This is just a bit of a thought experiment. I’ve been pondering the differences between the words “sustainable” and “resilient” lately, and if either of them apply to how we’re trying to live. I used to throw around the word “sustainable” a lot more than I do now, and I’d like to try to explain why I feel more cautious these days.
In textbook terms, sustainability means “the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely” (source). The key word here is “indefinitely”, which is defined as “lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time”. A synonym for indefinite is infinite. Practically speaking, what’s implied here is that if something is defined as sustainable, it means that it can be continued forever into the future.
Well, that’s a pretty heavy statement, huh? Going by this definition then, the phrases “more sustainably” or “less sustainably” don’t exactly make sense — there is only “sustainably”, since how can you do something “more infinitely” or “less infinitely”?
