What do we mean when casually referring to sustainability during environmental conversation? Many people- news organizations, teachers, students governmental officials and the general public- often refer to sustainability as the Golden Mean, meant to solve all of Earth’s pollution woes. But is this idealism pure fancy, or is there some salvageable content to be found in the hubbub over solar cells, wind turbines and alternative fuels?

If sustainability entails reducing one’s environmental impact, yes- the ominous footprint, then just what is going through the minds of people who purchase hybrid cars and solar panels in order to reach a goal of sustainability? After all, won’t solar cells reduce dependence upon coal? Won’t hybrids use less gas during their lifetime? Yes, these realities may be true in the fight against the pollution boogieman, however there is an added, more sinister, element which deserves due consideration. Production and Lifetime Value.

Buying a hybrid may seem immediately “sustainable” as we’ve said. Using less gas saves gas. This equation of savings automatically gets tangled in a mire of sustainable talk since minimalism seems to be at the core of most sustainable arguments and thought processes. This hybrid sense of security simply gives, in part at least, a false sense of sustainability. Better gas mileage, at the cost of what? It takes the same amount of industrial metal, rubber and electronic gear to make hybrids as it does any gas-guzzler. So, what?

We, the general public, politicians, marketers and manufacturers, tend to equate sustainability with the new and improved. But here’s some contrastive food for thought? Apply sustainability to a 1970 Mercedes compared to any 2008 hybrid. Which is more sustainable if both have been in running condition up to the present date? The shocker is that the Mercedes beats out the hybrid. This isn’t brand favoritism, no. Rather it’s a critique of consumerism, i.e. the most environmentally unsustainable behavior in the whole greenie movement.

Observing the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of sustainability, one can see that sustainability means totally different things within particular contexts. Concerning the environment, sustainability strives to maintain practices that reduce the adverse environmental impact that humans and animals place on a particular environment. Oppositely, from a commercial stance, economic sustainability is synonymous with encouraging the consumption of products to sustain monetary markets. Both applications of the “S” Bomb are apropos, given their particular contexts. However, let’s consider the Mercedes vs. hybrid example.

Until recently, scientists were uncertain about how much and where in the world terrestrial carbon is being stored. In the July 14 issue of Science Express, scientists report that, between 1990 and 2007, the world's forests stored about 2.4 gigatons of carbon per year.

Their results suggest that forests account for almost all of the world's land-based carbon uptake. Boreal forests are estimated to be responsible for 22 percent of the carbon stored in the forests. A warming climate has the potential to increase fires and insect damage in the boreal forest and reduce its capacity to sequester carbon.

"Our results imply that clearly, forests play a critical role in Earth's terrestrial carbon balance, and exert considerable control over the evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide," said A. David McGuire, co-author and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology and co-leader of the USGS Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.

The accelerating dash for natural gas risks a bitter backlash as the environmental cost of exploiting new shale deposits and of transporting it in liquid form spoil its credentials as the greenest fossil fuel.

Gas was long regarded as a "bridging fuel" for use in relatively easily-to-build, gas-fired power plants, until enough renewable or low-emission nuclear power could be achieved.

Following the nuclear disaster in Japan and the economic crisis that has set back investment in new renewable energy, gas has the status of a "destination fuel," meaning it will be used in parallel with renewable sources to supply long-term energy needs.