Sustainability -- of course it's a loaded term, just like truth, love and justice. I mean, who or what is sustained? I understand that it's easy and logical to start with yourself, your business, and move on to your community. I mean, if your own community is a disaster, will you go somewhere else? And yet, hasn't this been the trend of mankind -- spoil the land and move on, to "new worlds", if need be? Only now, we have pretty much gotten to be everywhere, so one can't really spoil things without haven't the consequences come back at you. It's very sticky to talk about sustaining my business and my town, because it all starts to sound like looking out for me and to hell with the rest of you. The keystone of the search for sustainability is inclusiveness. It wants to sustain people, of course, but as much of the rest of creation as possible. We know we have displaced and annihilated countless communities and species as a consequence of turning the planet into one big factory farm. And, most of us realize we can't just stop, cold turkey. So the challenge for this century is how to steer spaceship earth on a course away from global disaster and toward a vision of health. One can argue endlessly about how much we should consume, how much we need to be happy, or to just get by. But the one real objective value that we can discuss right now is health. When people are dying at age 40, there is something wrong. When the water is full of germs and chemicals, when the air is filthy, when the bees fly off and don't come back, something is wrong. By agreeing that health -- our own, our community's, our planet's -- is the goal we seek, we can set aside a lot of our differences. Differences of economic expectations, politics, religion, etc. I propose that a planet populated by lots of healthy plants and animals is a better scenario than one in which we have to hole up in isolated communities afraid that every truck that comes down the highway might be carrying tainted food, exotic pests or people from other countries. If global health is achievable, we should work for it. If a healthy bee industry is possible, then that must be the goal of progressive beekeepers. If we have healthy bees, everyone benefits. You may be able to avoid other people's problems for a while but eventually we will all have to join together as a world community, and work for the common good. I just don't think the motive of saving my own skin and to the hell with the rest is sustainable. -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************