Sustainability

[hcbass]

To me sustainability means that we, as a population, are able to thrive while also not putting a major impact on the environment and wild populations. That means that we are able to survive and not decrease any other species populations or their well being of life. While reading Solows essay, I disagreed with a few things. The idea that we can use up one resource if we are able to replace it with another such as aluminum is disagreeable. I think that as consumers we have the responsibility to preserve wild populations of animals and resources that we are using for food or other reasons. This idea of use and replace shouldn’t be an option because nothing will be as good as the original. We do not carry that right to destroy such things for our own good. Not only that but the effects of taking such things could have astronomical effects on the environment. For example, these new GMO salmon or even farmed salmon is only a band-aid on the problem. And most of these replacements affect the wild populations in some way anyways whether it be runoff pollution with salmon or even habitat loss with farms. However I do agree with him when he states that “sustainability is a matter of distributional equity between the present and the future…it becomes a problem about the choice between current consumption and providing for the future’(183). We have to save and invest our resources for our future rather than spending everything right now. Otherwise we will find that we have used everything up and can no longer survive as a population.

[armathews3]

I agree with your take away from the reading. But if something is lost do to any number of reasons should we replace its nitch with something else? Such as if we produce coral that will survive lower pH providing homes for organisms during the lag time of re-balancing the oceans for life at that toxicity.

[mhhigdon]

I agree with you when you said that we do not carry the right to destroy such things for our own good, and that it shouldn’t be an option

[bmarshall6]

I completely agree that we don’t have a right to to destroy things for our own good. If something is being harvested that much we should find other ways to supply that good.

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