Sustainability - What does that imply?

These days there is a lot of talk on sustainability. Opinions tend to differ and so are the approaches. 

However, at the end of the day, sustainability would mean: 

a) Stable jobs

b) Happy families 

c) Smiles on human faces

Without any of these any effort in the name of sustainability is not even sustainable. 

The above criteria I thought about sustainability is closely linked to the sustainability of our natural world. 

Let us take a case to illustrate this: 

Punjab, an extremely fertile state of India, is known for its Green Revolution. It produces food in abundance. Therefore, it is also the home of the richest farmers in India. Yet the rate of 'farmer suicide' has tripled over the last decade. 

Why is that ? 

Punjab produces so much potatoes and cotton and exports its produce to the rest of India. That should appear as good news. But it isn't so good as it appears. The increasing high yield of potatoes and cotton, pushes the ground water level down, year after year (rate of replenishment is lesser than the rate of extraction). It means that the farmers would now have to use higher capacity pumps to pump water to irrigate. In other words, what the farmers export are a) water and b) electricity. The excess use of energy not only creates higher air pollution but also contributes to global warming. Incidentally, electricity tariff in Punjab is the highest in India, which means that the cost of production of potatoes and cotton are higher than normal.

However, the high supply of potatoes and cotton does not match the falling demands of these products (effect of recession). Hence the farmers are forced to sell their products either at a marginal profit or at a loss -- both of which are unsustainable in the long run. Over the years, this has pushed the suicide rate to very high levels. This is not kind to families.

Therefore, it is easy to see the strong link between sustainability of Mother Earth and sustainability of human lives. Unstable or unsustainable jobs would immediately indicate that Nature is affected and would be unsustainable to maintain life on earth -- now and in the future.

Hence, I conclude by saying that all efforts towards maintaining sustainability of our world must be geared towards creating and maintaining sustainable jobs, happy families and smiles on human faces. If we create and protect sustainable jobs we also protect Mother Earth. This should be the mantra for sustainability.