Sustainable Aviation

Unfortunately, in the recent Obama post on the need to integrate surface transportation and aviation, I referred to the website www.suscom.com which should be WWW.SUSAVIATION.COM. It is at that website that readers are invited to sign the ISATEA petition, so that grassroots engagement and pressure can lead to a first class US transportation system.

This website is a sequel for about 15 years of voluntary engagement with the issue of sustainable aviation, particularly in the metro NY area. www.metronyaviation.org gives a record of that activity. Since a couple of years that voluntary service has also extended to the national organization www.us-caw.org My engagement with sustainable aviation also led to the teaching of a course on sustainable aviation at the former College of Aeronautics near LaGuardia airport and now www.vaughn.edu.

One of my satisfying experiences in sustainable aviation was my invitation in November 07 by the publisher of the Seattle Port Observer. It was a great pleasure adding to the North West thinking and practice in sustainability by given my presentation. Part of the satisfaction was also its excellent coverage in http://www.washblog.com/story/2007/11/4/171922/833.

Presently I am still undecided whether I should start a separate blog on sustainable aviation entitled revamping aviation or have it continue a part of this blog on contextual sustainability. For those intrigued by this concept of sustainability, please google the term and you may find several places, including my chapter 2 in the Wenden anthology which is at www.globalepe.org/documents/contsuschp22fp_000.doc .

I am signing of with my sustainable aviation signature file:

Yours for sustaining futures and a sustainable, equitable and accountable aviation industry


Frans C. Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., Ph.D., sustainability sociologist,
Adjunct Associate Professor of Sustainable Aviation at the Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology (formerly the College of Aeronautics at La Guardia Airport), www.vaughn.edu
President, Citizens Aviation Watch USA, Inc, www.us-caw.org; President, SAFE, Inc., www.metronyaviation.org
Principal, SAVIA Associates International. www.susaviation.com
Sustainability Fellow at the Green Institute, Washington, D.C., www.greeninstitute.net
Director, Sustainability Research and EducationEarth and Peace Education Associates International (EPE)97-37 63rd Road, #15E, Rego Park, NY 11374, USAvoice: 1+(718)275-3932; cell: 917-617-6217; fax 1+(718)275-3932http://www.globalepe.org, gaia1@rcn.com, http://fcvnyc.blogspot.com /

“…..the verb sustaining holds open the actively normative questions that the idea of sustainability raises. We are required to probe: What truly sustains us? Why? And how do we know? Conversely, we must ask: What are we to sustain above all else? Why? And how may we do so?"
Aidan Davison, Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, 2001: p.64