Considering Population & Sustainability

We Quakers have a practice known as "seasoning."

The idea is to let an proposal age and be discussed before it is formally put forward for final approval or rejection.

Note too that Friends don't vote on these matters but seek "a sense" of the Quaker community. That often — but not always — means unanimity. The term we use is "unity of the spirit."

A committee of our regional North Pacific Yearly Meeting has urged us to consider a formal "minute" that may be put before the annual session in July 2011. The committee invites comment from Friends in the Northwest.

But, as you will see, the proposal extends beyond our small community, so I invite your comments and consideration too.

DRAFT MINUTE ON POPULATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

WORLD population has been growing at the astonishing pace of over 75 million persons per year, over 200,000 persons per day, over 8,500 per hour.

Previously, world food production has managed to keep up with increases in human population. Now we are reaching the limits of arable land, ocean fish populations, fresh underground water, fossil fuels, and other resources. To accommodate the growing human population, forests are being cut down at the rate of 5,000 acres per hour, water tables are being drawn down at alarming rates, and human waste and pollution are poisoning the air, water, and land at an unprecedented pace.

Population growth is also a factor in persistent public health problems, poverty, crime, wars, and other social ills. In order to realize the Quaker vision of an Earth restored and a peaceful, just society, we must seek ways to stabilize human population and consumption at levels that are sustainable for humans as well as other species. To do this, we encourage voluntary measures including:

(1) adequate funding for family planning services worldwide.

(2) raising the status of women, and better education for women and men, both of which are keys to smaller family size.

(3) support for those who choose adoption, shared child-rearing, or celibacy as alternatives to the idea that everyone needs to have biological children, while honoring parenthood for those who choose that.

(4) ) simpler lifestyles in high-consuming nations such as the United States, including fewer possessions, greater sharing, and reduction or elimination of meat consumption.

(5) increased research on sustainable methods of food production, energy production, and other ways to meet human needs throughout the world without sacrificing natural systems or the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

We believe that these and other voluntary approaches should be vigorously pursued now to avoid the necessity of more coercive measures in the future to maintain a needed balance of resources between present and future generations of humans, and other species.

We urge Friends everywhere to join us in pursuing these approaches to sustainability in our personal lives, and in our local communities, states and nations.

The greater meaning of "Sustainability"

“Sustainability,” like all words, has a life of its own. I happen to have a 1980 edition of the Oxford American Dictionary, and in it “sustainability” has no life at all.

The word isn’t listed. It literally hadn’t yet been born. More on that in a second . . . .

But “sustain” and “sustainable” were alive and well.

Thirty years ago, the dictionary’s editors attributed six meanings to “sustain,” starting with (1) “to support.” Back then you could and did, for instance, “sustain your friendship.”

“Sustain” could also mean (2) “to keep alive” and (3) “to keep going continuously,” as in sustaining “a sound or an effort.”

Finally, the last three listed are worth noting because they illustrative the pliability of words: (4) “to undergo” as in “sustain defeat;” (5) “to endure without giving way” as in “to sustain an attack;” and a legal term (6) “to confirm or uphold the validity of,” as in “sustain an objection.”

So what about the birth and meaning of “sustainability”? Several web sites are helpful on the subject. Take a look at wikipedia’s, for instance.

The entry makes some reference to the above meanings of “sustain” but then offers this:

“Since the 1980s sustainability has been used more in the sense of human sustainability on planet Earth and this has resulted in the most widely quoted definition of sustainability and sustainable development, that of the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on March 20, 1987: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

That seems like a broad enough definition, but I’m finding that in my own community work, the new word can blind us to earlier meanings that are equally vital.

For instance, I’m involved in the Hillsdale Main Street effort, which is supposed to emphasize “sustainability” as it goes about revitalizing our local economy. My sense is that we are supposed to think of solar panels, recycling and energy-efficient light bulbs. That’s well and good, but those “old” meanings still resonate with me.

To me, sustainability means being prepared for disasters (earthquakes, terrorists attacks, floods), educating the young to prepare them for the future, having active and open forums for communication, providing food, shelter and health care, and assuring a just and fair relationship between its members.

As I embark on this “Main Street” effort in Hillsdale, I’m adhering to old, as well as new, definitions of “sustain” and how they apply to our community’s “sustainability.”

P.S. As we consider the global "community" and Earth itself, isn't war, particularly nuclear war, a sustainability issue? The same effort we use to end our reliance on fossil fuels should be used to ban weapons and shut down the arms trade.