{"id":65741,"date":"2023-09-04T07:08:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T12:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65741"},"modified":"2023-09-04T07:08:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T12:08:18","slug":"stop-using-the-word-sustainability-for-gods-sake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65741","title":{"rendered":"Stop Using the Word \u2018Sustainability\u2019 for God\u2019s Sake"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stop Using the Word \u2018Sustainability\u2019 for God\u2019s Sake<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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No. This is not sustainable. Photo by\u00a0Appolinary Kalashnikova<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For millions of years us, humans, were part of Nature. We were born in the wild, lived in the wild, died in the wild. We ate what we found, drank the waters of rivers and streams, breathed air purified by trees. Just like any other mammalian species on Earth. The false belief, that we\u2019ve somehow moved above and beyond that thanks to our ingenuity is just a fantasy. Or rather: pure unadulterated hogwash. We still eat plants and animals feeding on grass and seeds. We still drink the waters of rivers and streams. We still breathe air purified by trees. The only difference is, that today there is a massive blob of buildings, roads, machines, mines and supermarkets \u2014 now\u00a0<\/em>weighing more than all things living<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 placed between us and Nature.<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/span>ll technology did, in its narrowest technical sense, is that it has enabled us to extract raw materials, clear-cut forests, harvest fish and food beyond all sustainable levels. Sustainability in its original sense means: an ability for something to go on unabated forever (or at least long enough not to matter). All I\u2019m writing about on this blog since its inception, is that nothing \u2014 not a single thing \u2014 we do and call \u2018civilization\u2019 today can go on for much too long, let alone forever.<\/p>\n

Extracting resources (especially by mining) destroys ecosystems, takes a lot of energy and precious fresh water, poisons rivers and the soil, and ultimately depletes the very resource it is going after. It is a self-destructing and thus a self-limiting activity. Mining is by definition unsustainable. Now, the problem is, that everything we call civilization today from buildings to roads, from agriculture to distributing food, from machines to electricity starts with extracting resources from the ground. No exceptions.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n

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Stop Using the Word \u2018Sustainability\u2019 for God\u2019s Sake No. This is not sustainable. Photo by\u00a0Appolinary Kalashnikova\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash For millions of years us, humans, were part of Nature. We were born in the wild, lived in the wild, died in the wild. We ate what we found, drank the waters of rivers and streams, breathed air purified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,7],"tags":[769,786,32578,14039],"class_list":["post-65741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-sustainability","tag-technology","tag-the-honest-sorcerer","tag-unsustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65742,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65741\/revisions\/65742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}