Some years ago, there was a cartoon of a chirpy looking guy coming up to some people gathered around the office water cooler and saying, “Hey, I’m new around here – where’s the suggestion box?” As a newcomer to the Valley, Mayor Degner’s orange strips for the Sustainability Summit were reminders that I particularly should listen more than talk. But he also invited blogs, so I would like to offer a few observations that may be useful to consider, or tear apart if they deserve it.
There are many definitions or uses of “sustainability” which often refer to different time periods. As yet, a sustainable nuclear fusion reaction is incredible short while other uses, like the one chosen for the Summit, stretch for generations. People can agree on a definition that suits their purpose, but knowing what is actually sustainable in the real world can be far more complex and in many cases, may not be possible. In this, my first Sustainability Summit blog, I will plead for us to err on the side of humility rather than confidence in “knowing” what will turn out to be sustainable in the future.
A regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency once told me that, “When it comes to third order effects, we don’t know whether we are crating a desert or a swamp!” A few examples, which many of you may already know, are reminders of his point.
Fire is one of mankind’s most important tools but it is also an enemy. There has been a continuing search for ways to control fires from those on ships to city conflagrations like the one started by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. When the physical properties of asbestos were learned, it seemed to offer sustainable ways for containing fires, for shingling and insulating buildings, and for vehicle brake systems. Its carcinogenic properties did not emerge until it had been used widely for years. Similarly, the idea of fire-proofing the plywood used in the roofs of multi-family housing seemed like a natural—until the treated plywood turned out to be rot-prone and the roofs started to fail.
During much of the last century, sulfur dioxide was used widely as a refrigerant. But it was so poisonous that it had been used as a gas in World War I. Many people died or suffered permanent lung damage from leaking refrigerators. So chemists at Dupont invented Freon, which was non-toxic and a more efficient refrigerant that reduced the amount of energy used for cooling. “Sustainable” was not in vogue then, but Freon surely would have qualified for the term, and by the 1970s, nearly all refrigerator manufacturers had switched to it. Then, of course, came the ozone hole at the South Pole which was traced to Freon.
A simpler example involves salt. During the middle of the last century, heat strokes, particularly among those working in the heat, were thought to be due to losing too much salt through perspiration. Virtually every construction project made salt tablets available and workers were encouraged to use them. Then, it was found that too much salt can lead to heart attacks, and the practice was stopped.
Asbestos, Freon, and salt tablets are typical of countless advances, which were made in good faith by people and companies that were trying to do what most would agree at the time was the right thing, but which eventually proved to be harmful. It is a good bet that some of what we believe are sound and sustainable practices today, will eventually have to be discontinued when they turn out to have harmful effects.
But this does this mean that we can halt the quest for sustainability any more than parents can stop caring for their children when problems arise that they were not prepared in advance to handle. Nor does it mean that we should resist progress just because of unknown unknowns, or automatically heap blame on those who try to do the right thing and fail.
It does mean, however, that we must avoid being too confident that everything that appears to be sustainable now will stand the test of time. We must be alert to warnings that things may not work as hoped and distinguish them from the resistance that normally comes from those with vested interests. And it means that what individuals, companies, industries, and governments do after they learn that a product, process, or policy may have a problem is as important as what they did to create the products, processes, and policies in the first place. Those who contribute to progress should be rewarded for what they accomplish, but if they mess up, they should help clean up.
Like the story of mankind, the drive toward sustainability will be a perpetual learning process of trial and error. And like the King in Anna and the King of Siam, we should expect to “find confusion in conclusions I concluded long ago!”
