Sustaining the Unsustainable

If a words popular use were tracked graphically, then the chart measuring usage of the term ’sustainable’ would mirror any of the other explosive exponential graphics characterising human activity in the 20th and early 21st century.

In our growing anxiety, we scrambled towards ’sustainability’ for we’ve come to understand in our gut how unsustainable our activities have really become. With a tap root in environmentalism, the word’s popular usage now ironically embraces the opposite pole of mainstream economics and the stock market. As the reader would be aware, it is completely common to hear a soundbite uttered by acme incorporated that states “…our first quarter profits are sustainable”. This word choice here is not a coincidence.

It is a slippage that reveals the reptilian understanding we all have now for the seriousness of our condition. Something the cerebral cortex still plays in denial.

Why the Inertia?

Who wouldn’t describe their life as a continuous sequence of pressing responsibilities that demand attention. A seemingly endless barrage of distracting demands that shackle our attention. Is it not true that as a people, we also busy ourselves in this way?

Cartoon by Sidney Harris

And who hasn’t experienced a moment in their life when all daily concerns must be put aside to deal for a genuinely serious matter. When it becomes clear that direct action must be taken to address a threat so present that it eclipses everything.

Not long ago we revered the earth for we understood our fragility. This was before arrogance and a sense of superior dominance stemmed from novel technological invention. Through ignorance we meandered to denial and then on to selfish indifference.

Suffering chronically from widespread ‘nature deficiency disorder’ and becoming increasingly detached each passing day, we march towards a catastrophic end which even the most entrenched cynic can now smell as repugnantly as vapours emanating from the mountains of toxic waste we generate, hour by day by month by year.

Time To Change Our Thinking

You don’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. The word ’sustainable’ has lost all stock and a new paradigm is needed to slap us awake from our entropic apathy. That word, notion and call to action is ‘Regeneration’. Regeneration is beyond sustainable. If we aren’t acting with regeneration in mind then we’re falling short of what’s needed to overcome these troubles.

Real Change Starts With Food

This is why, together with a growing alliance of responsible people, we’ve put together a new program which addresses the central and straightforward question of our lives.

Food

That which sustains our everyday lives and that which also constitutes our greatest challenge and call for change. Before cultural regeneration and certainly political regeneration we must regenerate food production. Do we sustain ourselves or do we regenerate ourselves? Do we sustain our community or do we regenerate our community? Do we wait for the end, or do we act?

Attend a workshop in the upcoming The Regenerative Agriculture Workshop Series to understand the sea change that is approaching the tipping point.