DI Digest Idea 2 July 96

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2.	Do You Speak SD?
	Have you noticed that a whole new vocabulary is emerging to allow people to 'talk' sustainability? 'Environment versus development' distinctions were probably the first to go, as they pitted planet against people without recognizing the importance of both. Now we talk a less polarized language of 'sustainable development' that places equal emphasis on communities, the economy and the environment. Take the word 'balance'. Despite its seeming innocuousness, 'balance' implies trade-offs and compromises between compet- ing goals. What we really want - in an ideal world at any rate - is win-win or 'triple-win' solutions that work economically, ecologically and socially. In the political arena, military-styled models of national security are giving way to ideas of common security. Depleting fish stocks can't be rescued by star wars. Environmental problems can't be over-powered 007-style. Centralized, secret deci- sion-making hierarchies needed in war are giving way to more decentralized, inclusive strategies that work on multiple levels. For true security, economic and environmental health and social equity are all essential. 'Jobs' too are going out of style as people grapple with economic down-sizing and a new planet-conscious propriety. With 'jobless growth', households are cobbling together livelihoods from non-commercial activities - much as many peoples always have for whom 'jobs' are a cultural irrelevance. Life and work styles that don't burn up and fade away are being dubbed 'sustainable livelihoods'. SD Talk links and combines priorities, while the old language isolates and creates opposites. 'Ors' are being substituted with 'ands' - now we're talking environment and development. [the new vocabulary of sustainability explained]
	sustainable livelihoods n. lifestyles and workstyles that don't deplete the social and environmental capital of economies common security n. a more cooperative alternative to the militaristic security ideas of the past, encompassing both environmental and social dimensions affluenza n. the affliction that results from mistaking a standard of living with a quality of life
	Deudney, Daniel. "The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security" . In Ken Conca, Michael Alberty and Geoffrey D. Dabelko (eds.) Green Planet Blues. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. 1995. 496 p. Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: the Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-market Era. New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1995. 350p. Kirdar, Uner and Leonard Silk (eds.). People: From Impoverishment to Empower- ment. New York: New York University Press. 1995. 496 p.
NOT HOT -	Rambo Lingo
	We often hear phrases like 'the war against the environment' and 'the war to save the environment'. Yet both are two sides of a common coin that turns on the imagery of war. Of outdated images of good guys and bad guys duking it out 'til someone rises victorious. If it were simply the occasional phrase that was blighted by this false dualism, then we needn't be too concerned. But the imagery is everywhere and so it's important to be aware of it. Consider 'eco-warriors' and 'peace cam- paigners', 'monkey-wrenching' and 'animal liberation', even 'Greenpeace' and 'environmental secu- rity'. Embedded in these words are noble goals to be sure, but there's one problem. The words all need adversaries of one kind or another to justify themselves. Without a fight, only sad compromis- es are possible. Rambo lingo lacks any imagination of cooperative solutions to environmental woes.
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