If climate change is wrong, which it is not, sustainability still makes a lot of sense (and dollars for that matter). As my colleague Paul Birkeland of justmeans has described expertly, the price of energy does not reflect the true cost of energy. For every barrel of oil that is recovered from the crust of the earth many more are essentially burned up in the recovery process, which includes exploration, drilling, refining, and transportation of fossil fuels. There are many strategies to go about attaining sustainability for the sake of climate change or sustainability for sustainability's sake. In each case, appropriate responses include renewable energy, increased energy efficiency, and carbon emissions reduction.
If you understand the work of our brightest scientists and climate change without a doubt is being influenced by man made carbon emissions then you understand that it's hard to separate climate change from sustainability. Climate change is the problem and sustainability (including green jobs) is the solution.
If on the other hand, you don't buy into all the hoopla, or Al Gore, three thousand Nobel laureate scientists that say climate change is real, and in fact you think it is a joke, the path of sustainability is probably less obvious. Yet, it is still worth all our effort. Fossil fuels are finite resources, someday, within 200 years oil will be gone. Oil is the most potent energy source we have, and we're drinking it at gallon prices cheaper than milk. What will the world do when we run out of cheap coal and oil? We'll need renewable energy. Why start late at an expensive price? We could start early at cheaper costs. The point is: sustainability for the sake of climate change or sustainability for the sake of sustainability, it doesn't matter which reason you choose, sustainability is the future of this planet, and its not going away anytime soon.
So how are sustainability and climate change related? Let me count the ways, but first let us define sustainability: sustainability is "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Bruntland Commission, 1987). There are many goals, but at the heart of them all is that definition- meeting the needs of today without damaging future generations to do so. Going back to the original question: so how are sustainability and climate change related?
Well... the easiest way to explain the relationship is through energy. Currently we burn fossil fuels faster than we drink milk. We are using up a valuable resource and essentially taking away accessibility to energy for future generations. We're also turning up the heat in the process. The solution to climate change is sustainability in the form of renewable energy and alternative fuel. Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, biofuel and basically any form of renewable energy produced with zero carbon emissions are sustainable; they'll provide the energy needs of this generation and secure the energy needs for future generations. But as we'll get to in an upcoming post, for both climate change and sustainability, renewable energy is just one part of the solution.
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