Sustainability, “living within our means”. These are now popularized terms, but what does there application really require? We keep hearing the way the average person lives in North America isn’t sustainable. People invite the idea of lessening their impact. But do they really know what that entails?

In the last few centuries, with some exceptions, the trend has been that every successive generation has more to work with, a higher quality of life, cheaper commodities and more opportunities. This expansion moves in the opposite direction of sustainability. People expect their lives to be filled with more luxuries than their previous generation. In a way, technology has brought this to us, but in order to be sustainable, we have to begin to give things up. And by some estimates, we have to give ALOT of things up.

But are North Americans prepared to do this? To give up their lifestyle for a benefit they will not likely see in their lifetime? It’s been mention many times that we have to become flexible and adaptable among other virtues, but the limiting factor will be how willing and altruistic people are in giving up their prosperity for a higher goal.

To complicate matters, the entire structure of industrialization, of cities, of world trade, was all conceived and formed before issues of sustainability were considered issues. A sustainable world will look entirely different than the one we currently live in, and will require a substantial amount of thought and recourse. Those preaching sustainability failed to communicate this.