What is green? What is sustainable? What makes me sustainable? These are questions I have been asking myself and a few of my friends in the past year or so. I’ve done some reading, I’ve talked to some people, and I’ve started to make changes in my own life. As I watch the green movement taking shape around me, I often wonder how I can actually help make a change. Like my good friend Emlyn says, the change isn’t going to come in buying new green items, it’s going to come in limiting our consumption.
David, who I featured the other day and works for Green Options, drives an older car and when questioned about why he drives it instead of a hybrid he gives a similar answer. It’s because the car isn’t dead yet, it has thousands of parts that are going to end up in a landfill, so why not use it until it can’t be used any more?
How are you green?
I’m motivated best by my peers. When a good friend that I trust tells me that my car has better gas mileage if I drive it at 60mph instead of 75mph, I change my driving habits.
I try to set examples for the people around me. I know my peers are going to make decisions on their own, but if I can show them a comfortable green lifestyle about which I’m passionate, and prove that I myself can maintain it, I may be able to get a small group of people to change their habits. If they do the same, they pass it along to their friends. We all know this works.
What I/we do.
- I try to hang-dry clothes instead of using a drier as often as possible. I’d say 1 in every 3 loads we hang.
- Buy local organic food that is delivered to Claire’s office building, where other people people have food delivered as well.
- Turn off the water while soaping my hands and brushing my teeth, and consider my water usage in general.
- I’m lucky enough to get to take a bus to work—living in a city really helps lower my emissions.
- I wear out my clothes. It’s hard to do in a materialistic society, but I feel strong about repairing and re-wearing my clothes.
- I don’t drink out of plastic bottles, and avoid using paper plates and plastic utensils.
- I try to buy beer out of tap because it tastes better… Oh yeah, and no bottle plus less shipping generally. Local beer whenever possible.
- I don’t eat meat except fish, and the fish I eat is on a Seafood Watch List made by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Sustainable fish.
- I don’t use plastic bags from stores.
What makes me worse then most people on earth.
- I fly more than the average human. This is probably the worse thing I could do for the environment besides opening a coal plant just to watch the pretty black smoke.
- I have my computer almost constantly plugged in and on.
- I over-consume. Maybe not more than the average American, but more than I need I’m sure.
- Electronics for 2 people: 4 cell phones, 3 computers, 1 projector, 7 hard drives, 3 iPods, 2 speakers, N64, Gameboys, 2 video cameras, 2 digital cameras, 3 still cameras, 1 VCR, 40ish tapes, 1 DVD player, 100 DVD’s (not in cases).
If you have a moment check out the Scarsdale Challenge and video. I was blown away by some of our consumption as a country.
What do you do?
I’d love to hear from you by Seesmic video—you can copy and paste the code in the comments. Or just leave a comment.
6 responses so far ↓
1 YurtTrash » Blog Archive » Everyday is a practice // Apr 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] their way in this world. With this in mind, I must direct your attention to WhitScott.com. He asks “Am I sustainable? Are you?”, which is a question we ALL need to ask. I adore the idea of listing ways that we are [...]
2 Emlyn // Apr 7, 2008 at 11:17 pm
The best start is to be thinking about these things. To be educated. That’s for sure.
But still, I still take issue with your idea of what it takes to “be green”. Going by your lists, being green revolves around low energy consumption, low waste generation, and sustainable eating.
Lets imagine the best case scenario for this new GREEN world.
Humans cut back their energy use to the point that all energy needs are obtained from renewable sources with zero emissions.
Humans generate zero waste, everything consumed is reused and recycled.
All food is grown organically. No polluting byproducts. And hey while we’re at it, no one eats meat anymore.
Great, amazing, we’ve done it! No pollution, no waste. We live happily ever after?
In my mind, the only thing it accomplishes is it enables the human species to go on living without sacrificing anything of major concern. It makes the earth a little prettier for our selfish enjoyment (Sure, the lack of pollution would preserve a few ecosystems, specifically in the ocean).
While we’re in the business of doing all these great things, lets go one step further. Lets end poverty. Lets provide all people with clean water and all the healthy food they need. Free health care for everyone! And to top it off we’ll end all violence.
Really, the green movement is about making sure that the human species can go on living (and growing, and growing, and growing) in it’s current state without fear of things going bad for us.
But what about the planet, which everyone says the green movement is really about… how does any of this help the planet?
Why isn’t there a movement to get rid of all the roads which cover this planet like scars. Or houses. Or entire cities. Are any animals other than fish and birds able to migrate anymore? Our own desires to have our own space and to move around has taken that option away from everything else.
To put it simply, 6 billion people, no matter how “green” they are, will never coexist with the planet without dominating everything else on it. So just as you argue that everything you’re doing is helping to save the earth… I could argue that we should screw it up for ourselves as much as possible so as to knock ourselves off our throne and let nature get back to doing business as usual.
3 Emlyn // Apr 7, 2008 at 11:49 pm
The future:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/31849009_ad79b37728_o.jpg
Oh wait, that’s now. The irony is that this city is “going green”
4 Whit Scott // Apr 8, 2008 at 10:53 am
We are nature man. Let nature get back to doing business as usual? It is. I completely understand what you’re saying, we’ve had this conversation before. I’d like to think that there is something we can do about it, and in the process leave the planet a little cleaner for the people after us.
You’re right, population control is where it’s at, but I think there is more to it, like you said, education. People have to understanding that we are earth’s virus. But I don’t think we have to destroy the earth, I’d like to think that there is a way to live here without destroying it. Maybe i’m to optimistic.
It just seems pretty selfish to give in. What I love about this conversation that you and I have is that we have different views. I just think we need to work on a solution. It sounds to me like we may agree on education and population control, do you think there is anything else that would help?
In the mean time, do you think that individuals taking their own personal steps to be cleaner and greener is a waste of their/our time?
I’ll just say this, and it’s selfish as you say, I much prefer living in SF air then LA air. It feels good to breath here.
5 Emlyn // Apr 8, 2008 at 1:29 pm
It’s not a waste. As you know, I don’t go around screwing the earth. I don’t consume, I don’t waste.
All I ask is that people going green get rid of the illusions that they’re somehow saving the planet, adverting climate change, and protecting cute baby animals.
Oh and those same people also need to get off their high horse and stop looking down on SUV driving, wasteful, meat eating, republicans as scum. If that cute baby animal had any sense, it’d slap us all for being so naive.
6 Cara-he // Apr 10, 2008 at 12:38 am
I find it very very interesting that you manage to say the following:
“While we’re in the business of doing all these great things, lets go one step further. Lets end poverty. Lets provide all people with clean water and all the healthy food they need. Free health care for everyone! And to top it off we’ll end all violence.”
without once mentioning the protection of the mental and bodily autonomy of all people.
Thus speaketh the healthy, educated, white male, full to the brim of privilage and yet grimly sanctimonious towards the genuine effort of others to both live well and live honestly.
You call it naive to try to change the current structures of society and yet claim to live without consuming or producing waste. I call bullshit. You eat. You shit. You type away on the computer that you can afford both access to and services for. It’s the internet. It don’t come free.
And those cute little animals? They pollute too. In fact, I defy you to find a single organic being (sentient or otherwise) that does not pollute, murder, overpopulate, or destroy. Animals are in the business of living, just as humans are, and existence comes at a price.
I in no way deny that people are the cancer of the earth. But even when we’ve decimated both ourselves and all the flora and fauna we can take with us, the earth will survive. It’s too big for even humans to blast to smithereens.
You have a choice, then. Continue to live and knowingly participate in pollution and destruction – but allow your ethical principles to guide you toward a lighter, less damaging way of living – or don’t.
Your pessimism serves no purpose. You save no lives (animal or vegetable) by it. You improve no conditions by it. Pessimism does not ensure a living wage, establish an Equal Rights Amendment, end discrimination against LGBTQ or disAbled people any more than it provides universal healthcare or clean air.
The only thing that does work is honest self-examination and change. And yes, a willingness to do so is a step up the ethical ladder. Being dour but self-righteous is nothing less than inciting against activism – which is fine if your goal is to ensure the vast divide between the poor and the wealthy, the continued discrimination against the oppressed, and eventually the extinction of all known life.
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