For anyone that was skeptical in reading the more generalized part 1 of this blog, I urge you to go back and read part 2 in which I better define Resiliency and explain why I think it has advantages over the traditional Sustainability model.

http://blog.max-r.net/2012/08/22/beyond-sustainability-pt-2/

Resiliency is a great concept. I have also heard "regenerative systems". Every day, I think about the evolution of the term "sustainability". In reality, I don't even think we are accurately describing sustainability. "Saving the environment" has to evolve. Can we begin integrating the concept of systems, interdependence, alternatives to exponential growth economies, and biocultural diversity and heritage?

Although we often talk about sustainability as being holistic (the three Es), when I look at campus sustainability websites, everything is based on the environment. The environment is not "out there". We are inseparable from it. Our outreach methods are starting to hit a limit in terms of effectiveness in some ways, although they continue to grow in others. I think we need to begin discussing the intersections between environmental and social issues, only because many people may not be able to identify with the more ecological perspective. If you have been raised in a city and not had the privilege to experience nature, it might be difficult to feel connected. When I was sitting in science and environmental classes, it became clear that these concepts might be seen as irrelevant.

We need to start framing sustainability in terms of values that are most dearly held. If you are a mother, you will care that newborns have an average of 200 toxins upon birth from their mothers' umbilical cord. It becomes quite clear and relevant that toxins are in our atmosphere when we realize our own deep interconnection. This is just one example of framing.

So, my thought is that we need to evolve the current sustainability discussion to a lens with which we consider and show connections between social, environmental, and economic systems.

Hi Heather,

I agree with you that we need to better incorporate social and economic systems because they are so inter-connected.

As an aside, one of the best classes that I took back in college (this is back in the day when what would now probably be called sustainability studies was being carved as Natural Resource studies from the old Agricultural-based and forestry-based natural resources programs on campus) was a class that looked at U.S. history from an agricultural and natural resource acquisition perspective. Absolutely fascinating and one of the best tie ins I have ever seen to show how interconnected all of our natural, social and economic systems are.

However, I am concerned that we need to do more than just incorporate those other factors. We need to personalize them. I have seen too many programs that do incorporate those factors but incorporate them from too much of an altruistic perspective. I think that altruistic message has only a limited audience. If we want to reach the apathetic middle I discuss in my bell curve blog post, which I think we have to do to succeed, I think our programs and our messages need to better focus on the question of "what's in it for me."