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Front Matter

Introduction to Issue 1.2, “Sustainability Policy”

Robert Koch, Jr., Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

Who would have thought when we placed the call for a policy issue back in June that we would have to contend with the frustration and horror of a “science denier” in the White House for the next four years? Already, Donald Trump’s nominees for Secretary of State, Secretary of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency have demonstrated a clear lack of attention to Sustainability and the threat of climate change. Unfortunately, the journey toward a more sustainable future just became more difficult, and will need to happen despite, rather than with, American leadership over the next four years.

This second issue of the Journal of Sustainability Studies offers readers juxtaposition. First, John Langton, Professor of Political Science at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, delivers in his “Last Lecture” a desperate call to action, asking not only his college community, but the American and global community, to engage the threat of global climate change more seriously. Citing data trends in pre- and post-industrial temperature change and increased levels of greenhouse emissions, Langton argues that failure to act will likely result in a domino effect of increasingly catastrophic events affecting global cultural and political stability. He argues that not enough is being done, and that in particular America has not taken the global lead on the issue, a problem unlikely to change until after the 2020 elections. However, hope still exists as long as voters and everyday citizens insist on getting informed and insisting on positive action from elected leaders.

In contrast to the monolithic challenge presented in the last lecture of a senior professor, we feature the recent “Home Grown” efforts of one woman whose work on upcycling in her little corner of Sheffield, Alabama, illustrates the slogan “think globally, act locally.” Home Grown Art owner Barbara Cook shares her passion for salvaging the tossed aside and giving it new life in various art forms. Over twenty local artists display and sell their work in her shop, and so the environmentally conscious artist-entrepreneur advocates for both local art and eco-friendly practice.

The reviews in this issue, penned by intern Hope Johnson, review Bill Nye’s Unstoppable and the website Grist, each of which provides critical information and specific forms of action for creating a more sustainable, less threatened world. Each in its way captures the juxtaposition offered in this issue: a call to action, and specific ways to act. This is not simply good policy; given the current political and social climate, it’s the only reasonable policy.

Thanks for this issue goes to the contributors; Dr. Amanda Coffman, Director of the UNA Center for Sustainability; interns Hope Johnson and Falon Yates, who wrote reviews, edited, and took photographs; and the University of North Alabama administration. For the June issue, we are eschewing theme: as a response to the troubling, free-for-all future we now face, our journal will accept submissions in any area of interest related to sustainability. The deadline for submissions is April 1st, 2017. See the call in this issue for more details. We look forward to hearing from you.

What is Sustainability?

Introduction to Issue 1.1, “What Is Sustainability?”

Robert Koch, Jr., Ph. D.
University of North Alabama

It might seem strange to find a professor of English Composition serving as editor on a journal about sustainability, but that’s only until you consider that writing, like sustainability, is interdisciplinary. The work of University Writing Centers and Writing in the Disciplines, which I have been engaged in for most of ten years, requires a perspective on writing that is not limited to notions of canonical English literature, but that instead views the act of writing as a set of decisions that are nuanced by discipline-specific needs as well as content. Similarly, it helps to understand sustainability if we expand it beyond the domain of the natural sciences, and understand it as an interdisciplinary field as well.

Much of the literature available on sustainability, including many of the selections in this inaugural issue, identifies the subject as sitting at an intersection where environment, economics, and society overlap. This is often depicted as a Venn diagram, shown below:

Sustainability Venn diagram

Fig. 1.  Sustainability Venn Diagram

Thus, the definition of sustainability inherently speaks to an overlap in disparate disciplines and competing ideas, most visibly the natural and social sciences with business and economics. The subject is interdisciplinary, in that it can be studied from a number of disciplines and perspectives.

This, then, is the purpose of the Journal of Sustainability Studies: to expand our understanding of, and our relationship to, sustainability by making an array of sustainable ideas accessible to both an academic and non-academic audience. We wish to promote ideas about sustainability that are expressed not only in academic research, but in “how-to” guides, literature, multimedia, and even art. Our goal is to create a journal that comfortably situates selections of intellectual rigor alongside critical experiences in the workplace, community, and even the home.

In our inaugural issue, we asked for contributions that answered these questions: “What is sustainability? In my field, what does sustainability mean? What are examples of current unsustainable practices? What are the barriers to living more sustainably? What is the best-case scenario for how to attain sustainability? If we fail to live sustainably, what will happen? What will sustainability look like in my field? In the distant future, how will people be living sustainably?” The answers were varied, insightful, and, as expected, interdisciplinary.

The cover art for our inaugural issue is a piece by Alabama artist and educator Nancy Muse, a watercolor reimagining of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that clearly delineates competing visions of the future, with and without sustainable efforts. The issue is then divided into four sections. Section I, titled “What is Sustainability?” offers three explanations of how sustainability intersects with three very different disciplines. Mario Mighty illustrates the ways in which geography is a foundational science necessary for answering questions and solving problems in sustainability. Then, Doug Barrett examines the mutually shaping forces that sustainability and economics exert on each other. As a foundational concept in the aforementioned description of sustainability, economic theories and methods play a significant role in the development of this new field. Finally, Gary Padgett argues that critical pedagogy and cultural awareness should lead educators to move from teaching about sustainability to creating sustainable teaching. Uniting each of these selections is a clear understanding that sustainability is not just in vogue, or something likely to become passé, but that it is part of a significant cultural shift that can enhance–and be enhanced by–each of these disciplines.

Section II, “Research and Theory,” transitions from definitions of sustainability to issues in the subject itself. This bridge is best made through Robert Sroufe’s “Operationalizing Sustainability,” which at once outlines the relationship of sustainability to marketing while also delineating specific strategies to be employed in workplace environments that make sustainability less a buzzword and more an idea that can be practiced. Then Mark Puckett outlines a clear argument for sustainability as he explores and explains the geological and atmospheric evidence underlying historical mass extinctions, including the one currently underway. In Section III: “Sustainable Practice,” our contributors provide a deep contrast in practical engagement with sustainability. First, Simon Bevis, a farmer-turned-graduate student, narrates his own experience with sustainability, encouraging readers to follow the old mantra “think globally; act locally” and suggesting ways in which readers might be able to do so. The featured art selections, acrylics by Carty Bledsoe, visually examine what she calls “wounded systems,” creating an artistic parallel to ideas observed in several of our other selections. This issue concludes with reviews of seminal books in Sustainability Studies, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, as well as a review of the website Treehugger.com.

We are proud to present this inaugural issue of the Journal of Sustainability Studies, and would like to thank the following people at the University of North Alabama who made it possible: Dr. Ken Kitts, President; Dr. John Thornell, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost ; Dr. Mark Puckett, Past Director of the UNA Center for Sustainability Studies; Mr. Jeremy Britten, Associate Director for Digital Communications; and the members of the UNA Center for Sustainability Studies, both on campus and in our Facebook community. In closing, I thank the journal interns, Falon L. Yates and Brandi Hope Johnson, for their hard work and dedication, and I welcome Dr. Amanda Coffman, Associate Professor of Chemistry, as our incoming Center for Sustainability Studies director. Enjoy the read, and be sure to check the call for our December issue—our focus will be on Sustainability Policy.