Shamroukh 1

Habiba Shamroukh

Comp 105-10

WA #2

25 September 2017

Introduction to "Sustainability"

In the introduction to "Sustainability," Christian R. Weisser defines sustainability to be

the capacity/ability of something to endure or maintain itself. Specifically, Weisser speaks of

sustainability dealing with human activity and the earth's resources. He further describes

sustainability as the ability to "maintain the needs of the present without compromising the

ability of future generations to meet their own needs". In order for this to happen, human

practices need to change so that processes such as recycling need to take place more often, which

will help in sustaining our current resources for a longer period of time. In describing a

sustainable environment, Weisser states that a sustainable environment has little to no waste. The

basic premise for Weisser's argument about becoming more sustainable is that our current

practices are unsustainable. Although many argue that the simple things we do today such as

recycling help make our world more sustainable, he argues that in order for our environment to

be considered sustainable, three pillars need to be applied: social equity, environmental

preservation, and economic viability. Social equity is simply the people and community needed

to be treated equally with equal opportunities to be sustainable. Environmental preservation will

be applied when our human activities preserve our environment rather than harm the

environment. Finally, the third pillar, economic viability, is that our activities are feasible that

is, conveniently. Only when all three pillars are applied will our world be sustainable.
 Shamroukh 2

Sustainability is an important topic to study in an introductory writing course for many

reasons. Sustainability is important to study because it is relevant, complex, interdisciplinary,

includes different forms of discourse, political, rhetorical and is even personal. The complexity

of this topic comes from the fact that it spans many fields of topic, which means there are many

different topics within it that one can write about. Weisser explains that the broadness of the

subject of sustainability allows for many different opinions and perspectives to be formed and

analyzed. Writing about sustainability is good because the writer can take on different opinions

and ideas are built on each other over time.

I agree with Weisser that most of our current practices are unsustainable and that we need

to change our practices in order to maintain the needs of future generations. Weisser states that

many discussions are taking place in an attempt to work out a win-win situation for both the

economy and the environment, but I do not feel as though enough is being done by everyone as a

whole. Although many would object, arguing that most people recycle, I do not feel that it is not

good for everything we use. It works for resources such as paper, plastic and glass, but not for

other sources such as oil. For instance, oil is used for many things such as powering cars but

it is not renewable. Therefore, once it is used it becomes a waste/pollutant and will cease to exist

one day. It is clear that the topic of sustainability should be a major focus for all people since

most of the things we use every day become wastes, which is a problem for our environment. I

agree with Weisser's argument that a sustainable environment will only be sustainable if there

are little to no wastes, because only then will our resources last for a long time and fulfill the

needs of future generations. Overall then, I believe that our current habits are ruining the

environment and that we need to fix our practices, which is important considering that the future

generations need resources in order to live as well.