GREEN Reactor: Yes Michael, Sustainability is possible

Is sustainability possible in the Keys?  Blue Paper columnist Michael Welber asked this question in a recent column in this paper.  From that starting point he proceeded to look at the Keys’ water, electricity and food consumption, then answers his own question with “…let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not sustainability.”  Since the article called out a board that I’m on – Key West’s Sustainability Advisory Board – I’ll take that as solicitation for a response….

The first issue I have with the piece requires me to invoke Clintonian protocol and assert that you need to define just what “is” is.  IS sustainability really narrowly focused on communities’ ability to produce their own water, electricity and food?  I would say: Not really.   Those are components of SELF-sustainability.  Sure, to be self-sustaining a community would have to be able to survive cut-off from the rest of the world.   But a real-world GREENy  doesn’t  take “sustainability” to that extreme.

Michael’s statement that the “accepted definition of sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” is mostly true. (I’m going to assume there was a typo in the column where only sustainable  development was mentioned — clearly we’re also talking about “sustainable practices”.)   But the “future generations” referred to isn’t tightly delimited to a single community.  Those generations include locals, regionals, nationals, even all Earthlings.  Sure the various government boards primarily focus on their own community impacts, but not to the exclusion of the rest of the world we live in.

I suppose up to this point I’ve been talking semantics — but the point does have to be made that every effort toward sustainable practices goes to the “greater good”, even if they fall far short of SELF-sustainability.  Of course the further they go the better.  But on the local scale we will always hit boundary limitations — we just have to keep pushing that envelope.

A key component of sustainability on the global scale is reduction of our contributions to climate change – primarily by reducing carbon emissions.  If everyone does so, it will work.  Maybe not quickly, but the alternative is death to us all (when the oceans die).   Yeah, China and India contribute a lot (not as much as the United States!) and don’t seem to be doing much about it.  But neither are we, really.  Lots of pockets trying to do their part, but our dysfunctional US government has slowed our overall progress to a crawl.  In fact, India and China are finally starting to make moves in the right direction.  We here can’t continue to act like children and refuse to do our part just because the other “kids” aren’t performing well.

So yes, we do have to act on climate change.  Every local government needs to work on that, and the South Florida governments have taken the lead –- with a prominent role by the Keys.  Key West was the first to develop a climate action plan, and others have used it as a model.  Having a plan IS part of sustainability, and we have led the pack.  Hiring Sustainability Coordinators to oversee the follow-through is also an important component.

Key West’s Alison Higgins and Monroe County’s Rhonda Haag have both dived into the coordinator roles and have quickly taken the bull by the horns (to mix metaphors).  They have barely just begun to get serious.  They’re already pushing the message in every venue possible, and driving the governments to implement the many components of the action plans they have made.  Turning the governments around is like turning a battleship, but the bow is moving into the wind.  They also have begun the push toward getting more community involvement, which is another key issue.  They’re working with the Green Building Council and (through the planning departments) directly with developers to increase  sustainability in local building.

These actions will HELP with the issues Michael raised, especially in reductions in water use and electrical consumption – as long as our now-regressive STATE government doesn’t throw us under the bus. I’ve written previously (e.g., “Department of Environmental Rejection”) on the harm Florida’s resumption of “development at any cost” practices are causing.  But we have to keep the faith – and fight to restore a progressive state government while doing so.

Indeed, we must continue to follow the old adage “think global, act local”.  Sustainability will follow.