My wonderful, beautiful and incredibly smart wife Kristina suggested that I talk about what we are doing to change our lifestyle. We are trying to use less resources and the resources that we do use we are trying to use more wisely. We are trying to only eat meat that has been humanely raised and minimally processed, with little or no preservatives. We are eating less meat, have meat with only one or two meals a week. We are getting most of our vegetables from local Alabama farmers through our CSA, Grow Alabama and we are trying to ensure that the rest of our food is grown and processed in a sustainable way.
Is every meal we eat made from scratch or follows our rules above? No, we still get frozen pizzas and ice cream occasionally. We don’t want to be extreme or be so hard and fast to our rules that we hate them, plus with the boys it is sometimes just easier to toast them a waffle when things get hectic.
We are trying to make sure all of our purchases follow the same rules for food. That we try to buy clothing and other products that are made by people being paid a living wage (preferably in North America) with as minimal harm to the environment as reasonably possible.
But the most important thing that we are doing is asking ourselves these questions:
“Do we really need this, what function will it serve?”
“Will I still be using this 3 years from now and will it last that long?”
“Was this made in conditions that I would work in?”
Our reasons for doing this are many fold. We want to use fewer resources now so that our children and grandchildren can have a better life. We learned in 7th grade science class that oil, iron, coal, copper etc… are limited resources and we are already now seeing price increases in these commodities due to decrease supply and increasing demand. We have already seen a company formed to mine copper and other construction wastes out of New Jersey’s landfills, and as India and China try to live like Americans the competition is going to get even worse.
We (North Americans) are less the 5% of the world’s population but we use over 25% of the worlds resources. If almost half of the world’s population (China and India) tries to live how we do and have lived for the last 40 years we will quickly deplete what resources remain.
Not only is our way of life unsustainable it is clearly unfair, and no I am not going to give up electricity, running water and sewage, health care or the security that I enjoy. But I will try to not consume without thinking, that I will try to lessen my impact on our world through my actions, deeds and words. I will try to prepare my sons for a life in which they do not enjoy all of the advantages that cheap energy gave me in my life.
I can drive my car 30 miles for less than $3.00 (one gallon of gas) how much would it cost to hire someone to push my car that far? How much would it cost to own a horse to pull my car? I believe that most of us North Americans have no idea how reliant we are on cheap oil and energy, and as we use up the remaining reserves and as other countries begin to adopt our lifestyle and compete with us for resources we are going to be in for a Crude Awakening.
I do not think that civilization will collapse but I do think that our society is going to have to make some tough choices and face a difficult adjustment as our quality of life decreases from what it is now.
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