kewl tool for simplifying sustainability: SEE-IT
Beaverton (OR) is one of those transition towns whose sustainability program is using the "see-it" organizing tool for communicating and encouraging community involvement (via seeit online).
SEE-IT (for Social/Environmental/Economic Integration Toolkit) is the brainchild of Real Living Solutions, whose tagline is "simplifying complexity." Hey, I'm down for that!
Says RLS, "sustainability based thinking is being used to reinvent tired old industrial revolution models in every aspect of human life. It is clear that leaders are moving on from the industrial revolution thinking that threatens our future. Sustainability thinking is producing better businesses, better communities, better buildings, better energy solutions, while reducing environmental damage."
"Sustainability is perhaps the most important concept ever developed by humans", says RLS. "Unfortunately, it also ranks among the most misunderstood."
Here's wot RLS says about making sustainability simple:
Numerous scientific studies have shown that current human activities are consuming Earth's natural resources faster than they can regenerate. This evidence is clear:
- At least one third of the world's cropland is losing topsoil at a rate that is undermining its long-term productivity
- At least 50% of the world's rangeland is overgrazed and deteriorating into desert
- The world's forests have shrunk by about hald since the dawn of agriculture and earth's overall forest cover is still shrinking at a spectacular rate
- Two thirds of oceanic fisheries are now being fished at or beyond their capacity
- One every continent, groundwater is being pumped from acquifers faster than it can regenerate
- Studies monitoring ranges of health indicators for living systems show clear and rapid decline in Earth's living systems and clear evidence of human induced population crashes throughout the animal kingdom.
Quite simply, the natural systems that control life on Earth as we know it cannot survive if we continue to destroy the.
Sustainability is about making the critical choices now that will decide whether we destroy or save the remaining natural systems that life on Earth as we know it depends on.
Sustainability makes sense-- for the environment, for people for profits and for prosperity.
Life on Earth has evolved in a complex relationship of interdependency that humans are only beginning to understand. While there is still much to learn, it is clear that life on Earth as we know it is utterly dependent on a complex web of interacting species. Human beings are utterly dependent on the health of Earth's living systems.
The choice between sustainable and unsustainable economic activity is not a choice between progress and regressions as is often portrayed by those that attempt to cling to the status quo.
By simple acts such as shifting taxation from "goods" such as people working or adding value to the "bads" such as burning or fossil fuels or other environmentally destructive practices, our economies could start to reward companies that produce the goods and services we need at least environmental cost.
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