The opposite of “sustainable development” is just what you’d think: development that cannot be sustained. Individual and property rights are important, to be sure.

But none of those rights matter one whit if we consume ourselves into oblivion. Individual rights can be upheld only insofar as they do not infringe on the rights of others. Unsustainable development does exactly that, by taking from neighbors and our children, the neighbors of the future.

ICLEI is behind precisely the kinds of regulations that brought us clean water for drinking and recreation, clean air for breathing, and the overall protection of the living planet that allows all of us to survive.

Regulations that at this very moment are under attack by Republicans at the behest of wealthy big-business owners who care only about how much money they can extract from everyone else,  no matter the cost. Advocacy of “individual rights” at the expense of the health and welfare of others is no less selfish.

Want to know where that leads? Look no further than major cities in China today such as Beijing and Shanghai, or major U.S. cities from the first two-thirds of the 20th century (before we had those regulations in place and we started being able to see from one end of a city to the other again).

I encourage anyone who saw Malm’s letter to go ahead and take a look at the climate-change-denying Freedom Advocates website she recommends, and think long and hard about whether the future that policies promoted by them will lead to is really the future they want to live in.

Me? I strongly support Kirkland’s involvement with the ICLEI, and expect anyone who cares about something more than their own immediate wants and desires would do so as well.

Peter Duniho, Kirkland