Thinking long term

It occurs to me that any changes I make during my sustainability experiment are essentially useless if I don't continue them beyond this semester. Real change will only come from a lifestyle change. The changes I implement in these couple of months need to be practical for the long term.

The simple changes, like switching over to CFL bulbs is obviously long term, but what about my new commitment to shop as much as possible at the East Lansing Food Co-op? I can't just shop at the co-op a few times this semester and then continue on with life feeling better about myself. I need to make a commitment to myself to institute this change not just here, as a college student in East Lansing, but in any situation. Of course, this could just be all talk. How can I be sure I will follow through? Using some of the methods of changing behavior I discussed in earlier posts, I can be more sure of my commitment lasting throughout my life. But really, I think I need to make these changes a part of me. I need to become a person who buys local food rather than a person who believes buying local food would be good if it wasn't so expensive. I need to shift things around in my budget so there is room for this new change and simply make it so.  This is my new goal. Instead of a vague goal to become more sustainable, I have a goal to change my lifestyle and eat local food. I will do this in whatever city I live in, because I will make it work. Just like I find a way to make rent work, or find a way to make buying gas for my car work. I will find a way to make buying local food work.

Success and introspection

I have installed CFLs in all but a few light fixtures in my apartment! Plus to save on waste of incandescent bulbs, I am keeping the old bulbs and will be putting them back in the light sockets at the end of my lease. This is also a plus for me since I spent the money on these CFLs and would be taking the savings they provide with me when I leave. That is more of an economical decision rather than an environmental decision, but one must wear many hats.

Also, I have purchased a few green body care products, including face wash, shampoo and toothpaste. I am replacing things as I run out of the product because I don't want to waste what product I already have. I have also decided I will purchase makeup (when I run out of current supplies) from Aveda. Their makeup seems to be good quality and green. The cost is a little more than what I normally buy, but I can probably swing it.

On a semi-unrelated note, I have been thinking about the class this blog is for and the issues discussed in it. I can't seem to decide on a particular issue. Should the human race act as if they are part of nature and everything they do is part of the natural cycle, or should we be cognizant of what we do as separate from the natural cycle? This recent sustainable movement seems to be calling for both at the same time.  All this talk of going green and making changes in our life so our actions don't adversely affect the environment strongly suggests that what we do is separate and bad. Or at least just separate. But at the same time it seems to be culling a following of people who appreciate nature and talk about it as if we were all part of the same cycle, similar to more Eastern types of thought.

Which should it be? Can I legitimately say I am part of nature and the environment when I spend so much of my time online in a virtual world that has nothing to do with nature. But if I follow that train of thought, then we are adversely affecting the world and it is selfish to continue doing so, so I should protect it. But do I want to be separate from my environment? Do I really want to see myself as superior from everything else? 

Is pollution from humans the same or worse than from other species.

If, on the other hand, I decide that I am, along with the rest of my species, simply an overgrown ape altering its environment just like every other creature alters their environment, then changes we make shouldn't matter, right? And I should just continue living, confident in the fact that changes happen anyway, anthropological or not.

I suppose I have found a solution after discussing this in length. Or a solution good enough for a fence-sitter like me. The answer lies in the middle, I think, as it most usually does. Of course we as a species are part of our environment. We can't survive without it, so we have to be affected by it and it affected by us. But, we are different from most species on this planet. We have the power of our brains, which have led us to create such civilizations that no other creature has managed. These civilizations, and the people in them, do have the power to change elements of the planet at large. Small changes, compared to the size of the planet,  but significant none the less. 

So what should we do? Overall, I think the goal of the environmental movement sweeping across the planet (somewhat at least) needs to be altered. "Save the planet!," people cry, but the planet doesn't need saving. It will remain for much longer than we can even imagine. Humans on the other hand, are ridiculously delicate. We depend on a certain set requirements for life on Earth. Clean air, clean water, space to live, enough food. As it turns out, we have the power to destroy not the planet, but ourselves.  If changes aren't made in our actions, then we may just destroy the environment we need to survive.

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey

Today I went through my apartment and checked all of our light bulbs (all 31 of them) to see if I needed to buy CFLs (compact flourescent lights). Of the 31, I need to replace 18. Supposedly our apartment managers (names shall not be mentioned...) have gone through the apartment and made it more energy efficient, but as far as I can tell, they changed the bulbs in the common area and ignored the ones in the back of the apartment. Actually, that is pretty typical of the follow-through in our apartment's office (except for the time I got stung on the butt -- but that's a different story!).  Anyway, the light fixtures were more difficult to check than I thought. A lot of them were sealed really tightly and I had to enlist help from a roommate's boyfriend to do the last one for me. Sadly, reciting the childhood phrase "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" does not mean you can untwist anything!

When will I buy the CFL's, you ask? Considering my schedule in the next week, I have no clue! But very soon! Or ... actually, maybe after my next paycheck. Finances are looking pretty slim after that Sam's Club run.

I need to come up with future projects to further this experiment, so here are a few I have thought of (with a little help from David Bach's book Go Green, Live Rich):
--Use greener make-up. I have always heard about all the toxic chemicals in make-up (here is an article from the Huggington Post) and David Bach says there are affordable brands of toxic-free make-up, so why not? Plus, aren't a lot of them tested on animals?
--Unplug appliances. I know this one is supposed to be easy, but my outlet is behind my desk! I can't reach it without contorting myself and shifting half the furniture in my bedroom around. I wondered if surge protectors still use ghost energy when switched off, but I think they do. There are, of course, special surge protectors you can buy...if you have extra $$$ to spend on a new surge protector. Also, does this extend to things like the living room lamps? Because I can see my roommates getting frustrated if I start unplugging those regularly. On the plus side, even though I use my coffee pot daily, I unplug it all the time!

I'll let you know more when I am struck with another genius idea!

Beginnings

Welcome! I am a Michigan State University senior studying Journalism and Environmental Studies. This semester I will be keeping this blog for one of my classes, Environmental Attitudes and Concepts. My purpose will be to document my attempt to live sustainably as an MSU student and my quest to discover what exactly living sustainably means.

Before I started taking this class, I would have considered this an easy assignment. What does living sustainably mean? Obviously it means being "green" by purchasing organic and local foods, recycling, etc. Right? Well after a week in the course, I have begun to realize the issues are more complicated than they seem. This course (and our book, Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash) has introduced me to an idea I hadn't considered before. That "wilderness" isn't a type of a physical thing, but instead a state of mind and that humans use this idea of wilderness to separate themselves from nature. This has important implications, because if humans are separate from wilderness then any changes made are unnatural and disrupt the natural cycle. But are humans actually separate from the environment, or are we actually nothing more than over-developed apes? If that is true, then all of the anthropogenic changes are simply part of the natural cycle. These are the ideas I will be struggling with throughout the semester. *sigh*

 ...Wish me luck!

In addition to this internal struggle, I am going to implement some changes in my life to try and live a life more balanced with the natural world. I am going to start small with easy changes like replacing my incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent lights (CFLs) and work my way up to more life-altering changes. Well, time to get started!