sustainability commission, Sept. meeting
Thursday, September 13th, 2007Flagstaff’s new Sustainability Commission meets at 4:30 on the second Wednesday of every month at City Hall. The commission is in its first year and they’ve got some big plans. I went to last night’s meeting and I was one of 3 citizens that attended. I’m going to start going regularly (and you, faithful reader, should as well!).
I was impressed with the dedication and passion of its volunteer members; they’re all wonderful people, many of which I recognized from around town. Knowing that the issue of sustainability is a new concept (for our civilization anyway), members of the commission are obviously learning as they go. It is a pretty exciting time because they’re developing short-term and long-term plans, defining terms, reaching out to the public, building coalitions, and introducing legislation.
One of the first things on the table is a plastic bag ban. I’ve been on board with this since the beginning….I even wrote about it for the August issue of The Noise. They will begin reaching out to the community and helping to make them aware….getting as many people to support the ban as possible. Most of the discourse around sustainability is focused on development and sustainable design. I think that is realistically, however, a secondary priority. I’m behind this plastic bag ban because of what it represents, because of the line of thinking that it promotes. Part of what it means to move to a sustainable society should include an evaluation of details about our society that will never be sustainable. Many things need to go: plastic bags are just the tip of the melting ice berg (who didn’t like that analogy?).
I would like to address the city’s working definition of sustainability. I think they’re a little off still, but I recognize the tension inherent in coming up with a definition that is agreeable with our social and economic systems. I recognize the tough position of city council members in trying to configure sustainability in a society that was never meant to be sustainable. Here is the working definition of sustainability for the City of Flagtaff:
Sustainability is defined as living and managing activities in a manner that balances social, economic, environmental and institutional considerations to meet our needs and those of future generations.
The problem I have with this definition is that the emphasis is still on us and “our needs” rather than the needs of the land. As long as the needs of the land remain second, sustainability will be out of reach. “Our needs,” our social and economic systems, need to first be structured around the needs of the land. If the needs of the land are not met, if we continue to take more than we give back, future generations will have no hope.
We’re slowly coming back to terms with the fact that the land is primary, that we owe the land for our lives. Access to land means, and has always meant, access to food, water, and shelter. Maintaining our needs is synonymous with the needs of the land. If the land is hammered, so are we. Therefore, any system that does not benefit the land, from which our lives depend, will never be sustainable. This is why sustainable development is, right now, less important than unsustainable de-development. We’re very good at innovation and designing new products to sell. It takes a change in mindset to admit much of what we’ve produced in the past will have no place in the future (not that they ever really had a place in the past either…).
