Editorial: Sustainability Comes to the White House

By Bart King Let it be clear, when Barack Obama said in his inauguration speech: “We will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age,” he was talking about sustainability. When he pledged to work with poor nations “to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds,’ he was talking about sustainability. When he said, “Our economy is badly weakened” and “Our health care is too costly,” he was talking about a lack of sustainability. And of course, when he said, “We will harness the sun and the wind and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories,” that too, is sustainability. The Internet is littered with critical commentary claiming that sustainability is some vague term on equally poor footing as buzzwords like “green.” Yet, it is clearly definable as an attribute of human actions that promote economic, social and environmental health in the near and long terms. It requires the understanding that these three elements are interconnected and cannot be successfully manipulated as independent entities. The concept was born during the economic growth following World War II and developed in step […]

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