I’m reading about sustainability on many fronts. A suburban housewife, a MIT professor, an international commission, a Columbia professor who pioneered the field in the 1970s and me, a chef, student, visionary, entrepreneur and chick from Long Island who has always loved lentils and recycling.
I went to health food stores in the mid 80s when they were scary places to go and brought a family (and later an infestation) of food moths into my mother’s kitchen. My mother always grew her own vegetables and every year, I always cooked them. We always had an orange can into which we put metal cans. We recycled newspaper. Today I even put my plastic spoon into the recycling bin. I wish that the school had metal spoons for me to use so I didn’t have to use a plastic one. Tomorrow I will bring my own metal spoon.
The voices I’ve read all speak from either fear, truth, liberal fear incitement methods and for some denial or what I have learned from Josh Dorfman, the lazy environmentalist approach. We can all do something, even as lazy or as little as we can. Collectively, we can move mountains, slow climate change and conserve valuable resources, if we all do one or two things.
Eat less meat one day a week, plant one crop in your garden on your rooftop or in your window box, ride your bike one day a week to work or school (I’ve been doing it every day, but not everyone can be me and I only live 12 blocks and 4 avenue blocks away), take two minutes less in the shower, put the air conditioner on energy saver, there are so many things we can do.
I know a great deal about sustainability, but as I read, there’s so much more I learn. The economic impact of sustainability is the most challenging for me to wrap my head around. We lack in society, we build. Development in the great sense of the word goes against the very core of sustainability and sustainable development is in essence a bit of an oxymoron. In our quest to be a rich country, we’ve actually created more “bads” than “goods” according to a study published in Scientific American in September 2005 entitled Economics in a Full World. However, the authors of the article claim despite the massive problems with uneconomic growth in our country, it is difficult to justify sustainability in terms of GDP or terms we are familiar with economically. However the authors make a bold claim that strong sustainability recognizes that fishing boats are useless if there are not enough fish to catch.
But how do you get people to change? The housewife wrote how it scares her to think about the amount of toxins in her own breast milk but wasn’t going to stop driving her SUV or save the whales. I think there are things that people can do that aren’t scary or drastic that if entire communities did would lead to monumental change and conservation. Its the little things that help.
I’ll ride my bike again to school tomorrow. I will use my own metal spoon. I try to cook my own food at least a few days a week and I’ll try to shop at the farmers market at Columbia tomorrow. We have a community garden as well which I need to go and check out. Perhaps you aren’t all ready to do these things and that’s ok. But, ride a bike or share a car one day. If you drive, take the bus or train once a week. Take 5 minutes less time in the shower and try to keep the air conditioning at 77 degrees and on energy saver. As I learn more, I’ll be posting more on this topic.
