Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Sustainability has become central to our efforts of solving environmental issues, but we must reconsider if it is viable or merely a comfort blanket. In this paper I argue that sustainability has taken too shallow an approach to our current plight. To reframe arguments for sustainability, I proffer the claim that we must look at what I have termed survivability in order to become more thoroughly aware of the need for change in many areas of our lives both as individuals and as a species. My focus in this paper will be on the rates of survivability of large groups of people if their agricultural support is suddenly removed, and I will take the island of O’ahu as the main example. In O’ahu, I show how the structure we have on this island is beyond self-sustainability, how rates of survivability would look if forced to become self-sustaining, and potential outcomes. Afterwards, I draw heavily from the Zhuangzi–an early Daoist text–to show how our perspective on the world has allowed us to reach this point. I also show how passages in the Zhuangzi can remedy our ways of thinking so that we may confront the situation we are in as open-mindedly and honestly as possible. From this, perhaps, discussions of the need for more sustainable practices will carry more weight in other areas of life such as political decisions on one end of the spectrum and personal habits on the other.