What does Sustainability mean to the INDIVIDUAL?

In a June 2008 blog post, Jeff Severin, the director of the KU Center for Sustainability, wrote about his experience answering the question ‘what is sustainability?’ Jeff describes the varied answers he received when reversing the question — what does sustainability mean to you?

The following paragraphs make up the first in what will be a series of posts each briefly considering what sustainability means to… the individual, the city, the state, the nation, and KU.

Sustainability can carry a different meaning for each person depending on his or her own experiences and ideals. I asked my uncle from the Nebraska, where my family has spent the last 120 years working the land, what the word sustainability meant to him. I will admit that I was not prepared for the depth and thoughtfulness of his answer. I learned that while people often associate environmentalism with liberal ideals and left-leaning politics, there lies within the middle of the conservative heartland a set of conscientious environmentalists. One would be hard-pressed to find a more passionate conservationist than a Nebraska farmer like my uncle.

On the wall of my Grandmother’s kitchen there hangs a collage of photographs both old and new depicting decades of farm life. Marking traditional cattle drives, Forth of July parades and harvest seasons of years gone by, it was underneath the gaze of these framed photos that I asked my uncle about sustainability — a word I would have considered novel in the central plains of Nebraska. He leaned back in his chair, put his hand to his scruffy chin and stared out the window onto the vast wide-open plain. He carefully considered my question and began, “…well, the land has given us so much… we as farmers would be doing a disservice to ourselves and mother nature if we did not consider the impact we have on the land and the environment.”  In those first two sentences my uncle dispelled any previous ideas I had about a farmer’s relationship with the environment. We continued with a wide-ranging discussion about water usage and resource management, soil erosion and excessive tillage, and the costs and benefits of pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics. The idea of sustainability, or more specifically sustainable agriculture, flows through my uncle’s mind with every decision he has to make and every task he has to accomplish.

Each individual interprets the word ‘Sustainability’ as it relates to his or her own experiences. My uncle has a deep understanding of the long-term profitability of sustainable agriculture because he has to live with environmental consequences of each farming season. Similarly to Jeff Severin, I find myself initially responding to this question with the text-book answer: “having the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” I suppose that it is a life mission for me to expand my narrative to answer this question with same depth and understanding as western Nebraska farmers — what does sustainability mean to you?

-Joshua Foster