Sustainability...So Easy...Right?

Sustainability! Kind of rolls right off your tongue...easy to say, sounds like you should know what it is, aught to be easy, right?

One would think, but I guess the first thing we need to know is what is it...followed closely by where is is. Consider this, sustainability is about everything. Director Anderson out in the City of Portland, Oregon says its simple and its not simple... everything is connected...and everything we do effects us today and it effects the generations to come tomorrow.

Sustainability is about protecting resources like the Colorado River from mining of Uranium in the Grand Canyon, or preventing radioactive dusting of cities, like Denver, that have occurred from mishandling of dangerous materials like that which occurred on September 11, 1957 when a plutonium fire broke out in Building 71 at Rocky Flats and sent a plume of plutonium oxide over most of lower Colorado ...not the only deadly contamination out of Rocky Flats during its 40 years of operation. Those two issues...the first one recently stopped by the EPA and Department of the Interior, and the second a reality that was not made public until the 70s... impacting clean air and clean water.

Or perhaps sustainability is about managing the use of fresh water in Florida's Saint Johns River where fresh water is being pulled out by communities and by companies for a variety of reasons...and at a rate so high that the brackish water at the mouth of the St Johns is now moving upriver to areas that haven't seen salt water incursion for tens of thousands of years... hope the bass like salt on their food chain!

Let's take it all a step closer to home. Sustainability is about recycling...not just the plastic bottles, but the cans and the paper too. And sorting out the food waste that can become compost...better soil for plants to grow, less waste to be dumped and managed somewhere else.

Add to that the reduced carbon footprint that we achieve when we walk to the store, bike to work, take mass transit instead of a single passenger car ride... if 10 million Americans or even more rode bikes to work...like the 10 million Hollanders do...we would save millions of gallons of gas and eliminate tons of suspended carbon.

Its an effort, no doubt about it, but sustainability is important and it will improve our lives and the lives of our future generations the world over...So Easy...maybe not...so Right...you bet.