Eco-Guilt

I left the house on Friday morning to get a cup of coffee at a great local place called Metropolis, and I did not take my stainless steel coffee mug.  I was so mad at myself.  Any time I forget my mug, get my leftovers in a styrofoam container, forget my canvas bags when I go to the grocery store, I feel guilty.  Really guilty, as in single-handedly feeling responsible for the demise of the planet guilty.  I can't help it.  

Even now, as I look around my living room, I see a lot of things that are unnecessary.  We are such a materialistic society, and even though people are now beginning to feel the effects of over-consumption, we still consume A LOT.  We use a disproportionate amount of resources in this country.  We take our lives for granted, but there is a reckoning that awaits us.  And it is going to be much sooner than people like to think.  Water shortages and food shortages and severe weather and ever-increasingly energy-intensive endeavors to extract resources are all a reality today.  

I should feel eco-guilt.  More people should feel it.  If we aren't going to do the right thing because we should maybe we WILL do it if we feel guilty enough.   

Every Day Is a Chance to Live Green

I strive to live every day by my motto that "less for me means more for others."  By this I don't mean that people should take more than their share of resources because others are doing without.  I mean that if each and every one of us made small changes to our lifestyles, we could save countless resources for others. 

• According to Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe, if you sit down to an 8 oz. steak, the "feed cost" of that steak is 45-50 people with empty bowls in front of them, bowls that could have been filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.
• If we recycled 100 million unused cell phones, we could save enough energy to power 194,000 homes in the US for a year.  
• We go through 100 Billion plastic bags per year in the US, less than 1% of which get recycled.  An estimated 12 Million barrels of oil is required to make them, and the annual cost to US retailers of giving them out is estimated at $4 Billion.  
• The chopsticks that you get with your Chinese takeout cost China approximately 25 Million trees a year to make.
• Americans consume an estimated 70 Million+ water bottles a day, and only 14% get recycled. 
• Each person in the US uses an average of 700 pounds of paper products per year.

So I don't eat a lot of red meat.  I do eat it, though, I won't deny it.  I know being a vegetarian would be even better for the planet, though. I have had the same cell phone for a little over two years.  It is only the second one I have ever owned (I lost my first cell phone).  When this phone finally does need to be replaced, all I have to do is return it to AT&T, because the carriers recycle used cell phones.  

I carry a reusable bag with me absolutely everywhere.  They make them to fit on your belt buckle or key chain.  

My boyfriend and I rarely if ever order takeout.  It is environmentally disastrous, not to mention lazy and bad for your waistline.

I rarely drink bottled water.  On occasion I have bought a bottle of water or juice while out, but I ALWAYS recycle the bottle.  

We do not keep paper towels or paper napkins in our apartment.  I use sponges and old socks for cleaning, and we simply wash our hands after a messy meal, or if really necessary, wipe our hands on a cloth towel.  

We swapped out all of the regular light bulbs in our apartment with CFLs.  I turn off the lights when I leave a room, and I shut off and/or unplug appliances I am not using.  

For every bag of garbage we make, we make 2-3 bags of recycling.  

We eat as local and as healthy as we can afford to-organic as much as possible.  

We don't own a car.  We both own a bicycle, though.  And we both walk a lot and use a fair amount of public transportation.  

We don't have an air conditioner.  We have a ceiling fan and a window fan, and we turn them off when we are gone.

I just live this way because I feel it is the right thing to do.  I don't feel like I am sacrificing anything.  I feel blessed by what I do have and feel that everyone should have the chance to experience abundance in their lives.  If everyone on Earth consumed the way we did in the US, we would need 5-6 Earths just to satisfy the demand for resources.  I personally think that says that we, as a country, are thoughtless and greedy.  The Earth is not ours to plunder.              

Things Are Not Made to Last

You may hear older people say this from time to time, but it is actually true.  Companies don't make nearly as much money if they make things to last.  We have become a consumerist, throw-away society, but it was not always this way.  Check out the Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard for some eye-opening statistics and the real cost of our consumerism culture.  I will summarize the story here.  

• In the United States, we only have 5% of the world's population, but use up 30% of its resources and produce 30% of the world's waste.  
  
• Each person in this country produces 4.5 pounds of trash per day, twice the amount we produced 30 years ago.  
  
• 99% of the materials that go into making the stuff that we buy are trashed in less than 6 months. 
• For every 1 garbage can we produce, the manufacturers are producing 70 garbage cans.
  

Things were not always this way.  After World War II, corporations actively sought out a way to make more money.  Consumerism was the key.  This would help explain why the average person consumes twice as much today than they did 50 years ago, or the fact that the average house size has doubled since the 1970's.  Each person in this country gets targeted with 3,000 advertisements per day, more than people used to encounter in their entire lifetime.  

But money cannot buy you happiness.  National happiness has been steadily declining since the 1950's (when it peaked).  Is it coincidence that this was the beginning of our consumer-driven era?  Why would people want to work so hard just to buy stuff that they never really needed or wanted in the first place?  

Over the past three decades, one-third of the planet's natural resource space has been consumed.  In the US, we have only 4% of our original forests left, and 40% of our waterways are undrinkable. Industries here admit to releasing over 4 Billion pounds of toxic chemicals per year. Climate change is the consequence of our actions.  It is too late to stop it from happening, but we could keep it from getting worse.