the correct

In order to protect our earth, we need to become more aware of our choices, and the profound impacts we are having on the environment. Sustainability should also be done correctly and on a larger scale, if one is going to choose to be sustainable. For example, one cannot build dams that will help their country flourish and have negative impacts on the agriculture of another country. Usually dams are created to provide energy, flood protection, irrigation, industrial use, etc. Unfortunately, in the early 1970’s the construction of dams in the United States, increased the salinity of water flowing from the United States to Mexico. The increased salinity threatened Mexican agriculture (Scherer, 335). In that context, a choice that was supposed to be sustainable for the United States, became unsustainable for Mexico. In order to make sustainable choices, one has to be conscious of their actions. When opting for sustainable measures, one should make sure that their methods do not have negative impacts on the neighboring areas. Often times, people will think that they are doing their part by making small changes to their lifestyles, but that is not enough. Spreading awareness helps in making sustainability a global issue. The definition in itself is seeking for a better future for all, not just one group of people. Change can be seen when acting sustainable or choosing