Chasing Sustainablity...Feeling Guilty Yet?

                “In out every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our actions on the next 7 generations,” this is the great law of the Iroquois Confederacy.    However, it is an unfortunate truth that we as a society do not live our lives this way.  The familiar chant of “our children’s children” does not go far enough according to the seminar “Chasing Sustainability” by Dave Chameides a.k.a. Sustainable Dave.  He argued that we as a society need to think more like the Iroquois.   In his seminar he talks about the steps that can be taken to preserve our planet.

                As he began his talk, a feeling of guilt slowly crept up inside of me.  Listening to the points that he brings up really makes one view our daily lives differently.  One of his main objectives was to make people realize the immense amount of waste the we as individuals produce.  He has personally taken this to the next level and is looking at the trash that he produces by keeping all of it in his basement for a year.  That’s right, all of the trash that he has produced since January 1^st is sitting in his basement right now.  This is a rather drastic measure he has taken, and he doesn’t propose that we all do this, but he did outline some things that we can do to reduce our own trash very easily.  He mainly focused on petroleum (plastic) products, as petroleum is a very limited and very in demand resource.  Two of those that really struck home with me were to never take a plastic bag, and to stop drinking bottled water.  The next time you go to the grocery store just observe all the plastic bags that you get…kind of astonishing.  What he proposes is that you use the reusable cloth bags that have become rather popular.  One easy thing that we can all do to help reduce our waste.  His second point was one that really made me a bit agitated.  One thing that has become in vogue in recent years is bottled water.  It is extremely common to see people carrying plastic bottled water with them almost all the time.  But where do those plastic bottles go when they are done with them?  Most likely into the trash, and from there a landfill.  What Dave offers as an alternative is to use a reusable water receptacle.  Simple, easy, and if everybody did it, it could make a huge difference in our waste.  He proposes the same for disposable coffee cups.  These are a few examples of the easy things that we all can do to help make a difference.  If you want to check out Dave’s basement trash experiment go to http://365daysoftrash.blogspot.com/

                Dave also covered some other points.  One was the need for energy we as a society have.  In a year the earth uses 12.8 terawatts of power a year.  Yeah, that’s just a lotta power.  As with the plastic, he outlined a few easy things that we can do to reduce our power usage.  The first is the one that we all know, and that is to turn off the lights!  Yeah it’s that easy.  The second is something that is not as known.  It is to “kill” standby items.  Most modern electronics don’t actually turn off when you turn them off.  They instead go into standby mode, which uses a lot of power over the course of a year.

                One thing that surprised me and relieved me about his seminar was that he barely said anything about global warming.  I have almost become sedated by the entire global warming problem facing us.  It’s not that I don’t care about it, but you hear so much about the problem, it was nice to not have to hear it here.

                So what did I take from this seminar, other than feeling guilty and embarrassed about the irresponsible way that we live our lives?  To be honest, it gave me hope that we can actually do this.  Dave was able to make the objective of sustainability within reach, rather than overwhelming us with crazy facts.  For me, it was definitely an entertaining and enlightening seminar.

To check out some of the other stuff that Sustainable Dave talked about check out www.sustainabledave.com