My headlines were a bit tongue-in-cheek. It’s impossible to give a fair synopsis of a position in one line, so I hope people will go back and check the actual comments if they’re interested in the concept.

I agree that we should help China and India, among others, be more sustainable. However, I also think that people in China and Indian have an important role to play, even if they’re not “affluent” by our (or even the world’s) standards.

In your comment in my last APLS post, you said… “As to your point about how subsistence farmers can focus on sustainability, I respectfully disagree with you. They can’t.” So perhaps we have a semantic disagreement on the difference between “focus” and “live.” I agree that it’s harder to spend time thinking about living more sustainably when you’re worried about making ends meet, so in that sense, they don’t have a “focus on sustainability.” However, I think one of the best ways to help make a living is to live sustainably, so I think that focus is something all of us, affluent or not, should work on even though it’s hard.

Sure, there’s a difference between living sustainably in NYC and in India. There’s also a difference between living sustainably in LA and Bloomington. I’m not sure why APLS applies across one set of differences and not the other.

Building infrastructure to make it easier for everyone else to be sustainable is a great goal! I think it’s self-reinforcing too. If you make it easier for someone else to compost, they might turn around and help you recycle #6 plastic. To me, that concept isn’t embedded in the acronym APLS. “Living Sustainably” says to me that they’re making sure their own lives are sustainable. It doesn’t say anything about helping to make their society sustainable.

I don’t think it should be “person(s)”. “Person” would be fine or “people,” but since “persons” doesn’t mean anything to me, “person(s)” just combines a real meaning with a word that I don’t find meaningful.

For example, Comment#1, I don’t think that China and India have no part to play. I’m not letting the off the hook by any means. But the fact of the matter is, these are growing countries. I believe strongly that is the obligation of developed countries to help developing countries. If we don’t want India to build more coal plants (which is what they’re doing) then we need to subsidize solar and wind. Think of it as the Marshall Plan 2.0. It is NOT fair for us to say, “You just shouldn’t grow” or “You shouldn’t use coal, but we’re not going to help you either.” That’s why, in a way, the onus is on the developed countries.

Comment #2: I’m not sure who was arguing that. I certainly wouldn’t argue that poor people can’t live sustainably.

Comment #3: I don’t think that if you’re not trying, it doesn’t count. I just think there is a difference between those who who live sustainably because they live in a village in India, and those who live sustainably because they choose to even though they live in NY City. In a village in India, you live sustainably because … that’s the way the community is set up. Society is geared towards sustainability. In NYC, the opposite is true. There is something to be said for those who go against the grain of society. It’s not a value judgement per se, it’s recognizing that there is a differentiation between the two groups. In India, even in the cities, there is an infrastructure in place that makes sustainability easier on the individual level. For example, someone will come to your door and take your soda bottles to be refilled. Rags are given to another person. Nothing gets thrown out because there is an infrastructure in place to make sure all these things get reused. Whereas if you live in the US, that infrastructure isn’t there, which puts the onus on the individual.

Comment #3A: I don’t mean the above to sound competitive. It’s not about being MORE sustainable than your neighbors. Rather, to me, the APLS movement is about BUILDING the infrastructure so that it’s EASIER on your neighbors to become sustainable.

As to the persons, I agree that it should really be person(s). Which I think explains why there is a need for it to be persons and not people. We’re getting a new logo eventually, so when we do, we can make that fix.