“Our way of living is damaging our life support system”, Deep Green. What has become apparent is that we need to be doing more than just the little amount we have been told would make a difference, when really it is not making the kind of change we need. To actually reach the change that we need to make in order to conserve our life support system, we need to be looking at our lifestyles and break down each piece of our living so that we know what it is we can change. From what we have read and discussed in class this week, we have spoken about different areas of lifestyle including heat and transportation. 51% of energy goes into buildings alone. Knowing this, we should be making a conscious effort to see what we can change in our own homes, including vampire electronics. Something as simple as unplugging electronics that use a lot of energy and turning down our heat makes a big impact. Switching to newer, more energy efficient appliances may be costly, but will be more of a possibility for many in the future.
“we don’t think about energy use much, until we pay the bills”, Deep Green.
What seems to be a major issue with many in changing their lifestyles to become more sustainable, is the thought that it is more expensive. In some cases it may be, but especially with being more sustainable within the home, it is the opposite. If people were more informed of this, it would be more attractive to change their lifestyle so they would not only be making a difference, but benefiting themselves financially. The misconception of sustainable being thought of as expensive is what is holding many back from taking the effort to change some habits or even think about inexpensive acts that will benefit them more than they know. In class, our concentration on the numbers alone from Mackay’s reading is what gave me a much better understanding of knowing what different numbers I can be contributing and how far we are from minimizing our footprint as a nation. Having all this information makes it easier for us to set goals for ourselves.
Hey Steph!
ReplyDeleteYour post is very true! Having the information broken down into something that we can easily understand makes it easier to see what we can do differently to reduce our impact on the environment. It is becoming more affordable to change from old appliances to newer ones that are more sustainable, I wish I could say the same about hybrid cars. If the government really wanted people to be greener they would make hybrid and electrical cars cheaper since transportation makes up such a large percentage of our energy use.