Hanging Out With My Choice to Live Sustainably

It was 34 degrees this morning at 9:30 a.m. as I suited up to hang out the clothes. Doubt nibbled around my edges once again, but I did it anyway. It's sometimes hard to live sustainably when most of those around you don't.

On a trip to New York City in 2002, my husband and I visited the United Nations. While there, we stopped in a gift shop and I bought my first Worldwatch Institute State of the World publication. It presented lots and lots of charts and data on global environmental problems, problems that I was just awakening to and reading about. I wanted to slit my wrists. The State of the World 2002 was one of several books I was reading during that period of my life. The reading convinced me that environmental systems were out of balance and that mankind should live more sustainably. Waterfront Property was my first book and it reflects my heartfelt concern.

While I received solicitations from the Worldwatch Institute to purchase subsequent annual reports, I didn't buy them. I always thought that the focus wasn't right, based on where I was in my journey toward sustainability or I was reading other related books. As a business person I was interested in Natural Capitalism, The Ecology of Commerce, Cradle to Cradle, Green to Gold, and others. As research for Waterfront Property, I was reading more about the Chesapeake Bay, the oceans, and ecology. I continue to read, learn, and talk to others about the state of the world and what it means. The awakening has permeated my life.

But when I received the annual message from the Worldwatch Institute this year, I bit on their offer. 2010 State of the World: Transforming Culture, From Consumerism to Sustainability was the followup I needed to reignite and continue the transformation of my values. While the 2002 report seemed frightening, knowledge has provided me with a sense of real hope and a flash of insight into the meaning of life.

This year's Worldwatch book is no less frightening than the 2002 volume. In fact, it is more frightening to those who are just getting familiar with environmental decline. (A friend who had just finished reading chapter one told me we thought she'd just go ahead and slit her wrists now.) We are at a tipping point. The science cannot be denied. Our choices between now and 2050 will impact what happens next and the ability of our species to survive the coming crises. That's why I suggested this book to my Master Naturalists Chapter. I believe that we need to include the sustainability message in all of the environmental education work that we do. But how to do it is the question.

Because many interpret the message as telling them to cut back and, in fact, make huge sacrifices. They close their ears and turn away. They don't want to think about it. Today, it seems normal to consume so many goods and services that to give them up would be hard. Growth is assumed. Our economy is built on consumption and without growth in purchasing our economy will crumble. In 1955, Victor Lebow explained that, "our enormously productive economy demands that we make consuption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption."

Sounds vulgar, doesn't it? But that's what we've done and what we continue to do: Shovel Coal on a Runaway Train. It's our runaway culture. It needs to be transformed. It's unsustainable to consume resources at current levels. This is obvious and getting more so every day, especially to those of us who are environmentally aware.

And so I do my bit. I've dialed back. I live simply. I have time to hang my clothes on the line to dry. It's becoming normal to me. And I think my neighbors notice. If it causes them to think about sustainable living, hallelujah.

When the fossil fuel levels decline precipitously, as they will by 2050, and when stressed ecosystems result in higher food prices, as they are, and as extreme weather challenges our government and infrastructure, as we are seeing more and more frequently, we who are currently living sustainably will be more able to adapt. Living without a dryer will be normal again, just like it was from Grandma, who raised chickens, smoked hams, and shelled butter beans. She lived a simpler life, into her late 80s, and was happy. I wager she was happier than my friends who commute an hour to work in their BMWs to make more money and live more unsustainably.

The new normal is just around the corner, so dial back and get comfortable.