What can sustainability mean?
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The term "sustainable" gets thrown around a lot, and for me it is more than just opting for sustainable materials and renewable energy sources, but working against extractive and exploitative practices in all areas. I believe that if something is designed with "sustainable" materials but is not used or cared for, it is far less sustainable than something designed with "unsustainable" materials.
Thinking about caring for the Land and sustainability should very much so include thinking the materials and energy sources, but that is not all that matters; it's the people and community.
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[source: https://www.quantamagazine.org/ants-build-complex-structures-with-a-few-simple-rules-20140409/]
Sustainability can mean;
- using a closed loop of resources. This requires knowing the resources in a community, involving, and centring Indigenous and Decolonial thinking.
- creating diverse systems and ensuring equitable distribution through intersections.
- using local resources to keep ownership, power, control in the community.
- aiming to be regenerative so that all systems can benefit the planet and people.
- running on current solar income (or other renewable sources) to not be fossil fuel dependent.
Sustainability can mean more than materials and resources
Sustainability can mean redistributing power
"when we heal ourselves, we heal landscapes, and it is time to create space for Indigenous peoples to heal as we move forward in life."
[source: Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science]
[LINK TO BOOK] Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science" Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.
January 18, 2022
Sustainability can mean thinking about how we as humans are part of nature, not above it
Looking at complex biological systems as inspiration can also be used to inform sustainable practices.
Living Systems: Planting Liberation with Adib Dada
[source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo4nYwxCDSA]
A community internet that is only sustained by renewable energy sources must start local and must be owned and controlled by the community.
Choosing to use renewable energy sources is not enough to make a system sustainable, if the infrastructure is set up but then not used, then it is wasteful. Furthermore, if the system and community is unable to adapt to changes, an internet network would not be sustainable.
How can an internet be re-designed to be regenerative? How can the internet benefit the people and the planet?
[source: https://theconversation.com/space-junk-astronomers-worry-as-private-companies-push-ahead-with-satellite-launches-137572]
[source: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-starlink-satellites-solar-storm]
Do we value connectivity over sustainability?
"Madeleine is also Chief Operating Officer at CanArctic Inuit Networks Inc, which is committed to building 4500 km of marine fibre optic cable into Canada's Arctic to significantly improve telecommunications in Inuit Nunangat and Nunavut. She is also CEO of SednaLink Marine Systems, which would transform segments of SednaLink fibre optic cable into a SMART (science monitoring and reliable telecommunications) cable to monitor marine climate changes, assist with environmental monitoring (especially near marine protected areas) and help in collecting marine intelligence."
[source: https://www.arctic360.org/innovation/internet]
[source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/inuit-connectivity-internet-subsea-cable-1.6224027]
[source:https://www.greenbiz.com/article/data-center-warms-homes-waste-heat]
"different conceptualizations of sustainability must be recognized to ensure an inclusive and just energy transition, and advances the concept of “pluriversal technologies” to emphasize the need for technologies that embrace ontological and epistemological diversity by being co-designed, co-produced and co-owned by the inhabitants of the socio-cultural territory in which they are embedded"
[source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0305750X21003405]