“Sustainability is compassion.”
Hearing those words from theologian Matthew Fox in a keynote address at the 2003 Sustainable Resources conference in Boulder created a shock of recognition.
My wife and I had just moved to Durango, where I intended to begin a second career. My new business card read “Sustainability Advocate.” Some years before, I had recognized that my growing passion around climate change and other aspects of sustainability came from compassionate concern for people and for other living creatures afflicted by humankind’s growing dominance of the planetary environment. But I had never heard sustainability and compassion linked so directly.
The term sustainability carries different meanings for different people. Many use the word, as I do, as shorthand for sustainable development. The 1987 book “Our Common Future” provided a frequently used definition: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” It incorporates three dimensions: environment, economy and equity.
Three recent headlines call forth compassion and attention to their sustainability connections.
Russia invaded Ukraine, evoking compassion for the suffering afflicting the Ukrainian people. What motivates such aggression? Power, including economic expansion – especially control of Europe’s breadbasket and additional fresh water. One writer drew the analogy between the invasion and Hitler’s quest for Lebensraum – more living space and associated resources.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered its latest report on climate impacts, vulnerability and prospects for adaptation around the world. The new report – the sixth since the early 1990s – once again documents the fact that climate change disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable, which includes humans in poor countries and poor residents of rich ones. The vulnerable also include the other living beings on our planet, especially animals and plants. The consequences of humankind’s unsustainable, but seemingly unquenchable demand for more energy to power the global economy evoke compassion for our fellow humans and other creatures.
Finally, juries again convicted white men in connection with the murders of two Black American men, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. The events evoke compassion for these two victims and their families, but also for countless other lives impacted by racism and by poverty. Of course, poverty and decreasing living standards do not afflict only racial minorities. Fear and anger threaten our society, driven in no small part by unsustainable economic inequality in a system increasingly rigged to favor the rich.
On a different note, another recent news item related the death in late January of Thich Nhat Hahn, who famously crusaded for peace during the Vietnam War, rousing the enmity of both sides. He crusaded for peace for all the years since, publishing more than 100 books. His last, “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet,” provides me with daily inspiration. I hope to find there additional clues on how I as a single concerned human being can affect global events. I hope that my writing in the last six months has impacted others and that we can strive collectively for a more sustainable world. It is scarcely necessary to observe that a world that met everyone’s needs would be more peaceful.
I thank Richard Ballantine for the opportunity to offer biweekly sustainability-related commentary in these pages. Natural resources of food and water relate to environmental and economic sustainability. Civic affairs relate to all aspects of sustainability. Finally, my personal insights relate to the social sustainability of our community, particularly as we have celebrated important holidays.
May the diverse readers of The Durango Herald continue to enjoy and benefit from the community wisdom shared on these pages.
