I love books. I love the way they smell, the way they feel in my hands, how the pages sound as they turn, even the inherent way books tend to stack in tall, teetering towers.
My home reflects my love of the published word. There are bookcases everywhere. And, where bookcase space is at a premium, there are piles – piles and piles of stacked books. Even the attic is full of books, boxes carefully filled with titles outgrown by the offspring or read and set aside to be donated later. Unfortunately, later hasn’t arrived yet.
My husband, who is also an avid reader but thankfully born without the hoarding gene, started off humouring my book obsession. But now, as the piles of first editions continue to push further and further into his personal space, he’s finding the situation frustrating.
“This is not sustainable,” is his favourite gripe, usually muttered while redistributing a stack of biographies or mysteries in a bid to gain access to an unoccupied electrical plug.
Sustainability – based on my book accumulation habit, it would appear I’ve always struggled to understand the meaning of the word. And I’m not alone in my confusion. During a recent sustainability conference I attended in London, Ont., one roundtable group gave up on reaching a consensus on the definition of the term. Instead, they agreed to disagree, believing it was more important to have a continued dialogue about the idea than get bogged down in the details.
Sustainability has become the new agriculture buzzword and, while it used to be attached to the idea of environmental sustainability, its definition is ever expanding, encompassing everything from economic feasibility to workers’ rights.
During its 2015 annual conference, the Canadian Horticultural Council formed a working group tasked with developing a sustainability plan for Canada’s horticultural sector. Admitting the issue is “broad and complex,” Anne Fowlie, executive vice-president of the CHC, recently penned a message in the council’s Autumn 2015 Fresh Thinking publication. She described the working group as “our opportunity to create a plan that will bring positive results now and into the future.”
Because that really is the key element to the sustainability issue – the future. It’s widely believed that by 2020, about 9.5 billion people will populate the earth and food production will need to increase by 70 per cent to feed those people. According to the United Nations, sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Admittedly, some groups are further ahead in identifying and meeting those production needs. As highlighted by the CHC, Canada’s greenhouse growers are already well started on addressing their long-term sustainability goals. It will be interesting to see in the coming months and years what goals the CHC working group sets.
As for my own pressing sustainability issues, I’ve been forced to examine my book hoarding habits and search out different ways of meeting my reading goals. The answer – electronic books. I wonder how sustainable virtual hoarding is?
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