Sustainable Living

In order for sustainable development to be achieved, humans need to reduce their effect on the environment by consuming less in terms of resources, and living more lightly on the planet. As difficult as this may sound, there are a number of ways in which this is easily achievable. One of the most effective ways to do this is to alter the way in which we function day-to-day, and to begin to change our homes to make them more efficient in terms of resources. In addition, sustainability is not only about ensuring a future in which we can sustain our society without impacting negatively on our environment, but also but ensuring that everyone can have access to this. Therefore we must look at the triple-bottom line approach and align our movement towards sustainable development with this.

“Sustainability is a matter of long term development” (Fowler, J., Sept.24th), this is the simplest statement describes the word “sustainability” till the end of the third week lecture. After two weeks’ lecture classes and ESS lecture classes, the concept that “sustainability is not a certain technology or policy” (Introduction to Environment, Sustainability and Society, slide79) is founded in my mind. Mind Shift organization and professor Matthew Schnurr’s research taught me more specifically that sustainability is not only about the environment.

Global warming, pollution, and dwindling fossil fuels will always be the conservational problems if nobody starts to buy local grown foods. Katherine Spriggs, author of the essay, “On Buying Local,” explains how having a large variety of foods at all times of the year is not worth the negative effects in the communities and their economies (Spriggs 92). As a community, many environmental challenges are being faced; Buying local will help bring advantages to not only the environment, but also the small towns and the

The environment is among some of the top issues to be looked upon by the human population in the world today. Sustainability is a word often times used when speaking of this subject. This is a concept represented in the articles “Sustainability” by Christian R. Weisser and “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” by Robert Paarlberg. Each author addresses the issue in different ways; one giving examples of this issue and the other clearly defining it. Each author is writing to spread awareness of this issue. As overlapping topics, each article has similarities and differences to the other.

To conclude, our current way of agricultural life is not sustainable. The article “What’s for supper” has made me realize that if I hope for a better future for generations to come I should support a locally sourced lifestyle. This article is an eye opener to me and proved to me the importance of supporting locally grown produce. Locally grown produce supports the environment as well as jobs for people in the community. The current system takes a toll on every species on the planet. Humans are overproducing on a massive scale and are wasting close to half of our supplies and

One of the most vigorously debated topics is the issue of sustainability. These include climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and ignorance to the damage being done to the environment. The climate that all living things have come to rely upon is changing because of global warming. Today, sustainability has become a focal point and a significant part of life. Sustainability is defined as the ability to meet current environmental, ecological, economics, social and cultural needs without risking the ability of future generations to meet those same needs. What does the Best American Science Wtg. 2014 teach us about sustainability, and what makes the paradigm shift to a sustainable planet? These different authors explain with example how sustainability can be achieved and also the different points of views that exist. “TV as birth control,” by Fred Pearce, “Why the brain prefers paper,” by Ferris Jabrs, “Bringing them back to life,” by Carl Zimmer and “A race to save the orange by altering its DNA”, by Amy Harmon’s – reveals that cultural sustainability involves efforts to preserve the actual and evasive cultural elements of sociality such as heritage, educational opportunities and public policies, in way that promote environmental, economic and social sustainability.

A major part of living sustainably is using clean and renewable energy sources for as much as possible.(3) Wind, water, and the sun all provide an alternative to fossil fuels which harm the environment through carbon emissions and pollution. Sources such as oil and natural gas can not be replenished quickly, where as solar energy or hydropower can be harvested regularly with little to no effect on the environment. One way to become green in everyday life is to make your home sustainable.(4) A sustainable home should be constructed of recycled or natural, environmentally friendly materials, and renewable energy sources should be utilized. Its important that the construction process as well as the building itself impacts the surrounding environment as little as possible. In addition to living in a sustainable home, eating green can reduce the impact on the natural world. Because the meat production industry uses so many resources and can often harm the environment through waste pollution, many people who eat sustainably decide to be vegetarian. Organic and locally grown vegetables are far better for the sustainable movement compared to factory farm produce due to pesticides used and the negative effect factory farming can have on soil composition and erosion.(3) Even with a sustainable personal life, work takes up much of society’s time and sustainable practices should be brought to

Soil is the most important element for agricultural ecosystems. Healthy soil comes with beneficial microbes and insects. Unfortunately, these are often killed off by the abuse of pesticides. Healthy soil can produce strong crops that are less vulnerable to pests. Damaged soils often need strong fertilizers application to produce a high amount of crops. Soil quality can be amplified in many ways, including leaving crop remainders in the field after harvest and adding composted plant material (Union of Concerned Scientists) Compared to industrial agriculture, companies continue to damage and consume natural soil. While intensive plowing and monocrop (does not rotate) agriculture systems have caused nutrient exhaustion and soil erosion. Excessive application of fertilizers and pesticides has contaminated soils and polluted waterways (Grace Communications Foundations)

Local sustainable farming has many attributes, but one of the most important is to preserve the quality of the environment. Even though farming is not a new concept, many people do not know what it is or how it works, yet most of them think that food just comes from supermarkets. The current industrial agriculture system have improved the yields of production by growing monocrops such as corn and soy, which in turn is leading the land to erosion. It has also implemented the use of new technologies, mechanization, chemical products, and government policies (Ingels, Campbell 1.) However, it has had significant costs. Land deterioration, water contamination, and human health problems related to diet are some of them. As the industrial farms, sustainable farms also have high yield of production. As shown in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” Polyface, a local sustainable farm located in virginia, produces in a season: 30,000 dozen eggs, 10,000 broilers, 800 stewing hens, 25,000 Lbs of beef, 25,000 lbs of pork, 1,000 turkeys, and 500 rabbits (14). Opposite to Industrial farming, local sustainable agriculture is helping the land recover thanks to the implementation of multicropping and the use of

Land for grazing is accompanied with land for crops. This land is sprayed with chemicals that have been proven to harm the environment and those who live around it. Along with land depletion, the amount of water that is needed to take care of a farm is beginning to use up the underground water resources (Geer). All of these different factors combine to create a real threat to the environment as well as animal and human

The environment is getting worse due to many reasons, one of being ‘off-farm input’, which is effecting and damaging the environment. ‘Off-farm input’ consists of fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides, which is used on agriculture to grow faster and larger. These ‘off-farm input’ is effecting and damaging the environment, through the chemicals in the pesticides and fertilizers, creating groundwater contamination. The ‘Environmental Protection Agency’ has stated that herbicides

Today marks one month into my lifestyle sustainability project. During the past thirty days, my family and I have gone through many steps to decide on what changes to make within our home. We put forth great efforts in hopes our lifestyle changes will prove how import sustainably is in reducing, reusing, and recycling. Although we recycle on a regular basis, I always knew there are much more that we could do to make a greater difference. I always wanted to do more, but just did not understand what we could do as a family besides recycling. I called a meeting with the family and informed them of the changes that would take place within our home. Everyone agreed and the project began.

Deborah Sik’s insights on property rights, participatory governance and consumption practices offers the best explanation to the environmental crisis but Maggie Black gives better long lasting solutions for the environmental crisis.

From my experience of working on a farm, I have developed a true understanding of what it means to live sustainably. In my undergraduate years, I have chosen to pursue a major in environmental engineering. The main reason why I have picked this program of study is due to my inquiry and concern into why people continually damage our environment. After graduation, I plan to work as an environmental engineer and apply my experiences to improve and expand conservation efforts in order to protect and preserve our environment. I am interested in studying this topic because living sustainably and preserving our environment for future generations is extremely important to me.

The environment has been put in a dangerous position of not having sufficient amount of resources for current residents and the future generations that are to come. Many things such as personal needs put the environment in this position, but most of time we use these products because they are needed. Earth has become reliant on the resources, therefore we use up our resources way too fast. Our current obstacle to obtaining sustainability is we don't manage our resources, and they are used too often when there is not enough to begin with. Individually we are responsible for ourselves and the actions that are used to take care of the environment. To reach sustainability, there needs to be a limit of how much is used.