Living sustainably. Not a question of morality but a question of self-preservation

After a few weekends of discussing the topic of sustainable living and development with family and friends I have heard the term "moral" or idea of "morality" being expressed over the topic. This led me to discover that many people who discuss or are told about living in a sustainable manner believe that the choice to live sustainable is a moral one. The question of living sustainable is indeed a moral one but is the meat of the choice really moral? What makes it a moral question? What is the necessity of living so? I decided to put a few of the answerers for these questions down to paper.

The morality of living sustainably is simple. As long as we live within the means given to us by nature we will be able to live within nature. This may not be a symbiotic relationship but we can foster a less parasitic relationship with our ecosystem. In taking on a sustainable life we are able to support ourselves without detrimental results on the land around us. But it is not just the land that we are saving by living in a sustainable way. The effects of life the way we live it now are being felt all over the world. Rising seas, rising temperatures, unpredictable climate, degraded agricultural systems, overpopulation, overuse of resources, deforestation, the list goes on. By living in a more sustainable way we can reduce these negative effects of the way life has been lived, making living easier and increasing the likelihood that we will have a place to live in the future.

That brings me to the practical side of the choice to live sustainably. We already talked about the effects of our way of life on the world, so what does that mean for the practicality and moreover the necessity of sustainability. With our agricultural system stretched globally we are limited with what we can expect in the years to come, if we chose to continue on with a global system. The global agricultural system will not hold up under the stresses of reduced fossil fuel inputs and certainly will not survive the continues stresses the system itself puts on the land. Our system is losing thousands if not millions of acres a year to degradation, soil erosion, soil death, loss of water resources, suburban sprawl, etc. If the system we are using is killing the land we need to make the system work then it can clearly not last. If the fossil fuels used to power our system are polluting the word to the point it alters climate for the worse then we cannot further their use. If those same fossil fuel run out over the next 30 years, then we will surely face many years of strife if we dont change our ways. War, famine, climatic upheaval, none of these sound like a way to further life the way we know it.

So again morally we need to change our ways in order to protect our live, the lives of our children and our neighbors for generations to come. In order to do so we will be living a more harmonious life with nature. To anyone peace, harmony, safety for our children, helping our neighbors, protecting our species all seem like morally right and positive ends. From a practical point of view, being able to feed ourselves, live without fearing shortages of food, water, land, resources, electricity, safety from climatic change, and the security of our nation, all seem like necessities.

Through the lens of these two arguments we can see that certainly a portion of the argument is moral but the hard fact of the argument is that it is a necessary change that we must make.