Defining sustainability is a slippery job

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"When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers; you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind." I used Lord Kelvin's words in January's column about science, because measurement — unbiased measurement — is fundamental to science. However, having a measureable definition to work from is more than fundamental, it is essential.

Lately ecologists, educators, politicians, environmentalists, and developers have been touting sustainability. Yet I doubt they would all agree how it is defined or measured. I recently attended a meeting on sustainability at Southern Oregon University. Participants from throughout the Rogue Valley attended, representing a variety of interests. Yet it wasn't until the meeting was essentially over that someone asked whether anyone knew how sustainability is defined.

Before considering sustainability, let me offer some thoughts.

Some definitions are rule based. For example, you become (are defined as) an adult at 18. Rules make it simple. Before turning 18, you are considered a child. After turning 18, you are an adult, regardless of your behavior. Pregnancy is another easily definable condition. There are established, measureable characteristics. Even death can be less certifiable. But, usually the rules are simple.

Other notions are just fuzzy by nature. For example, how do you define and measure love? Googling the "definition of love" gives over 1,300,000 hits. Defining pregnancy gives you less than 800. Different cultures define love differently, different religions have their own belief, and science still has few definitive answers. Yet there are commonly accepted criteria that help with understanding and determining what to measure.

Sustainability is more like love than pregnancy, difficult to define, but it has some commonly accepted elements. Both notions have human well-being at heart, both are human needs, and both are difficult to put into practice.

Sustainability's temporal elements include future expectations. We expect to use our resources to satisfy our current needs at a rate or intensity that protects the capability of the system to satisfy our future needs. Implicit is the possibility that overuse, high demands, may impair capability. That could be the reason we are looking more closely at resources or systems that are renewable and resilient, with the ability to recover from constant, long-term use.

Dr. Hal Salwasser, from Oregon State University, defined ecological sustainability as "Enhancing human well-being by using, developing and protecting resources at a rate and in a manner that enables people to meet their current needs while also providing future generations with the means to meet their needs as well; it requires simultaneously meeting environmental, economic and community needs." It seems like a good basic first iteration. It has all the elements and is expressed in just one sentence!

Currently measurement of our progress toward sustainability is focused on whether we are protecting or enhancing long-term resource capability. Are we using energy sources that are renewable and sustainable while maintaining arable, productive soil, sources of clean water, and sustaining the composition of the atmosphere? Yes, we are critically measuring a number of elements that can be used to evaluate our sustainability, regardless of how it is defined. And, they are being given increasing scrutiny. Southern Oregon University is in the forefront of this Southern Oregon and national effort.

I wonder whether today's divorce rate is a measure of how well we understand and express love, and if so, I am hoping we can do a better job putting sustainability into practice.

Tom Atzet is a retired Forest Service ecologist living in Merlin. He can be reached at P.O. Box 1226, Merlin, OR 97532.

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