Rob Abbott, a Canadian environmental consultant, writer and speaker, presented his lecture “Making Sense of Sustainability” at the Museum of the Rockies on Nov. 17 as part of MSU’s Green Week celebration.

Abbott’s focus of the evening revolved around how to become truly sustainable in modern society. Capitalism incites a need to create wealth, he explained, and society’s ability to do this within nature’s limits is increasingly in question.

“We don’t value financially the environmental and social damage we’re doing,” Abbott said. As a result, every living system on earth is experiencing a decline—and the rate of decline is accelerating, he added.

Abbott grew up in British Columbia near a large pulp mill and witnessed the conflict between the economy and the environment first-hand. The local government would consistently refer to the stench from the pulp mill as the “smell of money,” he said.

This is a hallmark of what Abbott called the “industrial age economy,” during which “we have eroded most of our natural capital.”

Throughout the lecture, Abbott reinforced that people need to fundamentally change the way they live, work and play.

“We are removed from nature,” he said. “We consume, going through our days on a quest for ease, comfort and convenience.”

Now we are at a tipping point, and choices must be made over the next few years in order to initiate a 40-year shift in societal behaviors that favor sustainability, Abbott said. Otherwise, it might become too late to reverse the negative effects of global climate change.

“We need to reframe the discussion,” Abbott said, “And acknowledge that we have less natural resources.”

He emphasized that individual households have a responsibility to change their “personal trajectory” towards sustainability, and that companies can use sustainability efforts as a means of cultivating a positive reputation for their business.

“Sustainability is not a problem to be solved,” Abbott said. “It is a future to be created.”