To the editor:

After attending the recent sustainability forum, I would not only like to thank the organizers for the time and energy they spent in organizing the event, I would also like to put the following points up for consideration to participants and the larger community:

1. How about making this an annual event so we can track our progress toward greater sustainability and discuss new challenges?

2. I liked one woman’s comments about how other cultures have practiced sustainability for millennia. How about overtly soliciting an ongoing relationship with other places in a kind of Sustainability Sister City program? Think of all the goodwill we could develop on both ends, something we need now more than ever with our brothers and sisters around the world.

3. Other cities are pursuing sustainability as an organizing principle, too. There are strengths and additional resources when you are not doing things in isolation; let’s join forces with other towns and cities in this important endeavor.

4. A piece of any sustainability scenario has to include the rest of life, i.e. the more-than-human species that we share this place with. We need to explicitly plan for our fellow inhabitants if we want them to share a sustainable future with us; indeed we cannot do it without them.

I was inspired and hope that the seeds planted that night will be well watered, take root and continue to be nurtured!

Ken Lassman,

Lawrence