Better Living Through Sustainability

My thesis work is now documented and up online at this address: http://graduate.mica.edu/gdmfa/thesis2009/bjornard/index.html

Everything will eventually live on this site, but has simply not yet been uploaded. Bear with me, finishing Grad School and starting life again is hard work.

Environmentalism’s goal was environmental sustainability. Post-environmentalism’s goal must be true sustainability. I propose a new term for the followers of post-environmentalism: Sustainabilitists. We sustainabilitists shall take over where the environmentalists leave off, moving sustainability from the realm of the environment into all realms.

Okay, we gave presentations today as to the direction and progress of our theses as a group of MFA's. In my presentation I touched upon some subjects that I plan on expanding upon. One was the way that the words "GREEN" and "SUSTAINABLE" get used. They are currently used interchangeably, but I plan on outlining in a future essay how I believe they are not equal, and should be adopted differently (green being ditched all together).

When something is called Green or Sustainable it is just a name, just adjectives. A description like green does not make it the right or better solution, it just makes it an alternative. These ideas need to be described in a way that references concrete economic, political, and cultural terms instead of just some new buzzword. We should be focussed on what underlying concepts make something sustainable. Talk about what makes sense, use real world terms, oh and do not mention global warming. We must push progressive reform on design and commerce.