The Butterfly Effect

 ###Sustainability ###

 The "avoidance of the depletion of natural resources, to maintain an ecological balance. " That is how Oxford Languages, defines sustainability. 

In reality, there can be other types of sustainability, which don't involve ecological resources. For instance, someone may be involved, with the financial sustainability of either themselves or a business. In that case, they would focus on the assets that are both coming in, and going out. 

However, more often than not, when someone speaks of sustainability, they are referring to the replenishment of natural resources. The ability to maintain an equilibrium. If you cut down a tree, plant a tree. That essentially is sustainability. 

It is much more involved than that. With 7.5 billion people inhabiting this rock, that is hurtling through space, we need to start thinking about generations yet to come. How what we do, or don't do, will affect those people 100 years from now? 

Not much thought is given, when you roll down the window, of your $50,000 car, to chuck out your unwanted plastic soda or water bottle. Nor about the roughly 450 million years, it will take that plastic bottle to decompose. And who knows how many toxins will be leaching into the water and soil in the process. You certainly can't have it trashing up your new car! 

And surely can't be troubled with the task, of holding on to it, until you can put it in a waste can. They are only on like every corner right? 

Those types of people get to me. Once, while I was in the Army. I was driving with a buddy, and we were on a desolate stretch of road, on the way from Fort Polk, Louisiana, to Shreveport, Louisiana, for a little R&R. My buddy rolled down the window, and threw out his trash. I immediately stopped the car, and we had a five-minute argument. Bottom line, I wasn't going to continue driving, until he got out of the car, and retrieved his trash. He begrudgingly did so. Otherwise, we'd still be sitting in the middle of that road. 

There comes a time when you've got to make a stand. Whether you refuse to give up your bus seat, because of the color of your skin, or you're making a good friend, get out of a car, and pick up his litter, on a deserted country road. Mind you I'm not trying to equate one with the other. Only offering them both as examples of taking a stand. 

What we leave behind for our grandkids, and the generations to follow will depend entirely, on the sacrifices we are willing to make today.