Sustainability is the only way that we can protect our precious planet, today and tomorrow. There is no Plan B, because there is no Planet B…
— from UN Secretary‑General Ban Ki‑moon’s message at the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development, November 2014.
We’ve been warned, by no less a personage than the UN Secretary-General. Like, eight years ago, in fact.
This is the only planet capable of sustaining human life. And sustainability is the only way to protect it. Or at least, that seems to be the plan.
Which is obviously not Plan B. Plan B doesn’t exist.
Along those same lines, I hear that Ronzoni has stopped making one of my favorite enriched macaroni products… the little star-shaped pasta called ‘Pastina’.
Pastina No. 155 to be exact.
You can now purchase a 12 oz. package of this discontinued product on eBay for $19.41, with free shipping. Expire 2025.
Ronzoni has been selling macaroni products since 1915. We can only imagine how much Pastina they sold, over that 107 year period.
But apparently, Ronzoni didn’t actually make the Pastina they sold. Some other company made it, and apparently, their pasta-making machine finally wore out and they didn’t know how to repair it. Or maybe they didn’t want to bother.
Or maybe the replacement parts would have to come from China… and what with their COVID outbreak and all… well, it was just going to be a big headache.
That’s part of the whole sustainability issue. Everything we need to be sustainable now has to come from China or India or some other Asian country where they are running the factories on dirty coal and where they’re cutting down the previously sustainable forests. And because of all that — over here in America, we end up paying $19.41 for a 12 oz. package of enriched macaroni product.
That kind of thing can add up. Almost $100 for five packages of Pastina No. 155? Puts the word ‘sustainable’ into an unpleasant light.
As the price of macaroni sees a steady increase, however, it makes travel to Mars — as a solution to preserving the human species — appear ever more affordable.
What is less encouraging is the known absence of macaroni machinery on Mars. Really, if we can’t keep the macaroni machines running here on Earth, what’s the likelihood of producing Pastina No. 155 in the midst of the Martian wasteland?
There is really no excuse for bringing Mars into this conversation, and I will be the first to admit it. (But reluctantly.)
There is no Planet B. What we need to focus on is Planet A, and how the heck we’re going to keep our machinery running.
‘No Planet B’, which means, there is no ‘Plan B’. Sustainability is the only way forward, according to certain people in positions of leadership.
Or so they would have us believe.
Happily enough, I have my own Plan B. Take a nap, and stop worrying.
And be content with whatever macaroni is still sustainable.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.