Sustainable Living Tips

From Associated Content, by Eric Shutt:

Sustainable living is pretty easy and involves a lot of doing nothing. But it's a different kind of nothing than we're used to.

When it comes to sustainable living, we need simple ways to make the sustainable choice, regardless of time, place or political debate. These choices need to be ones that we can make over and over again, without fear of making the wrong decision. Here are a few tips to start us off right.

Save More

Save more money. Save more energy. Save more of everything you use. Saving more means using less. To think about consumption in terms of savings is to rethink what we don't need to do -- how much less we need -- to be sustainable.

We need to consume less. So even if we as a society can make more, we need to choose to use less. So stop buying things you don't need. Buying less equals saving money -- a win-win for sustainability.

For example, increasing the efficiency of how you use energy at home can dramatically lower your energy bills.

At any time, in any place, saving more makes for a more sustainable lifestyle.

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Think Locally

Transportation is the top contribution to energy consumption in the United States. It's simply more sustainable to stay closer to home. Plus, it's easier.

A joint report by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and Public Transportation Partnership for Tomorrow claims that public transportation uses 50 percent less fuel than personal vehicles, without even considering the debate on SUVs. "Every dollar communities invest in public transportation generates approximately $6 in economic returns," according to APTA.

It's also cheaper, cleaner and generates more hometown revenue. Local is more sustainable.

Eat Less Meat

Producing meat requires an incredible amount of land and food. That's especially true considering the amount of land used to grow meat that could be used to grow even more food. Don't worry about eating local, don't worry about being vegetarian, simply eat less meat.

"It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of animal flesh. It's shockingly inefficient to feed plant foods to farmed animals and consume their flesh rather than eating the plant foods ourselves," GoVeg.com points out.

Demand for meat is also increasing at an unsustainable rate. According to The New York Times, the world's total meat came to 71 million tons in 1961. By 2007, that number was estimated to be 284 million tons.

Less meat is more sustainable.

Now What?

Not everyone needs to act on all of the problems above. And we don't need to do something all at once. Simply taking an honest look at how we're living now, versus what sustainable living might look like, can be enough to start us on the road to making a difference in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us.

Comments

[KIVPossum]

Makes me laugh when I read the 'Go Green' articles. Much of the world is green every day out of necessity. Much of the rest is green out of habit, having never got accustomed to America's need for power, packaging, and conveniences.

Some people actually know how to wash their dishes by hand, hang their clothes out to dry, and walk a mile rather than fire up the SUV.

Except for the 'back to earthers', who I admire, even the most conservative Americans are wasteful by world standards.

[Jenniferleeca]

We need to adapt. Take a look at this article The Great Transition: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21656220/The-Great-Transition-Navigating-Social-Economic-Ecological-Change-in-Turbulent-Times

[Jeff9]

This covers all the bases = saves you money, helps the environment, helps your health, makes you feel better, it's so easy to do and it costs less than $50.00; Save money and the Earth and be clean at the same time! Add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all your bathrooms. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off” Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! Don’t worry, you can still leave some out for guests and can even make it the soft stuff without feeling guilty. It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. As for water use a drought is always a concern and must be dealt with prudently but remember the water use of industrial users far exceeds the water use of household users and in the case of toilet paper manufacture it is huge. The pollution and significant power use from that manufacturing process also contributes to global warming so switching to a hand bidet sprayer and lowering your toilet paper use is very green in multiple ways.