In Response to Some Previous Comments

This is going back a ways, but I need to address the comments left on my Extended Product Responsibility post, both because it is my class-imposed duty to do so, and because it deals with a topic at the heart of sustainability, and to not respond would be negligent.

The comment in question makes the case for sustainability as a moral standard. I resisted this idea for a long time, until I realized my arguments against it were purely semantic. When I said I was trying to rise above labels like "good" and "immoral" in favor of recognizing systems that work or don't work, what I was saying is sustainable or unsustainable. Furthermore, as I made those statements, I was in no way accounting for the undeniable group of people for whom sustainability is not important, those people who would agree the world is going down the crapper, but don't care, for whatever reason.

There was a time when I would have thought that was OK. So you don't care that the world needs saving? Well, it won't likely become unbearable until after I'm gone, so believe whatever you want. Now I've got nieces and nephews, and children of my own is no longer a ridiculous thought, and the idea that we could solve these problems but decided it was easier to just pass them along to the next generation because my life will probably turn out OK...that's literally disgusting. It turns my stomach. How could I possibly look those nieces and nephews in the eye and feel OK, knowing I could have done something and made the choice not to.

That is a moral standard.