Google “situational + sustainable”. Thomas L. Friedman did an Op Ed in the New York Times on January 27th , 2010 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/opinion/27friedman.html for as long as the link will hold)
A brief quote from the piece:

Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, likes to talk about two kinds of values: “situational values” and “sustainable values.” Leaders, companies or individuals guided by situational values do whatever the situation will allow, no matter the wider interests of their communities. A banker who writes a mortgage for someone he knows can’t make the payments over time is acting on situational values, saying: “I’ll be gone when the bill comes due.”
People inspired by sustainable values act just the opposite, saying: “I will never be gone. I will always be here. Therefore, I must behave in ways that sustain — my employees, my customers, my suppliers, my environment, my country and my future generations.”

Buzz phrases come and buzz phrases go but “situational values” and “sustainable values” is one that has captivated me. Today I bought coffee is a take out paper cup. When I was finished the coffee, I did not turf the cup out the window. That would have been situational. But why did I buy the coffee in a paper cup in the first place? Was that not situational thinking?

It is easy to judge others as being situational or sustainable. I could write all night about the woman who claims to be our member of parliament. It would be easy to talk of praise of men like Abraham Lincoln or women like Rachel Carson. But what about me, am I situational or sustainable?

I am drinking a milk / mango / strawberry / banana / honey smoothie as I write this keeping warm with the propane fireplace. I am sitting at the laptop with two cats keeping me company. The beagle and the black cat are watching Great Expectations in the bedroom with my wife. I am listening one of Otto Klemperer (Colonel Klink’s father – really) recordings of the Beethoven symphonies on the iPod.

Milk – Non Organic but likely relatively local
Mango – Frozen from Mexico
Strawberries – Frozen , self picked, Ottawa Valley Local
Banana – Fresh from Costa Rica
Honey – Ottawa Valley Local
Propane Fireplace – clean burning (except for the greenhouse emissions part but hey, they are GREENhouse)
Pets – Okay they are resource consuming, methane emitting , self centred, non contributing members of the planet but so is the Harper Cabinet so I am not going to pick on them. And the pets keep you warm at night
iPod - Okay, I like it but how long before it ends up in the electronic graveyard? And what do you do with a dead one? Where do you recycle them? Do we do it in Canada, or do we send it to the Third World and have orphans do it?
So, the big mother ship arrives all and all the world’s people are divided in two groups. The situationalists on one side and the sustainablists on the other. If the above were my resume , I think I know where I would end up. Yikes!!!At least I have another thing to work on during my recovery.