Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Can Sustainability be Achieved? A Brief Manifesto

Can Sustainability be Achieved in My Lifetime?
A brief manifesto

I cherish my time on this Earth, and block out prometheans who would quash my hopes and beliefs that a global paradigmatic shift in humanity's stewardship of the Earth is possible. History is replete with examples of major shifts in accepted realities. At one time to say, "The world is round" would be considered blasphemous. Only in modern times was Galileo finally pardoned for his ancient and fatal Platonic faux pas in announcing that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
I believe that a similar paradigmatic shift in global thinking is possible regarding the sustainability and compassion of humanity on our continuously evolving planet. Throughout my studies and in my writings, I refer to SUSTAINABILITY in general terms, so that it includes cultural, societal, environmental, and biological sustainability; that is, I believe that sustainability must be achieved on physical, spiritual and social planes. Ecological restoration cannot take place without dynamic changes in current political, social, and economic praxus; Social sustainability cannot survive in a hostile environment rife with hunger, disease, poverty and addiction. Yet achievable ideas go around and around, proving and disproving, in a never ending dance. Change is slow, and in this case, it is too slow: Watch the polar ice cap melt in front of our very eyes is frightening; empty shelves at community food banks in the U.S. is terrifying.
I believe that there is a compromise to the theoretical and practical dichotomies of every discourse, in the Physical, Spiritual and Social realms of reasoning-- there is a way to stop chasing the tail of the other in an infinite conundrum. To establish global sustainability is to enter the continuous cycle, to immerse in the ideologic quagmire and to listen to each other and to the earth's biology, analyze humanity's social contracts, and recognize the spiritual, until the paradigmatic shift necessary for true global sustainability has been reached.