1) Burby described Baton Rouge initially as a “sleepy southern town” (Burby, 161). Baton Rouge began as most other cities began, clean, unpolluted, and most importantly, unaffected by the many common problems associated with industrialization. This small city in Louisiana became one of the nations leading petrochemical complexes and the devastation that came along with this transition was quite grand. The aftermath of all this industrialization fell onto the lives of ethnic minorities and the poor, and for the longest time it seemed like no one cared. It wasn’t until 1993 in an environmental justice hearing that citizens demanded “environmentally friendly ‘green’ businesses” (Burby, 176). Personally, from my understanding of the reading, Baton Rouge was not sustainable in anyway. Throughout the early half of the century people treated the place as if it had an infinite capacity to support heavy industrialization. As the reading states, “planners, government, and the legal system have done little to right these wrongs.” (Burby, 161). Essentially, no one cared about the environmental aspects of industrialization and simply carried forth with expansion, hence sustainability of the city is in my opinion, non-existent. On an ethical standpoint, this city wasn’t sustainable what so ever, the minorities, mostly the low-income black neighborhoods suffered greatly as a result of these factories that would dump waste in or near by. Additionally, residents began to move into marshlands, and even notice “smoggy conditions and complain of having to scrape particulate mater from their vehicles every morning” (Burby, 170) The town even had accidental scares, such as the 600 tons of missing chlorine after a hurricane, all, factors that would personally have me think of the city as unsustainable.
2) The difference between virtuous and vulgar sustainability is something of an opinion. This article goes into the principal of ethics when thinking about sustainability and where that leaves us; “Without developing the ethical dimension of sustainability, we will never even know what sustainability means..” (540) The argument about what is virtuous sustainability and what is vulgar is derived essentially from the terms we use to define sustainability - “Too many environmental scientists think sustainability is primarily about documenting and protecting ecosystem health, whereas too many engineers think sustainability is primarily about more efficiently meeting human needs.” (539) From my understanding, virtuous sustainability is that of those who include the principles of being ethical in their goals for sustainability. It is the people who think of sustainability in terms of “meeting human needs in a socially just manner without depriving ecosystems of their health” (539) that satisfy this side. Vulgar sustainability seems to revolve around the concept of an anthropocentric ideology. Vulgar sustainability leans more towards the side that doesn’t think we should necessarily preserve our resources, but rather use them all we want. The advantages of each are quite apparent, virtuous sustainability seems to offer a type of sustainability that will preserve the resources we have now for future use, by protecting the ecosystem and not consuming as much as we do. Virtuous sustainability also takes into account ethics, social problems, inequalities, etc. On the flip side, vulgar sustainability will allow us to continue living how we do, but essentially aim to uphold that type of living for a longer period of time by creating new/more efficient methods of using resources.
3) Sustainability is ‘not enough’ according to Peter Marcuse people use sustainability as a goal, when in fact it shouldn’t be seen as that, “sustainability is not an appropriate goal; at best it is one criterion among others, not a goal.” (Marcuse, 104) As the article puts it, sustainability isn’t a goal but rather a constraint on the reaching of other goals. A good point that Marcuse makes is that the only the people who want to keep things as they are, are the very same people who already have everything they want. Additionally, Marcuse goes on to say “No one who is interested in justice wants to sustain things as they are now.” (Marcuse, 105) Hence, most people don’t care to maintain things as is because most things are socially unjust as they stand currently. To be sustainable means many things, and therefore, to make it a goal is illogical because perspectives will always conflict – what makes one person happy, will make another mad. The problem with sustainability is that it will never satisfy every aspect of a problem, and, sustainable is not always good. Plans can be sustainable, but bad as well, it’s all about perspective. Unfortunately, some people think it’s better to work towards something that’s self sustainable, rather than good, and in that aspect, sustainability is a “a constraint whose absence may limit the usefulness of a good programme.” (Marcuse 103) Marcuse ends the article with a valid point claiming how people use sustainability as a means to run away from the difficulties associated with properly solving a problem, and ultimately, that is why sustainability could never be enough.