Sustainablog

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Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Want to know how to green your internet porn (or emailing or iTunes) habit? Check out these tips and a post-mortem of where your computers go to die.

Recently, the world computer population surpassed 1 billion. It’s a legion of artificial intelligence that will never die, at least not while humans are around to see it.

The computer species appears to have a high mortality rate (whether due to the rapid progress of technology or an industry conspiracy to ensure that products must be replaced regularly). They “crash” and “die” in droves, their human counterparts literally kicking them to the curb. But there is no heaven, no place in the clouds, for the cold, hard shell once warmed by electrical currents. Once it has left your desk, your computer doesn’t disappear. In a sense, it lives on.

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Dear Justin,

You make some very effective arguments! You are right to use my own posts in illustrating your thoughts.  Granted, those posts, written toward the end of the Sust Enable project, demonstrate that my original concept of Sust Enable did not pan out because its original assumptions were flawed.  Indeed, for other people to have success with living sustainably, they must be gentle, have fun, and go slow… three things that I failed to consider for myself when undertaking the “radical” experiment.

I think the strongest point you make with your last post is the importance of living in a way that honors your own health and wellbeing, not just the Earth’s.   This is something that I’ve learned to consider the hard way, through the tribulations of the Sust Enable project (during which I ran up against my own physical limits of hunger, sleeplessness, and stress).  I completely agree with that: respect for yourself, as a living being with needs, comes first in making a healthy approach toward respecting the Earth and other living systems.

However, I recognize that our level of comfort is learned–it is borrowed from the culture that surrounds us.  It is by no means an “absolute” measure of comfort or happiness.  Even our very venues for acquiring what you and I need to survive are hugely affected by the culture we were born into.  People in Third World and sometimes Second World countries live sustainably every day–and in my experience when visiting Mexico, are considerably happier than the average American.  Is this because they have struck a good balance between respecting the natural world and their own personal patterns, in ways that over-worked, over-stressed and over-consumptive Americans can only dream of?  It’s a theory. Read the rest of this entry »

I honor the sense of urgency you express in your post, Caroline, especially because of the fact that you are not feeling it and then getting frozen by fear with a sense of not knowing what to do. Nor are you simply screaming and dictating what others should do without getting active yourself. Instead, you are striving to realize 100% sustainability now, in your own life–and then sharing your experiences along the way. That is priceless, and we need more people with that much dedication…no matter how far they take sustainable living.

But here is my reaction to what you have written. One danger of such an approach to sustainability is that it presents an all-or-nothing, zero-sum scenario in which only large (”extreme”) measures are valued or presented as viable options. If that becomes the predominant model of sustainable living–and of environmentalism–then it has the strong likelihood of turning off many folks who are not entirely convinced or who do not share your sense of urgency.

Plus, it seems to present a sort of cold-turkey path to going sustainable: Drop everything you know in your life so far and live “green”…or else! To expect the majority in modern society, which is going more towards ease and convenience along the Western paradigm than anything else (just think of China, for example), to do this sort of sudden break with habit is just not realistic.

My feeling is that the most effective, realistic approach to sustainable living for the broadest demographic of individuals is a slower approach–starting at, say, 40% sustainability and then increasing at a pace that is comfortable but not indulging complacency–with or without a goal of reaching 100%.

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Hi Justin,

I deeply appreciate your thoughts and your comments from “Towards a (Re)Definition of Sustainability - #1″.  I can tell that this is something you’ve been chewing on!  Me too.

I believe that changing a million lightbulbs to CFLs is absolutely NOT sustainable, because CFLs are currently (and probably will never be) manufactured sustainably, and so that option is simply unacceptable in terms of one-Earth sustainability.  It may be more “green,” but it’s only an excuse to continue exploiting the Earth and its priceless natural arrangement.  Besides, what are the benefits of using more electricity versus not putting more and more mercury into our landfills and environments due to CFLs?  I’d like to see those numbers, too.

I think I seem radical (and truly, some of what I’ve tried has been too intense for me to even handle) because I demand sustainability NOW, and reinforce that sustainability can be possible NOW.  You are correct in saying that, in terms of basic “impact,” 10 people living off the grid makes less of a global difference than 1,000 people changing lightbulbs.  But will using “green” lightbulbs–or any kind of lightbulbs at all!–ever be one-Earth sustainable?

For more on this same kind of lens/perspective, check out Derrick Jensen.  He argues that, for instance, using less gasoline doesn’t mean all the gasoline won’t get used up.  We are simply attempting feel-good tactics to remove ourselves from the guilt that comes with this awareness: that we are utterly dooming ourselves and all of life on Earth by our worldwide actions.

So what’s the trade-off there: a life that’s slightly more inconvenient (but possibly more satisfying) that allows for life on Earth and a thriving ecosystem… or one single lifetime that is convenient, comfy and luxurious, at the expense of hundreds of lifetimes to come?   Read the rest of this entry »

[Authors’ Introduction: This represents the first in a series of posts in which Sustainablog contributors Justin Van Kleeck and Caroline Savery discuss sustainability--in both philosophical and practical terms--and ultimately grope our way towards some definition(s) of "sustainability." The posts grow out of e-mails that we traded recently relating to Caroline’s Sust Enable project. This is not a debate or an argument, nor are we trying to prove one perspective right or wrong; it is a discussion, a chat, a pow-wow between two folks trying to live green. Each of us will post three articles (for a total of six), and in our final ones we will give our own definition of sustainability. We encourage readers to comment on individual posts and on the overall dialogue at the end.]

Caroline, having followed your posts on the Sust Enable project with great interest, “Hard Lessons in Sustainable Living: The Tent Trauma,” in particular sparked me to touch base with you. I have been thinking a lot about what you are doing and about sustainability in general.

I want to say first off that I greatly admire and respect your “experiment” with trying to live 100% sustainably. Your bravery is just awesome, not to mention inspiring, and the fact that you were able to share some very useful insights with others makes it even more commendable. It is easy to hold up folks like Thoreau who go out “into the woods” and rough it for a given period of time without in turn actively working to learn from and protect nature. You have taken on that challenge, Caroline, and I commend you.

But what I have been thinking/wondering about is the overall importance of efforts like yours vs. smaller-scale, less “extreme” efforts at sustainability. Let me explain what I mean. There are folks like yourself who go whole-hog and try to be 100% sustainable, to “live off the grid,” to be a complete closed cycle, to consume no or virtually no resources, etc. These folks definitely make a difference and can inspire others to live conscientiously–even if not to the same degree, and even if they do not share their experiences with others.

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One of the great benefits of technology nowadays is the ability to do many, many things electronically. With a decent connection (even dial-up, used by poor stone-age folks like me), a willingness to trust sensitive data to cyberspace, and companies offering e-services, you can do everything from pay your bills to read the newspaper online. And, of course, you can e-communicate, too: Why write a crotchety old letter when you could e-mail, IM, blog, teleconference…?

Besides the general convenience and speed that going paperless provides, managing your life electronically also can help out the Earth. When you go paperless you require less paper, ergo you reduce the number of trees that have to be cut down, ground up into pulp, and then magically transformed into yet another bill, catalogue, or credit card offer.

The number of trees saved when you do it the e-way is pretty significant. Paxton Ramsdell at The Nature Conservancy shares these numbers:

If only one in five households switched to electronic bills, statements and payments, the collective impact would save 151 million pounds of paper, avoid filling 8.6 million garbage bags and eliminate 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.1

Since our friends the trees do so much for us, from sequestering carbon to producing oxygen to inspiring our wonder and our fear, you can feel great about going paperless in every way. Yes, sometimes being an environmentalist has its benefits–in this case convenience cum sustainability. So why not go e-green?

Well, here is one possibly good reason to be wary of going paperless in toto. At least I think it is a good one.

Long before I was a conscientious environmentalist, I was…a bookworm. And more than that, I was…a bibliophile…a book addict with a serious craving. I have an affinity for old books in particular. The ones that make you sneeze with dust when you open them. The ones that require tweezers and padded cushions even to be read. The ones that cannot even be looked at too hard or too long lest you damage them. The ones that require climate-controlled basement rooms without windows kept precisely at specific temperatures and humidity levels.

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Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the surprising journeys of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s a sneak peek at the desk you threw away.

How can a mahogany desk, made of slow-growing hard wood plundered from the Amazon, be eco-friendly?

When it’s re-used.

Often, the greenest consumer route is not buying new products made with Earth-friendly methods but rather scoring used products made with traditional, possibly heinous methods. Reduce, reuse, then recycle.

This rule of thumb certainly applies to office furniture. Unlike energy-consuming products such as appliances, furniture is somewhat innocuous to the environment during that period between factory and landfill known as “in use.” The impacts on indoor air quality, however, are like Britney: Not that innocent. Read the rest of this entry »

“Businesses and politicians have no part whatsoever to play in the solution: it is all about individual ‘non-civilians’.”

-Keith Farnish

The Sust Enable webcast series was spawned in a climax of understanding… years of myriad input and countless bits of information collected over time at once coalesced into one artistic, complex and beautiful vision.  I’ve never experienced anything else quite like it.  This is why I sometimes refer to the project as my “opus”–it artistically expresses and defines who I was before this period.  Who I will be after, too, is forever altered by the work’s creation.  Like giving birth to a living being, the act of creation transcends your own capacity to control it.

I can only imagine that Keith Farnish’s comprehensive A Matter of Scale was a similar labor of love.  One can sense the author’s own expressive burst in the feverish love with which he forms his ideas.

A Matter of Scale is an e-Book only; not yet a typical “print” book.  This could be for a number of reasons.  It could be the author’s environmental concerns of tree-felling for books.  Then, it could be the crux of his whole philosophy of taking personal responsibility for the actions affecting our global ecosystem.  But one thing is certain–A Matter of Scale is unpublished certainly NOT due to its lack of quality insight and urgent information.  For its own modest scale and scope, it packs a wallop. Read the rest of this entry »

CouchSurfing saved my life.

Well, possibly.  No one yet knows what role quality sleep plays in one’s life, or whether one could die from sleep deprivation.

But if it weren’t for the Couchsurfing.com network, I would be–more or less–homeless.

Since I gleefully waved goodbye to my soggy, moldy tent in mid-July, I’ve been faced with the dilemma of… well, now where do I sleep?  For a week or so, I was wearing out my welcome at my friend’s houses and at my boyfriend’s place (whose sleep schedule is around 5 hours off of mine).  Realizing that this was causing inordinate stress, both on me and on the parties involved, I knew I had to find a semi-permanent solution.

With no cash and no lease, where would I stay?  Enter: Couchsurfing.

When I first heard about CouchSurfing, I had the same instant, emotional reaction I had when I heard about Free Ride: the oh, this is way too cool to be true! feeling.  Of course, as with the other projects that I have blissfully filled my life with, it was true… and so cool I felt compelled to participate.

CouchSurfing is a website that connects travellers who need shelter for a brief stay, with hosts who wish to welcome them.  It is rare that someone will CouchSurf within their own city–yet that was exactly my situation after my grimy tent became more like a prison sentence than a home.   Read the rest of this entry »

Life offers more than a paycheck, corner office and promotional title.

In fact, many of us are working ourselves to death. Less than 40 percent of working Americans actually take all the vacation time that they’re offered, and many who do have a hard time disconnecting from the office, voicemail and e-mail. Added to this are the hours each week we spend commuting, wasting time and polluting the environment unless you’re fortunate to be able to walk or bike to work.

For many years, I let myself be defined by what I owned and the company I worked for (at a big advertising agency, of all places). For many people, their identity is so closely associated with their job that when they stop working, they end up passing away not long afterwards, lacking hobbies, social connections or life purpose. But what it says on a business card says nothing about our passions, interests, talents or aspirations.

A shift in perspective is underway, from desiring a standard of living defined by possessions and financial wealth to a quality of life defined by experiences and genuine well-being. For many people, maintaining their high standard of living contributes to their poor quality of life, not to mention often contributing to the destruction of the planet.

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