UBUNTU CHAMPIONING SUSTAINABILITY

Why Sustainability?

WRITTEN FOR, AND ON BEHALF OF HUMANITY

For many decades, we humans have known that we are running out of resources and polluting our planet. We face crises in topsoil loss, water pollution, air pollution, global warming, and population growth (Auestad et al., 2015; Winter & Koger, 2014), and this is not an exhaustive list. Yet, we humans tend to remain shortsighted as we approach carrying capacity, or our environmental total ability to support life (Winter & Koger, 2014). We must take immediate action to prevent catastrophe.

According to scholars, sustainability involves producing food to meet nutritional needs and to promote health in current and future generations, while simultaneously minimizinging our environmental footprint (Auestad et al., 2015). Simply put, we must eat to survive, yet we must be mindful of what we do to the planet and what we leave for the future. Sustainability, thus, demands care for oneself and others in a manner that cycles in perpetual self-sufficiency, within an ecosystem that is productively replenishing through a biodiversity management system.

Philosophically, sustainability involves a call to abandon selfish choices and consider the needs of tomorrow while meeting the needs of today. Evolutionarily speaking, it may have been beneficial for ancestral humans to focus only on the here and now (Winter & Koger, 2014) and on selfish actions to promote the survival of one’s genes. Using Darwinian logic of ultimate causation, we consume food and other products to fulfill survival needs (Saad, 2006). However, modern humans engage in rapid consumption without replacement. Moreover, we have polluted the environment with pesticides and other toxins that harm the atmosphere and other animals, and that damage our human neurology, hormones, respiration, and other sensory and survival systems, causing severe health conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, and even infertility and death (Delgado-Saborit et al., 2021; Doty, 2008; ?zer, 2021; Pizzorno, 2018).

Earth as we know it will not survive, and we cannot sustain as a society, if we have forgotten how to transcend our own immediate needs. We must focus on group and future congruent sufficiency. Remember that even early scholars like Freud worked to strengthen our personality structures so that we can be better social selves (Featherstone, 2020).

Fortunately, since the 1980s, scholars agree that there has been a shift in consciousness towards protecting ourselves, our communities, other communities, and considering ethical and just outcomes for future humans (?zer, 2021; World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Researchers have presented evidence that people are increasingly unhappy with hyperconsumerism, and that people have the will to select and consume products that make a difference in the world and promote fulfillment and happiness (Rennollet et al., 2020).

Sustainability efforts are critical as we humans adapt to global climate change and other crises (Gilbert, 2021).?

Integrating sustainability can confer great advantages, not only ecologically, but also economically and socially (Gilbert, 2021). Imagine the social growth, connectedness, and cooperative benefits that will emerge if we can teach families to meet their nutritional needs and thrive using sustainable biodiversity, yet also work together to meet short-term and long-term survival needs? What if we can promote food production techniques that have a low environmental impact yet be economically affordable for all (Auestad et al., 2015)? What if we can teach children, at a young age, to be mindful of their nutrition, consumption habits, and the impact their consumption has on each other and the future? Sustainability, then, can be one of the keys to managing global crises.

It is interesting to note that sustainability education appears to be beneficial for brain development. Scholars argue that sustainability depends on the neurological development of empathy, including the capacity to make unselfish choices (?zer, 2021). Researchers have argued for the need to begin sustainability education as young as daycare age when children’s brains are rapidly developing, serving as the foundation for life choices they will make (Davis & Gibson, 2006). Davis and Gibson (2006) ran a program for young children the called the Sustainable Planet Project in which they emphasized the importance of environmental issues and the motivations of local and global sustainability. Children became active learners. They played outdoors more and worked to improve the eco-friendliness of school grounds. They ate “litter less” lunches, recycled materials, worked on a vegetable garden, and created signs such as “Please turn off the water ” and “If it is yellow, let it mellow. If it is brown, flush it down.” to post in the lavatory.

Further, as children learn sustainability, they learn empathy for the needs of each other and for future humans. Benefits are reaped beyond environmental care, as foundational empathy can be important for other prosocial behaviors and can promote helping behavior (Kragel & Wager, 2019). Children who engage in early service learning demonstrate increases in empathy and community engagement (Scott & Graham, 2015).

What about those beyond childhood? Is it too late? Evidence shows it is not too late to learn beyond childhood. Adults could also learn to live sustainability. Education for sustainable development (ESD) research suggests that university programs can raise sustainability consciousness in students (Kalsoom & Khanam, 2017), and scholars argue that institutions of higher education can play a key role in facilitating the adoption of a sustainable lifestyle by individuals and groups (Stephens et al., 2008). In addition, contemporary adults report an increased interest in using products with a sustainability focus (Rennollet et al., 2020). We are indeed capable of change and growth.

It is therefore imperative that we combine personal, societal, and technical change to tackle the interconnected, global challenges we face in food production and environmental impact (Stephens et al., 2008).

I therefore call on a co-collaboration to encourage sustainability, with the “WHAT IS UBUNTU” philosophy (Christian B. N. Gade, 2012). Hence; caring for others in a way that unites and integrates the human aspect and bio-diversity in crop development for the benefit of planetary survival, will empower and save a species from extinction.

References

Auestad, N., & Fulgoni, V. L., III. (2015). What current literature tells us about sustainable diets: Emerging research linking dietary patterns, environmental stability, and economics. Advances in Nutrition, 6(1), 19-36. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.114.005694

Davis, J. M., & Gibson, M. (2006). Embracing complexity: Creating cultural change through education for sustainability. International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, 6(2), 93-102.

Delgado-Saborit, J. M., Guercio, V., Gowers, A. M., Shaddick, G., Fox, N. C., & Love, S. (2021). A critical review of the epidemiological evidence of effects of air pollution on dementia, cognitive function and cognitive decline in adult population. Science of the Total Environment, 757, 143734. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143734

Doty, R. L. (2008). The olfactory vector hypothesis of neurodegenerative disease: Is it viable? Annals of Neurology, 63(1), 7-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.21327

Featherstone, M. (2020). Apocalypse Now!: From Freud, through Lacan, to Stiegler’s Psychoanalytic Survival Project. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 33, 409-431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09715-8

Gilbert, S. F. (2021). Evolutionary developmental biology and sustainability: A biology of resilience. Evolution & Development, 23(4), 273-291. https://doi.org/10.1111/ede.12366

Kasloom, Q., & Khanam, A. (2017). Inquiry into sustainability issues by preservice teachers: A pedagogy to enhance sustainability consciousness. Journal of Cleaner Production, 164(15), 1301-1311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.07.047

Kragel, P., & Wager, T. D. (2019). Reproducible, generalizable brain models of affective processes. In M. Neta & I. Haas (Eds.) Emotion in the Mind and Body:?Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 221-263). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27473-3_8

Pizzorno, J. (2017). Environmental toxins and infertility. Integrative medicine: A clinician’s journal, 17(2), 8-11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6396757/

?zer, F. S. (2021). Neuroscience for understanding and developing sustainability: Neurosustainability. Journal of Business, Innovation and Governance, 4(2), 132-148. https://doi.org/10.54472/jobig.948854

Rennollet, I., Schmidkonz, C., & Kraft, P. (2020). The role of purpose in consumer choice: A comparison between baby boomers and millennials in Germany with a focus on sustainability and consciousness. World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, 16(3), 241-261. https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/WREMSD.2020.107273

Saad, G. (2006). Applying evolutionary psychology in understanding the Darwinian roots of consumption phenomena. Managerial and Decision Economics, 27(2-3), 189-201. https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.1292

Scott, K. E., & Graham, J. A. (2015). Service-learning: Implications for empathy and community engagement in elementary school children. Journal of Experiential Education, 38(4), 354-372. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053825915592889

Stephens, J. C., Hernandez, M. E., Roman, M., Graham, A. C., & Scholz, R. W. (2008). Higher education as a change agent for sustainability in different cultures and contexts. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 9(3), 317-338. https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370810885916

Winter, D. D. N., & Koger, S. M. (2014). The psychology of environmental problems (2nd ed). New York: Psychology Press.

World Commission on Environment and Development Report (WCED). (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our common future. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf