Blocked by sustainability

Trying to design and create sustainable systems, I usually get blocked, because it feels impossible to me to create something without externalizing some irreversible damage to another part of the world.

I understand as sustainable what can be recycled indefinitely. Pollution may stop this recyclability.

How do you manage to not feel bad when you generate irreversible damage to the world?

In Emergency Management, there is a reoccurring phenomena during disasters of analysis paralysis. Emergency managers would not take action when they have five different 'good' plans because they hope they can come up with one perfect plan.

I view making some progress better than not making any progress. We will be faced with challenges (life right?) and we might not be able to perfectly act in a certain way but we can act better than what a conventional person may do.

I find that consistently striving to be better, in all aspects of life, is a noble pursuit even if there are some bumps along the way.  

You should be proud of yourself just for thinking about the impact you have on other beings across the world. Not many people do that.

I have found that the way is slow, but worthwhile, to do things thoughtfully. Within reason—wearing ourselves thin while trying to do things well isn’t sustainability. My definition of sustainability is something where it helps the planet and soils and yourself, and younger generations want to follow in your footsteps. Do what you can, acknowledge where you are with compassion, and don’t try too hard.

When I think of sustainable I think of not harming the environment.

I believe in helping to restore or renew the environment by working to restore the soil.

I also believe in conservation and working to protecting natural resources.

I tend to believe that I am not causing irreversible damage to the world.

I do believe in the 3R's, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle and try to live my life the best way I can.

I am not responsible for what others do.

Mikel, would you like to provide an example for us to workshop? I could start talking about how we can grow food without minerals from the third world, but I'd just be guessing about what your hurdles are.

Maybe it's helpful to think less in terms of absolutes and more in terms of commonsense.

"Sustainable", able to be sustained, does not and should not imply "forever". Nothing is forever, and the laws of thermodynamics tell us we cannot create order in one place without creating disorder somewhere else.

Sustainable can have a human-scale meaning: if you implement this, can you sustain it without further considerable expense? Is it something there is will to do? Will implementing it once set in motion a kind of inertia so that the thing tends to "care for itself"? If the answer to these kinds of questions is yes, then it is sustainable.

I will use the example of my property: we have a mixture of grass and perennial native flower garden beds. The grass requires mowing, but we do nothing else to it. Anything further I would consider unsustainable, though even the gas and noise of the mower is already borderline unsustainable to me. Some of my neighbors spray chemicals, physically pull up weeds, or even drag giant barrels behind their mowers to smooth out the ground. And of course they remove any native plants the moment they pop up. Those activities are what I would consider unsustainable, because they require so much continuous input and provide so little output (just ask the pollinators who, thankfully, all flock to my house instead!).

Hi Mikel,

I feel better if I can make my corner better without having to intentionally hurt any other corner.  If I can recycle, that’s a little point in my corner but not a negative in any other corner.  I love to make my topsoil from woodchips which I decompose with Wine Cap mushrooms.  I have hurt no one, but my soil is magically better.  And I need no artificial fertilizer.  I don’t even need natural fertilizer like bone or blood meal.

I try my best to stay self sufficient on my patch of ground.  I am not perfect.  But perfection is a foolish goal—by its very definition, it’s is unattainable.  I do strive for excellence,  but I am human and I will fail sometimes.  Good,  Failure is the best teacher and I will learn from my mistakes and be better in the future.

I can’t, nor would I, tell you what to do.  My suggestion is to do the best you can with what you have where you are.  And if you have some guilt for what could have been done better—good!  You can do better next time!

I wish you the best of luck.  And if you need to come here and vent, by all means do so.


Eric