Little Brush With Semantics

Sustainability. This is a word that I have never understood. It is marketed in so many ways. The government meets about it and hippies protest for it while car companies invent vehicles intended to be it. I feel like everyone has a stake in sustainability but there is no clear definition of the concept. The Mazmanian article spends a lot of time on the concept of implementing policy change for sustainability. It was there that I became even more convinced that this word needs to be eliminated. Both readings emphasized the causes and effects of environmental toxins as well as policies to mend the damages. Environmentalism is a much better word to describe the act of caring for and acting upon the desire to preserve the Earth. It is a word that can be used clearly in meetings and even in marketing. It has the word environment built right in. Sustainability is open to much greater abuse and misunderstanding. I'm the first one to argue semantics, but this is a change that literally carries the weight of the world.

My cousin Stephanie is a mud hut building sustainability major at Goddard College. She constructs sawdust toilets and composts the human waste as a way of making the world a more sustainable place. While these things may have little carbon footprints I am still under the idea that implementation of policy and change has always begun in a more palatable and accessible way. Kraft pointed out that nearly 95% of lead has been eliminated from our American environments with government and business interactions. I'm sure they used indoor plumbing at their meetings. Stephanie is now modeling for Jonano clothing. The marketer spotted her while she was riding her bike on the streets of Pittsburgh. They are now going to send Miss Sustainability to Vegas, Turkey and St. John to get her picture taken in their "sustainable" clothing. Last time I checked, Environmentalism involved staying close to your own environment and working for grassroots changes. I think Kraft said something very similar to that himself. This is another point and case for removing sustainability from our dialect. No one can hide behind the word Environmentalism while flying models to Sin City for an organic photo shoot.

I vow from this moment on to strike the word Sustainability from my vocabulary. As Kraft and Mazmanian both revealed so clearly in their words, compromise and change must come from points of mutual understanding. The people at the bottom must speak the same language as the people at the top.