Sustainability Sustainable Living Involves More

Sustainability

Sustainable living involves more deliberate choices in the face of three aspects of our lives, including time crunches, too much "stuff," and a disconnection from the land base and spirituality. Using our time in sustainable ways can be the foundation of a more happy and sustainable lifestyle. Everyday we are implored by advertisements to purchase more stuff, be it to appease family members or fulfill ourselves. Instead, a better way to know the way to sustainability is a connection with others and nature. One of the main reasons why we have grown so disconnected from nature is because so few of us play a role in our own sustenance. Most persons have little to know role in growing their own food, protecting our air, our water, and our natural resources. Sustainable lives can be achieved by having balanced social, environmental and economic values.

In 1987, one of the first international definitions of "sustainable development" was outlined. Proposed by the Brundtland Comission, with the approval of the United Nations, sustainability was thereafter to become a big global issue. An update to the private sectors mentality is also important, however, to helping usher in a new era of sustainability. Business has enveloped all aspects of culture. Not for a moment are we able to escape from a sea of messages with two common denominators: stimulation of a spiritual sort of disposable consumption and misinforming the public. Currently, wages are falling and food and energy prices are soaring. It is time for a new way of exchanging goods and services by evaluating economic performance against such indicators as healthy children, families, communities, relationships and healthy ecosystems flourishing with biodiversity. At the cultural level, too, diversity promotes the propagation and carrying forth of culture in the form of intimate relationships and strong community. (Lichtfouse)

There are many means of a sustainable lifestyle in families. Not only does this include healthy foods, gotten from local, organic and sustainable farms that stay away from monoculture, but, furthermore, healthy working conditions among persons in our communities. The principle of sustainability implies meeting the needs of present without compromising future generations from meeting their needs. We live in interesting times, with huge wealth disparities, rising food prices, fuel and transportation costs, instability in the global market, pesticide pollution, loss of soil fertility and organic carbon, soil erosion, decreasing biodiversity, and desertification. It is important for families to vote with their purchasing power. Instead of buying chemical-based cleaners and materials, keeping an eye on the more natural solutions can help reduce their carbon footprint and personal pollution. By making fewer trips to the grocery store by, say, growing ones own food, could seriously help to improve their environmental impact.

By turning off lights and television when leaving a room, or turning off the water when not using it, a family could help lessen their environmental impact. This, of course, helps nurture a more conscious mentality in the children in such families, allowing them to imagine even more sustainable lifestyles than their forbearers. As Catherine Moehr points out in her TED speech, we can make smart decisions based on the embodied energy of the stuff we use. For instance, if a family member spills something in his house, and goes to clean it up, would it be more sustainable to use a paper towel or cloth? Because the paper towel is disposable after one-time use, the cloth offers the best solution because it can be washed over and over again. but, one must wash the towel. The cycle continues and the family member has to choose the way of washing this cloth towel. it's embodied net energy is less than that of the paper towel. Another way of reducing the amount of energy a house expends in the window setup in that house. The larger the windows, the more light that comes into the home, and the less lighting is need to keep the house comfortable. (Steffen)

There are many ways in which humans could quicken -- in a humane way -- reindustrialization from the petroleum based overshoot industrial society of the present to a more diverse, efficient and flourishing society based on energy sources such as solar, wind geothermal, water, resource production, and creativity, as well as on such values as compassion, altruism and fairness.

Rainwater harvesting, a well-known practice in the poor economies of the world, is catching on in the United States. By feeding a metal gutter spout into a collection of, say, 55-pound barrels, one can have water reserves for such nondrinking uses as watering plants, flushing toilets, and washing laundry. The vector of resource waste, such as looming stricter water conservation laws, has revitalized the capture of rainwater. The average American uses 101 gallons of water a day at home in the yard. Factor in agricultural and industrial water use and that rises to an average of 1,430 gallons per day per person. Twenty five 55-pound barrels fill in a few hours of torrential. Santa Monica's new library sits atop a 200,000-gallon rainwater cistern, and the city just kick started a rainwater rebate program for homeowners.

In fact, San Francisco now puts $100,000 toward how-to-worshops, rebates and discounts on rainwater catchment tanks. Such efforts, furthermore, help alleviate the mess of storm runoff. Asphalt covered roads, sidewalks and parking lots repel storm water, leading it down storm drains and into creaks instead of into soil -- big flushes of storm water in water treatment systems can force raw sewage into the ocean. Overloaded streams can lead to flooding which damages salmon habitats.