Better Living Through Sustainability

When it comes to sustainability the current system that we live in fails. It fails for reasons of design. Our systems of living, driving, eating, watching TV, have all been designed poorly.

This all began with the industrial revolution, and at the time, the goal was to progress humanity towards some new goal. Now, over a hundred years later, we have not moved the goals foward to where we need now to progress.

Think about Edison, Einstein, Ford, etc. and look at what they developed what they thought about, what they did. They were maintaining the cutting edge in inventions and industrialization and physics... Great thinkers, inventors and manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century made huge leaps for industry and for mankind. Since then, we have made no substantial leap towards what could be the next “revolution.” We are talking about adding “reusability” and “conservation” to our current industrial practices... but that was what Henry ford wanted to do with his, and he did a better job... How can we have made so little progress?

What we need to think about is whether or not the system is worth keeping, not what we can add or take away from the system.

Sustainability and current design are somewhat at odds with each other. We have for 50 years been designing systems of transportation, manufacturing, and containing ourselves and our things in modern America that are inherently wasteful.

The car, and all the trappings it brings with it, have directed the design of our cities and transportation policies. It has become increasingly difficult to get around our country without having or using a car. The idea that we need cars has become so ingrained in American society that just the mention of not owning one strikes listeners as crazy! How do you get around? people ask. Um, bike? Walking? The bus? what do you think...

To that same end, we have also created a society that thinks of everything as disposable. Every product comes in a fancy package, food and drink come in ridiculous containers, and even the materials contained inside these wrappings and boxes are designed to be thrown away when obsolete.

These concepts have become so prevalent that they are not even considered, they have just been taken for granted. It has become the new American way—need a new toaster, buy another 15 dollar toaster at WalMart, and throw whatever else in the trash. Does anyone even know how to repair a toaster these days? Can you even repair one? Does it even matter? It apparently costs more to pay a real person down the street (though more likely down the highway) to look at it than build it on the other side of the world and ship it by boat and truck 10,000 miles!

We have also designed into these systems the support of themselves. If oil and corn weren’t so heavily subsidized by our government, I probably would not be writing this.

It sounds crazy, it sounds like a conspiracy, but its true. I am not talking about sacrificing our American way of life. I am talking about looking at the underpinnings of our day-to-day, examining the heart of modern business models, looking at what the ideas of the industrial revolution were about, thinking about what we need in the future, and designing whatever we need to make these things a reality.

Free transportation is not bad. Not having to burn coal is not bad. Not needing oil is not bad. Maybe a few people will lose a job here and there, however there will be other, new places to get jobs in their place —hopefully healthier, better jobs.

Open your minds, think about how you spend your days. How can you change that for the benefit of you, and the rest of us. Do you care that your lights come on? of course, but do you care where that comes from? If it came from solar panels, waterfalls, wind turbines and flywheel batteries would it make your life different? I would argue it could only make your life better.

You can do a Google search for things to do to make yourself green. If everyone changed their lights to CFL and LEDs that would help, if everyone started driving a hybrid, that would help. However, those are just band-aids for a larger problem, they do not do anything to change what is ultimately wrong, that we rely on fossil fuels, and live a culture of waste.

There is a speed limit, there is a law mandating seat belts in cars, there are emissions standards for vehicles, we have smoking bans in most major cities, so why does a greenhouse gas ban sound so crazy? what about a fossil fuel ban? Some wealthy people might lose a lot of money that is why. Fuck them.

I wrote this all on a computer. Three computers actually. I know the inherent problems within each of those plastic and metal cases. It makes me feel a little bit like a hypocrite. However, there is no reason that they could not have been made some better way, the product is not necessarily the problem. There is also no reason that they shouldn’t be solar powered, and have energy and material efficient components. Let us get to it.