What is Sustainability

Sustainability is, to me, the process of making sure every natural resource offered on this planet stays accessible and stays plentiful for as long as possible. Granted, this is an extremely broad definition, but the concept itself, I think, is just as broad. Sustainability includes food, water, energy, wildlife and many other categories, each of which brings with it immense amounts of information and controversy and is in some form or another being threatened or at the very least utilized inefficiently.
When looking at this definition globally, sustainability seems daunting, and in a way it is. The sheer numbers of resources being wasted each day is staggering, an amount no individual can compensate for on his or her own. However, when looking at this issue from a different light, achieving or working towards sustainability is quite manageable. For instance, according to Energy Star, “if every American home replaced just one light bulb with [a fluorescent light bulb], we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.” In some ways sustainability will take a lot of work, a lot of joining together and a lot of rallying, but at the same time, sustainability can be partially achieved by doing easy, little things like replacing light bulbs, going trayless or taking a shorter shower.