Extinction is a sustainable condition

(As a friend pointed out, this is another way to look at Fullerton's 400-year pipe replacement schedule...)

Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis

Sustainability is favored by everyone, but, people and groups view and use sustainability differently.  Alas, as Keynes observed, “In the long run we are all dead,” and achieve the same sustainable end.

As illustrated above, the word “sustainable” seems to be approaching an unsustainable level.  Sustainability is often a buzz-word, which sounds hip, sophisticated, and engaged, but actually says little and sadly substitutes for substance.  “Adaptive management” has developed similar usage.

We should all have an interest in the long-term well-being of California.  However, the broad use of “sustainability” to justify everything, even the patently unsustainable, invites ridicule.

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