When it comes to the future of our planet, we are seldom given reasons to hope. Nature is described to us as a chore—we’re told to pick up after ourselves—and as a lost cause. We seldom hear positive things about the environment, and certainly not about the future of the environment. However, most people overlook the improvements that we’ve already made. In the last half-century, environmentalism has become a prominent part of policy. The United States has created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signed legislation like the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act into effect. People have started recycling. Fifty years ago, people didn’t even know what recycling was. If we continue to think fatalistically about the environment, then we will lose the hope that we need to empower us to change our ways. We of Hydros believe that there are reasons to hope.

If we’re going to survive the twenty-first century, we’ll need to become sustainable. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines sustainable development as the “maintenance of conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.” To become sustainable, we need to consider the environment in everything that we—our governments, our corporations, and ourselves—do.