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Sustainability Today
By Dayna Schueth
Sustainability Today
Achieving a sustainable lifestyle today is of paramount
importance for the health of future generations. The
devastation of our natural environment by individuals and
corporations who carelessly pollute the water and air, clearcut
forests, and destroy topsoil and natural habitats is in many
cases irreversible.
Those of us living an urban or suburban
lifestyle may just be beginning to feel the repercussions of our
industrial lifestyle in the form of climate change. However, the
perpetuation of anti-environment practices is sure to cause
consequences that we cannot even imagine.
The world in which we live is a system in which all elements
interrelate and coexist in a harmonious balance of creation and
destruction. Nothing exists or functions in isolation. Everything
is interconnected and every act affects the future of countless
other elements.
This concept, also known as systems thinking,
is easy to see when observing an ecosystem, especially when
the harmony of that ecosystem is disrupted. The extinction or
reduction of one species rebounds through the entire food
chain, causing havoc on the lives of the rest of the species.
A sustainable lifestyle is one that seeks to harmonize with the
elements of the natural world. We can use the forces of
nature to our advantage, without abusing them and causing as
little disturbance to the natural environment as possible. One
such example is harnessing the energy of the sun.
Solar
energy can be captured in a variety of ways. The most basic
way, passive solar energy, refers to the type of construction
materials used and their placement. For example, a house
designed to face the south allows the heat of the sun to warm
the house all day long.
Add to that other passive solar features
such as thermal mass and the house is already well on its way
to energy-independence.
Industrialism and the Information Age have provided our
society with the tools it needs to reverse our current path of
environmental degradation. Solar panel technology and the
multitude of other inventions for collecting the energy of the
sun are constantly improving and becoming more affordable.
We may also gather energy from the wind, water, ground and
even our own waste products.
The key to becoming sustainable as individuals and as a society
is our own willingness to change and to be creative.
Permaculture is a design system that guides us to build and
manage sustainable living and working environments in which all
of the elements overlap and interrelate to create a functioning
whole. Combining our knowledge of ecological principles with
our earth-friendly technology we have only to succeed in
achieving a more sustainable lifestyle today, and a brighter
future for our children and grandchildren.
About the Author
Dayna Schueth works as a permacultural design consultant in Boulder Colorado and South America.
She teaches people how to become sustainable and create sustainable gardens that can feed entire families.
Visit Dayna at http://www.sustainability101.com
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/17266.html
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