Sustainability

             Before our generation started, our ancestors experienced what we call a sustainable environment. They experienced clean waters from lakes, a suitable air for breathing, and a surrounding with less waste than we could imagine. Sustainability has been the key for this kind of surrounding. Now, what is sustainability?

The ability of an ecosystem to function and maintain productivity for a prolonged period is what we call sustainability. As a human being, we are truly dependent on our environment for us to survive. Almost everything that we need comes from natural resources. Often times, it is a mistake for a human being to view that the natural resources from the environment are valuable only if they are useful to humans. It means that when we think that one of the natural resources is not significant for living, there is a tendency that humans will waste those resources, thus we are going to have a degraded ecosystem and a diminishing biodiversity.

Sustainability is the capacity to continue to exist. If something is not sustainable, it will cease to exist. For example, a community can be considered as sustainable if whatever resources it consumes should be no more than into what it produces. This is because sustainability is a balance between supply and demand, between what is produced and consumed. A sustainable population ensures that the population of all other species who share the land where they live is also sustained. A population that causes the extinction of another species is not sustainable. It means that human population and the population of the natural resources are dependent on each other so they need to take care of each other and assure the preservation of each.

Some of us think that by being a student we only have limited ways to contribute to sustainability. We can have different and plenty of ways to contribute for the sustainability of our environment. We know that production of sustenance is difficult for large population because of the climate change and increased levels of pollution. It worsens environmental conditions.

As a student, I can prevent the worsening of pollution by joining different activities specifically tree planting. It is clearly obvious that we lack trees especially in the rural areas. Flooding destroys the environment and the natural resources that we need. Just as what I mentioned, we can achieve sustainability by having a balance between supply and demand. Aside from this, we also need to decrease the amount of waste produced so as not to exceed the waste absorption capacity of the environment.

As a student, we can decrease the amount of waste by recycling. It is the process of separating, collecting, and remanufacturing or converting used or waste products, it reduces pollution and helps mitigate global warming, and more importantly, it saves our planet Earth. A population’s ability to sustain itself is not dependent on the number of people, but the relationship between the people and the land they live on. If the people exploit the land, taking more from it than they give in return, then regardless on the number of people, they will soon reach a point where the land no longer sustains them.

As a student, I can contribute to sustainability by thinking and restoring into my mind that there is no unlimited consumption of resources. I will make others realize that resources are finite and will run out at present rates of consumption. 

Sustainability is important because all the choices and actions that we do today will affect everything in the future. The lives of the future generations will count on us so that there would be enough natural resources for them. Let me end by stating a quote from Frank Buchman, “There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”. It means that even as a student, we should be responsible enough in handling and maintaining sustainability.