What is "sustainable"?

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 37761 wrote:

Nothing is truly sustainable without change… leave as many as possible options left for the future.

I generally think that biodiversity is important for sustainabilty as well, but within reason. It is interesting to note that extremely diverse systems are often very sensitive to insults. Tropical rainforests, for example, are famous both for thier biodiversity AND thier sensitivity to insults such as logging, erosion, climate change, etc. Something must be said for the sustainability of less specialized animals and organisms such as rats, raccoons, coyotes, deer, crows, pigeons, etc, that can eek out a living in a wide variety of environments (even semi-urban ones) and thusly have a higher degree of “sustainability” than tropical specialists that can only eat a leaves from a specific tree. This thought might be getting away from the origional topic of sustainability, but I just wanted to say that the presence of biodiversity, in and of itself, does not mean the system is sustainable in a changing world. I think there should be other aspects taken into account as well.

[J-L]

Very good discussion. It seems like most everyone has valid points.
I think Carl puts it well with regards to putting into practice those things that will make your operation more sustainable in your location (or thereabouts). I think that is a good thing to strive for.
It’s easy to get bogged down thinking of how an individual operation can make even a tiny bit of difference.

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