I am graduating from the University of Massachusetts in just less than two weeks. From there I don’t know where I’ll go, what I’ll do or where I’ll live. What I do know is what I want out of the place I live… that is sustainability.

But, is that possible with the way the average American lives? In recent years more and more people, government groups and politicians have started to see the importance of sustainability. Waste not want not, a common proverb that has been said since the late 1500s, but just now is being put into some sort of action.

It’s taken a long time, 500 years (minus different activists and other groups that have been working towards sustainability) to actually come to a public realization that something needs to change about the way Americans, and several other countries, live their lives.

Searching the Internet to find little tidbits about the future of sustainability I came across a New York Times article about a 20-minute film that is being shown in classrooms to replace dated textbooks that don’t supply students with enough information on climate change and the effects of pollution.

In the article, a 9-year-old boy was riding in a car with his parents and he was worried about the effect he would have on the environment if he bought a new set of Legos – and that was a nine year old. His father explained to him that it was OK to get Legos because he would have them for a very long time.

The video, put together by former Greenpeace employee Annie Leonard, hit the Internet in Dec. 2007. To date, six million people have viewed the video on its host Web site (its also available on google videos and YouTube and a YouTube short introduction), according to the article. The video is being put into curriculums and Leonard has a contract to write a book based on her video.

The article continues to explain the lack of support that people have over the video – that is the problem with the future of sustainability. The article explains that a school in Montana decided “screening the video treaded on academic freedom after a parent complained that its message was anticapitalist.”

There are still many schools across the nation that don’t focus on the environment, according to the article. It stated that, “environmental education is still a young and variable field, according to Frank Niepold, the climate education coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are few state or local school mandates on how to teach the subject.”

That’s the problem. Since I started school I’ve heard that we, students at any age, are the future of America… the future of the planet. It is important for us to be educated so we can eventually lead the country, to be successful in this world. But, if students, if the youth aren’t educated on the effects of consumption, pollution and waste and what that does to the environment, to the planet, there will be no country to lead.

Leonard’s video is just one way that students can be educated about the effects of consumption. This short Internet video has already made an impact – positively and negatively depending on the location. But it’s just a start.

For the future of sustainability to be successful, for it to continue to be accepted nationwide – worldwide – the youth (as well as the adult population) need to be educated about how one person’s actions can affect the future of our planet, the future for their children, the future of sustainability.

It starts with education and then asking yourself a question just like that 9-year-old boy did – what affect will this have?