{"id":14986,"date":"2012-10-15T08:26:50","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T14:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=14986"},"modified":"2012-10-15T08:26:50","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T14:26:50","slug":"blog-action-day-it-takes-a-community-to-cut-our-resource-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/blog-action-day-it-takes-a-community-to-cut-our-resource-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Action Day: It Takes a Community to Cut Our Resource Use"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n I’ve often said myself (and certainly been reminded of it by others) that sustainable resource use<\/a> in our contemporary culture is more of a journey than a destination: if we were to ever hit a point of consuming resources in a manner that allowed for natural replenishment, it would be decades in the future at minimum. We’re just not prepared to make the changes necessary to reach that point now.<\/p>\n Or are we? On the weekend of October 5-7, I made another trip up to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage<\/a>. In between board meetings (I sit on their non-profit’s board of directors) and celebrations of the community’s 15th\u00a0anniversary\u00a0on its land in Northeastern Missouri, I was reminded of the challenges people can overcome when they work together. Dancing Rabbit’s done many great things in its relatively short existence; one of the most impressive is dramatically cutting resource use without sacrificing quality of life.<\/p>\n We tend to focus on the technological aspects of such achievements, but as I prepared to write something for Blog Action Day<\/a>, it occurred to me that community action (aka “the power of we”) was critical to this success. Consider the following elements of this community:<\/p>\n All communities have rules\/laws that members are expected to follow. At DR, \u00a0members and residents are expected to live their lives in accordance with ecological covenants<\/a> and sustainability guidelines<\/a> established by the community. These “rules” aren’t completely inflexible – at least one current resident, for instance, has to drive to regular job – but they do form the basis for accepted lifestyle choices in the community. They also make creativity critical to living in the community: no one at DR wants to freeze in the dark, but they also want to achieve comfort in a manner that doesn’t create an undue burden on natural resources. One of the things that’s constantly surprised me is how comfortable the village is: I’ve never felt like I was sacrificing when I’ve stayed there.<\/p>\nResidents commit to the village’s ecological covenants and sustainability guidelines<\/h3>\n
Residents share resources<\/h3>\n