Peace and Environment News* February 1998
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Peace and Environment News * February 1998 |
Planning For Seven Generations: Guideposts for a Sustainable Future
By Mike Nickerson
Voyageur Publishing, Hull, Quebec, 1993
Reviewed by Shannon Lee Mannion
 Approaches to sustainability. Photo: Shannon Lee Mannion. |
A few years back, when getting an inexpensive composter from one's municipality was all the rage, I put my dibs on one and brought the huge box of unassembled parts home. Once there, I looked at the instructions. They were similar to those of assembling the Canadarm, or at least so I thought. I said to myself, "Now what?"
I didn't have to wait long for the answer. The student living next door peered over the fence and boasted about how he had put together the one his parents had got back in his hometown. That was all I needed to hear.
He assembled. I supervised. Thus began a unique neighbourhood experience. Not only did the kid next door help put the composter together, he asked if he and his roommate could bring over their vegetable scraps. Then the people living above him asked if they could do so too. Very soon, people from up and down the street were seen shuffling along with overflowing plastic containers. I had not set out to do it, but what we established over the first couple months was the backyard equivalent of the office water fountain.
As neighbours and members of the larger community, we felt good about doing our bit to reduce what would previously have been unceremoniously dumped into landfill sites. We looked for unique things to compost: pet fur, our own hair, bits of cloth, rope, paper, feathers, and, of course, vegetable scraps and garden refuse.
We talked about more efficient ways to compost. People combed garage sales for choppers and grinders to create a mulch that would compost more quickly. We had a common goal: to reduce our garbage output and recycle what remained. Hanging out at the composter, we talked about what it means to live according to life-based values rather than those of accumulation and waste.
Someone appeared with the pocketbook Planning for Seven Generations by environmentalist Mike Nickerson. Discussions followed on how to achieve a sustainable future. Sustainability. Think of it as two words: sustain and ability. If we do not use our ability to correct the ill effects of our self-indulgent lives, we will not sustain the human race into the next millennium. Oh, we will make it to 2000. But as for the year 3000 or even 2500: don't bet on it.
In a way that is neither confrontational nor preachy, Nickerson points out exactly what we must do if we want our children's children, and their children, to have a place on this planet. In Planning for Seven Generation: Guideposts for a Sustainable Future, he predicts where we are headed if we ignore the warning signs and continue to live in a way that impoverishes us and others. He warns that if we continue to deplete environmental capital faster than it regenerates, it is very likely we will extinguish more species and, perhaps, the human race.
The title of his book refers to a Native tradition which specifies that present actions must have no deleterious effect on the next seven generations. Nickerson reiterates the findings published in the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission: "Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress to meet human needs and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts. They may show profits on the balance sheets of our generations, but our children will inherit the losses."
Nickerson also uses the analogy of the human body to explain sustainability. If we did not stop growing, our bodies would become unmanageable. Likewise, as a civilization we must also stop growing before we are too big for our planet. "If we look at the accelerating nature of exponential growth, we can understand what our cultural heritage has not prepared us for: that there are limits to what we can do to the Earth." Some of these limits are ones we can self-determine, such as our use of nuclear power and what to do with its waste products and what our role is vis-a-vis water and air pollution.
Discussions were often intense by the composter-cum-water fountain. But were they ever heated? Not really. No one is going to chastise a neighbour for not composting their carrot peels or for driving their car when they could just as easily walk. However, I clearly remember looks of gentle reproach when someone said that they did not have the time to bundle their newspapers and wash out cans for the blue box or that they did not care about the greenhouse effect because they would not be around in 50 years to feel it.
Would-be mothers talked about what it meant to bring children into being if it meant further burdening our crowded planet, already being depleted by its inhabitants. Was it conscionable? Especially if one had one or two children already. Were there options that would relieve the strain on our ecosystem?
Questions lead to thought, thought to speculation. And answers, many answers to solve the problem of sustainability. Nickerson's book outlines the problem and suggests solution. It is up to individuals to think about it: first for themselves, then for their communities, then for the greater good of our world.
Whether at the office drinking fountain or your backyard composter, discussion leading to awareness and cooperation are key elements that determine responsible action.
Mike Nickerson's book is available at Arbour Environmental Shoppe on Bank Street or at www.cyberus.ca/choose.sustain.
Shannon Lee Mannion is a writer living in Ottawa.
Converted October 1, 1999 - Lg
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