The World is Sustainable

Last Thursday, I attended a series of lectures at OCC which were related to the International Day of Climate Action. This was an event initiated by 350.org in order to raise awareness and get the public to act to reduce the amount of carbon in the air.
I was able to attend several lectures, including GreeningUSA's 12 Traits of Sustainable Communities, Rethinking 81, The National Scene, and Transition Towns.
I thought that these lectures were extremely interesting and I was happy to see that we are taking action to preserve and improve the world that we live in.
One topic that seemed to be common throughout the different lectures, was the issue of sustainability. I was very intrigued by this, since I didn't know what it meant. Now that I do know what it means, I find myself even more interested.
The UN's definition of "sustainability" says that it is "the ability to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
I now find myself thinking of ways that I can do things while making the world a safer place for my children and their children.
I believe that the topic of sustainability related very much with the lecture about Transition Towns. Doing things in a more natural, earth-friendly way, while dealing with the concerns of climate change and peak oil is going to be paramount to the survival of the Earth and the human race as a whole.
It is very scary to think of what will happen when we start running out of resources and we have to think of alternate ways to maintain our quality of life.
I look forward to hearing about what happens in Copenhagen this year, hoping that my country will have a stronger presence than in Kyoto and that we start encouraging our younger generations to take care of our planet. I also hope that, locally, we can create more programs that will enable us to lead greener lives and make it easier for people that are hesitant, to help make our community more sustainable.

Here is an image of Prof. Klein talking about Transition Towns.