Road to Sustainability

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            Are we on a sustainable path? To answer this question, we must first understand what sustainability is. According to Wikipedia, sustainability is the capacity to endure renewal, maintenance, and sustenance, or nourishment in contrast to durability, it’s the capacity to endure unchanging resistance to change.

             In relation to this, sustainable development, according to the World Commission on Environment and Development, is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. So now, the question is: “Can we continue living our current lifestyles without compromising the quality of life in the future?”

            Do we think there will be enough resources left for the future generations if we continue our lavish ways of life today? When we leave the world, would we be proud because we did something worth our short time on earth; something to make the life of the future people easier for them by producing innovative technology they could use? Or would we leave them with more crisis than we are facing right now?

            I believe that if we continue living this way—extravagant, wasteful, and over-the-top, we won’t be able to leave this world without compromising the quality of life for the future. As I witnessed from a film we viewed recently called “The Inconvenient Truth,” if we continue this way of inhabiting earth, not much will be left for the future generations. What’s worse, we might all be eradicated within 50 years if we continue living at this rate.

            Though the truth is indeed, very inconvenient, many people are now aware of the possible consequences our actions today might bring to the next generations and they are trying to do something about it.

            In my immediate community, which is in Santa Rosa City, I don’t think we are living sustainably right now. Like most communities today, we tend to use more than what we really need, consume more than what is supposed to be spent; we never seem to be content with what we have. To combat future problems regarding sustainability like shortages, environmental dilemmas, and the like, the government here in Santa Rosa tried to implement projects that aim to delay negative effects of our lavish way of life. Some of these projects are banning plastics, waste segregation and recycling programs.

            In order to leave a sustainable environment for the future generations, we must be aware of the consequences of our actions today to the people and world tomorrow. We must keep in mind that the world is not really ours so we must leave it in better condition than we came here instead of leaving it worn out and barely or not livable at all for the people of the future.