To the editor:
Sustainable, green and earth-friendly have certainly become the prominent buzzwords of the day. Advertisers use these words and others like them to make consumers feel better about their purchases and they rather quickly have lost their meaningful definitions.
Simply because a product contains less petroleum is often the qualifier for sustainability by the commercial definition. Such is the rationale by which biodiesel has been by some considered sustainable. However, commercial agriculture is not sustainable by any definition, either in land use or fossil energy consumption. Even schemes to produce biodiesel from municipal sewage wastes with algae, while probably far better than soybean based production, do assume that other non-sustainable aspects of our municipalities continue. Realistically, how many trips to the toilet will it take to drive back up the store to get more food. Plant or algae-based biodiesel (WWF July 2007) may well be a small part of a sustainable future, but using it to power 3,000 automobiles or 300 horsepower lobsterboats is most unlikely.
Sustainability by its present mass-media definition is simply a way of saying less bad is good. By this abuse of language, and consequent lack of in-depth examination and practice of what would actually help us realize ways of living that do not devour the hopes of our children and grandchildren, we are simply committing a shameful act less quickly and denying our innate nature to really do good.
Sure we need to start somewhere. We as Americans must be amongst the most unsustainable people of all time. But just because we take one or two steps doesn’t mean we’ve arrived or even glimpsed sustainability.
Dennis Carter
Deer Isle