Re:USDA announces plans to support innovative American-made ...
by phantomread on Monday March 14, 2022 @11:52AM
(#30673925)
Once it became a target, the precision of the term was at risk. Especially if you consider that the ability to redefine "what it means to be sustainable" is a means to greenlight high-value projects or grease the skids on large purchases of materials or services.
You've correctly pointed out that use of the term "sustainable" is not sustainable.
Re:USDA announces plans to support innovative American-made ...
by mannerheim on Monday March 14, 2022 @01:40PM
(#30675440)
> "Sustainable" literally means that you can sustain the practice indefinitely, and any process based on fossil fuels or any other resource that can be depleted automatically fails that test.
This is a definition of sustainable by which nothing in the universe is sustainable.
"Sustainable – reduces the greenhouse gas impact of transportation, production, and use through renewable energy sources, feedstocks, formulations, and incentivizing greater precision in fertilizer use;"
That's not what sustainable means - I feel like we're watering down this term until it is becoming meaningless. "Sustainable" literally means that you can sustain the practice indefinitely, and any process based on fossil fuels or any other resource that can be depleted automatically fails that test. No process that doesn't use 100% renewable energy and 100% renewable material inputs is sustainable, by definition.
And also, by definition, any process that is not sustainable will not be sustained in the long term, because that's what the word means.
It's fine to use "reduced environmental impact" or something like that, but let's not use "sustainable" unless we really, actually mean sustainable.