Well then, thanks for that comment. I believe we shall engage in further conversation. I shall send you the soft copy, but you may want to leave your e-mail address behind. Otherwise thanks a lot and good luck again.

Thank you for your comments. I would be pleased to network with you and David. My e-mail address is b.mugema@umu.ac.ug. Please feel free to contact me.

Thanks again.

Point well taken. I am thankful for the compliment on rather controversial writing skills, which have over time been questioned. Some think it is a little too complicated sometimes and the main point is usually missed out.
However, let us not side-track. I like the fact that you have pointed out several setbacks within my essay which I would otherwise not have realised. Certainly, this essay cannot be the ultimate description of sustainability and I believe that this is what has essentially set me back. I probably, as you suggested, should have concentrated on a few focus points that would have made the essay more comprehensive. Thus, I wholesomely agree with you on the point of ‘narrow focus, broad explanation.’

In order to fully make this essay a better one, you would agree with me that I would need another essay all together which would be more tasking. However, I shall work with what we have here.

I tried as much as possible to relate everything in such a way that it could apply to any person that read the essay hence the link between religion and science. However, as you may reckon, we should always tread softly, particularly when using religion as a basis or reference in our work.

The statement on investing large economies into alternative energy was probably misunderstood and I admit I did get it wrong. I meant to imply that, well, in the long run, governments shall have to invest in alternative energies. In any case, we are not sure of the specific impact of these new energies and how practicable they shall be. It was only a ‘blind’ suggestion, so to speak, and more research is inevitably necessary. In any case, you would agree with me that at the end of the day, fossil fuels shall not supply earth’s energy perpetually.

I probably misplayed my conclusion in an attempt to make my point more comprehensive and I believe that this actually weakened it.

I thank you for your comments though David, and I am grateful for them.

I commend you first of all for your good job but my advice is that you please try as hard as possible to narrow your essay to context.

Yours is too lenghty and peharps can cause delay in understanding the actual points therein.

However thanks for meeting to the challange.
As far as Africa and Africans are concern I advice that the three of us, You, myself and David come together and network to fight the challenging issues that faced Africa and Africans today. By so doing we will definately make a mark on the continent. Please let us network. sentd me an e-mail through stjalloh@yahoo.com for further ventures.

Thanks

Thank you for your comment and thank you also for your clearly vivid interest in climate change and sustainability.
You have raised a point which, I must say, I forgot to raise. Corporate Social Responsibility is always a good show, and many times the community benefits from it. However, it is more and more apparent that businesses put the environmental sustainability issue as least priority. Of course, profit is important for any business to be able to sustain itself. However, in economical thinking, it should be realised that without environmental sustainability, then businesses are bound to collapse since they will not be able to have a constant raw material supply.

What is practiced in rural Africa would be termed as sustainability if the climate was favourable enough to support such activities. However, with climate change occurring much faster than predicted, then we shall have to come up with solutions that put into consideration the pending climate issues and the future needs of the people involved.

Education is a must, a necessity. It can be in form of practical knowledge, classroom syllabi or informal education passed on to generations, but it is a vital tool.

Thanks Ednah.

I take your comments at heart and I thank you for the encouraging message you have therein.
From the beginning of this essay, I attempt, as much as possible to establish how modernity and humanity are inextricably linked. Although, I believe, I detract in some parts of the essay and probably, like David commented, I take a wide focus with narrow explanation. However, to make it simpler, throughout the essay, I was trying to establish how the current problems came to occur, with a recap from the beginning of the Industrial revolution, which in a way is the beginning of everything wrong.

I enjoy the debate in any case. Probably, where I go wrong and off focus is in my solutions and suggestions for ways forward. True, the essay is about awareness. The HOW, which you so rightly suggest would then start from us, the youth. The only problem is that there are several youth that have not had the opportunity to acquire sufficient education. This is where education becomes a negative advantage, so to speak. I would suggest that for the youth particularly those in rural areas, it is important that they are taught practical means of achieving sustainability in their lifestyles. Clearly, there has been a great deal of talking and millions of books have been published. I still believe that the most effective way of ensuring effective communication is by allowing the youth to explore and innovate creative ways of promoting sustainability. This can be done by simply explaining to them what the implications of their negative actions stand to cause to them. A vivid example I can use here is the activities of the Rotaract Club at Uganda Martyrs University, which you are very much aware of. The club carried out awareness campaigns within the Nkozi village community, of which up to 70% are un-educated. However, the results proved that by not only stopping at the talk, but walking the talk, a lot can be achieved. We that are in a better position have a greater responsibility than we probably understand.

I am also of the view that this essay was long and in some cases hard to understand. Although this essay was written, mostly for academic purposes, maybe this has a greater lesson to teach all of us. It is clear that the books and publications that are produced are of no immediate benefit to the most vulnerable communities in this context, the ‘developing’ nations. This is where I agree with you that the world’s problems drag because there is too much information. Most of this happens in university libraries, in exquisite conference facilities, in bureacrativ government offices where leaders debate for hours on end and rarely come up with feasible conclusions. But then, shall we wait for leaders to give us a go ahead?
Shall we wait for the government to realise that we consume much more than we need before we learn to live sustainable lifestyles?
If the lesson is taught to the younger generation, in schools and homes, in refugee camps and war zones, we are fairly certain that the future is brighter.

Consumption habits, at a subsistence level as you suggest should be checked. I could’nt agreee any further.

My suggestion here is to basically let the school teachers and parents do their job to promote a better reading culture, but we shall not wait for that to happen. We shall take action to the rural areas, through the schools and anywhere we can peddle positive influence.

Thank you Alex.

Very interesting to read your essay. With such sophisticated writing skills, I am very looking forward to your future career. As one may read throughout your essay, to undermine the notion of sustainability in any single aspect of life is actually missing the whole point of what humanity’s mastery ought to be.

Though convinced by all the articulated points you have put across, I still believe that sustainability per se in so broad to be contained in an about seven-page essay like this one; hence, I propose that, in the future, you try as much as possible to narrow down even further what you can refer to as pathway to sustainability (from modernity to humanity, for the idea itself of this pathway is, in essence, inextricably linked to a range of aspects(things to only be mentioned).

Allow me, before I forget, to thank you for reconciling the ‘religious’ explanation of human origin with the ‘scientific’. The latter, according to me, does not contradict the former. Instead, these two explanations ‘overlap’ so to say.

You are so very much right when you say that ‘The United Nation’s Kyoto Protocol which terminates in 2010 should come up with clear and comprehensive solutions that are practical particularly for developing nations which will inevitably require the petroleum if they are to further develop.’ But I really do not understand the implication of this statement: the large amounts of global economies and investments being invested to obtain alternative energy sources are much larger than the energy investments needed to obtain fossil fuels.

On top of this, I still believe that ,today,finding other alternative energy sources isn’t actually the fundamental problem.

When reading your essay in the end, I wish your last sentence comes in the first paragraph at the beginning of the article. Additionally, remember in the future, as it also is my case, to mind the rule of ‘narrow focus, broad explanation’ very well to avoid language redundancy.

All in all, the ideas expressed in the overall essay are so paramount as well as fascinating such that one can fail to overlook the quality of your work.

Keep the writing skills up!!

Dave

The concept of sustainability is well explained, it is a tricky situation really, the need for food, firewood and timber we rely on the environment but at the same we are harming it. I think what most of us do not realise that is sustainability is a broad concept. According to me it is using any natural resource in quantities that best suit the people and the occasion and allowing oneself to replant of give back to the environment, something like in business with Social responsibility.

I would like to think that now sustainability is being practiced but in most rural Africa and other areas people still need to be educated on the effects of poor sustainable use of resources.

Hope you had a great read, and thanks for the positive comment. I later noticed, too, that it was rather wrong to quote wikipedia. Actually, I shall remember that the next time I am writing anything like this, or any other papers for that matter.
As for writing scholarships in the U.S., I guess this is a good start. Probably, you could add a question or two, about any parts of the essay you did not understand.

Thanks again and best regards.