Live sustainably -- some suggestions:

Start with your health -- including your body and mind, and the health of your relationships.

Maintain a healthy family economy. Use credit to make transactions easier, not to buy what you can't afford or don't need. Save for the future -- both rainy and sunny days. Don't assume that your investments, including your house, will always increase in value. Teach your children what healthy economic behavior looks like, including how to develop the skills you need to earn a living and get along in this world.

Take responsibility for your impact on the environment. Understand how your behavior -- especially your consumer behavior -- wears down our local environment and the Earth, and start doing something about it. Learn about your carbon footprint and start reducing it. Learn where the products you buy are made and who makes them, and what are the costs to their livelihood, economy and environment.

Be a good member of your local, national and global economies. When you can, buy from local producers and sellers -- the closer your dollars stay to home, the better off we'll all be. When buying products or services from far away, try to be sure you are investing in a seller or producer you would want to live near.

Be a good citizen. Pay attention to local and national politics and don't be afraid to speak about it reasonably with anyone. Vote. Get involved. Learn about other cultures and countries and global affairs. Understand that what your government does anywhere is your responsibility, too.

Love the Earth and every single thing on it. Then, live that love.

So, what is Sustainable Frederick?

Defining sustainability is no small task. There are lots of definitions scattered around the net, and I’ll offer one later in this post. The problem is that it’s a word – like health -- that means more in context than it does in, well, just words. What is “health?” I bet your working definition of health incorporates a lot more than “the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor.” Health is what we eat and the kinds of activities we do, and it’s the state of our relationships. Health is our history and our family’s history; it’s what we aspire to achieve.

Any definition of sustainability will also seem simplistic and incomplete. Besides the limits of the words themselves, understanding sustainability is also hampered by the fact that it is an ideal that doesn’t actually exist for us to observe. It’s an ideal that we can only see in the future, in our imaginations and after we create it.

Having said all of that, we still need to start with a definition:

A sustainable economy is one where there is a harmonious relationship between the economy and environment, where the natural resources of the planet are preserved for future generations. Sustainable development is economic growth that preserves the natural and cultural resources of our region and our planet.

My hope is that Sustainable Frederick will show what sustainability can be. Over time we’ll see how a sustainable Frederick can look, and how it does look as it comes to be. As we talk about present and future realities and possibilities, we’ll get a better idea of what might come next, of how we can keep moving things forward.

A note on scope – Our subject matter will include, but not be limited to science and politics, economics and business and culture, current events and history, and the local, regional, global, county, state, country and world perspectives. We’ll have our and others’ opinions and facts, hopefully clearly distinguished. Sometimes we’ll write that we just don’t know, and sometimes we’ll be wrong (until we correct it).