Juneteenth and The Permanent Protest
Nice post on dropping out of Consumer America. I found the following to be an interesting quote.
[The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices] analyzed the environmental footprints of everything from cheese to carpet to feminine products and then aggregated them into 50 categories of goods and services. In the end, they found that just 7 of the 50 categories were responsible for the lion's share of environmental degradation: cars and trucks; meat and poultry farming; crop production; home heating, hot water, and air conditioning; household appliances; home construction; and household water use and sewage treatment.
What does sustainability mean to you? Is sustainability the antithesis, the cure, the response to Consumer America?
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Comments (11)
Sustainability is integral to my ever-growing and ever-evolving definition of Peace. i'm currently playing with the following: Interacting with each other and our planet in ways that are healthy, respectful, and sustainable.
to me, sustainability means living in a way that balances energy intake with energy output. that sounds kind of clinical...how bout "work hard, play hard". i need to rest as much as i am active. i need to give back (to the earth, to my family, to my work) as much as i take out. i recognize that the freedom of action of each generation is qualified by the needs of future generations.
Comment #1 Posted by: evan | June 19, 2007 09:02 PM
sustainability means to me:
1. growing sprouts
2. taking a shower every 2nd or 3rd day
3. keeping my e-mails and posts short
4. staying out of my mind for as much as i can so it can sustain me for a long time
Comment #2 Posted by: e-college-e | June 19, 2007 09:26 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070619/en_nm/movies_jesus_dc
Comment #3 Posted by: "shopocalypse" | June 19, 2007 09:32 PM
of interest, perhaps:
Wednesday, July 18 , 2007
7:30am - 2:00pm
La Kretz Hall, UCLA
LABC Sustainability Summit
Capitalizing on Green Business: Incentives, Opportunities and Solutions
http://www.labusinesscouncil.org/events/LABC_Sustainability_Summit.pdf
Comment #4 Posted by: Tyler | June 19, 2007 10:29 PM
21+ years of vegetarianism!
Comment #5 Posted by: heather | June 20, 2007 09:10 AM
eating local and slowly unravelling thousands of years of distance from our foraging beginnings- farmer and the cook.
Comment #6 Posted by: grace | June 20, 2007 12:56 PM
I continue to direct my younger friends to Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, a thin paperback from 1969 that speaks volumes about sustainability and the history and future of our planet. It's somewhat abstruse (like that word, as a matter of fact) so, after reading it 3 times myself, I wrote a synopsis/study guide to accompany it. If you're interested, let me know through this post and maybe Tyler or someone can figure out how to make it available online.
Comment #7 Posted by: Lanny | June 20, 2007 03:29 PM
Sure, Lanny, I think we can work something out. :)
Comment #8 Posted by: Tyler | June 20, 2007 11:07 PM
Great topic and post. It's helpful to live a sustainable lifesyle but it's not enough. We've got to understand the root causes of what driving this bus over the cliff. "Money Masters" is a good start. Getting off the credit card grid is nice but again we have to take apart the whole loan/interest system. It's crazy, drives speculation and guarantees inflation which wipes out your dollars unless you join in and chase the god almighty buck too. If we've got a bank account we're involved in this world wide scam. This earth destroying system is purposely driven by evil men who are intent on making slaves of everyone (including themselves but they don't know it). I am about as green as you can get (no, not just because I'm 100% Irish) but it's not enough; in fact, it makes the fat cats laugh as they gather in more goodies for themselves, plus now having a green market to make a few more bucks. Face it, it's going to take political activism on the local and international scene to change the system which is totally broke and corrupt. Sorry for preaching to the choir but I need a little practice, plus it feels good to ventilate.
Comment #9 Posted by: Dennis Leary | June 21, 2007 03:45 PM
aho, Tyler,
environmental degradation: cars and trucks;
meat and poultry farming!
home, and other, veggie gardens are ten times
more productive amino-acid- and food-wise than
meat murder. ten times less disastrous for Mother
Earth.
bicycles, small vehicles, carpooling, working from
home or your hometown, public transit, walking ...
again, at least ten times less murderous of animals,
people, air, land and water.
trivial, obvious. everyone can see it.
if 90 percent of us change those rapacious habits,
and all of 'consumer-dumb' reduces its unnecessary
waste equivalently, the mindless routine trashing
of our planet, then the Earth can heal again.
the rainforests can be returned, the deserts
converted to wetland and forest and agriculture.
the ocean and atmosphere returned to seeming
virginity.
the 99 percent extinguished whales and dolphins
brought back say tenfold -- to ten percent of
their natural, preindustrial, populations.
that is the meaning of "all our sacred relations" ...
mitakuye oyasin!
Comment #10 Posted by: Millennium Twain | June 23, 2007 10:26 PM
agreed, Millennium. The giant agribusiness complex is unsustainable at its current rate. We as a society need to dramatically alter our consumption patterns and lifestyle choices proactively, or they will be radically altered for us in the not so distant future.
Comment #11 Posted by: Tyler | June 23, 2007 11:57 PM