This diagram helps underscore the importance of interconnection between the triple bottom line of agricultural sustainability. Another person told me today that sustainability is becoming a bad word, a marketing term, a wash. What else should we call what we’re working toward?
Nifty diagram, Malory. So much information in a small package.
Yes, “sustainability” has come to mean making things a little more efficient so we can keep driving to Walmart. Don Hall likes “local self-reliance.” “Relocalization” sums it up. I also like the term “energy descent,” though the problem is much larger than just energy, as the diagram shows. Just “respecting nature” would go a long way!
Hi Darryl,
I appreciate these suggestions and your observation about continuing to drive to Walmart is so true! I read an interesting article recently by Born and Purcell about “The Local Trap” that is fodder for very interesting conversation regarding the need for further defining real goals of “buying local.” For example, what if Walmart is the only grocery store in your neighborhood (like in mine)? Is that the local choice? I actually saw someone present this as such at a Farm to School workshop; he suggested “Buy Local” with a slide filled with big box stores including Walmart, Winn Dixie, etc. I thought, we need a better definition. Are the real goals to alleviate poverty? To support ecologically-sensitive production practices that increase biodiversity? These questions attempt to get to the root of the desire for change.
I agree, “respecting nature” is a great term as well as furthering the realization among people that we are nature; we are interdependent in the web; let’s take care of it.