Village Napa

Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary defines sustainable living as
“any lifestyle based on energy-saving and environmental responsibility”

Wikipedia.org defines it as “a lifestyle that could, hypothetically, be sustained unmodified for many generations without exhausting any natural resources.” It further says “The term can be applied to individuals or societies. Its adherents most often hold true sustainability as a goal or guide, and make lifestyle tradeoffs favoring sustainability where practical.”

Wikipedia says that these tradeoffs “involve transport, housing, energy, and diet” and states that Lester R. Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, concisely summarizes the situation as “sustaining progress depends on shifting from a fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy to a renewable energy-based, diversified transport, reuse/recycle economy.”

What do these definitions come down to? Sustainable living is a goal, one that can never be totally realized in an industrialized, developed society, but one that can certainly be attempted. And the more we strive toward that goal, the better off we, our society and our planet are.

In fact, some say that sustainability is not enough. That what we need to do is go beyond sustainability, to begin restoring the planet. This is presumably impossible to do with such resources as fossil fuels, but we can begin to restore our air, our water and our soil.

North Americans, and to a lesser extent most members of other developed countries, have an advantage in trying to live more sustainable lives. The reason? There is already a huge amount of excess in our lives. Excess energy use, excess water use, excess food use, excess stuff.

Ecological footprint

The “ecological footprint” of a human on the earth is measured by the amount of biologically productive area (land and sea) needed to support the person. The unit is called a “global hectare” (or “global acre”) and it represents an average of all productive area on Planet Earth. In industrial countries, that footprint (number of global hectares needed to support a person) is high; in many “undeveloped” countries that footprint is far smaller.

For example, the ecological footprint of someone in the United States, on the average, is about 24. (Only the United Arab Emirates is higher, with a footprint of 25.9) That means that 24 biologically productive acres around the world are necessary to support that one person with their food, transportation, shelter, goods and services.

In Afghanistan, however, the ecological footprint is 0.2, which means that the average person needs—at their current level—to be supported by only 0.2 global hectares over the course of a year.

Worldwide, based on the current population of the planet, there exist only 4.5 biologically productive acres per person. That means that for everyone on the planet to live at the current level of the average American, we would need 5.5 planets.

Here’s a list of selected national footprints:

Global Footprint Network
www.footprintnetwork.org
For more information on world and national ecological footprints.

Ecological Footprint Quiz
www.myfootprint.org
Calculate your own footprint.

The high “footprint” in highly-developed (perhaps even over-developed?) countries gives us a lot of slack, and room to cut back on our use of energy and natural resources. But why would we want to do that?

Many environmentalists feel that those individuals who are the most committed to the health of the planet and the lives of future generations are already living their lives as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, it’s a very small minority. It’s the rest of us who need to make changes in order to improve the state of the planet. Those of us who may care, but who just haven’t seen how we can afford to be “sustainable”.

But why should we even want to live sustainably? Why should we do without the things and lifestyle we’re used to into order to supposedly benefit some abstract future? After all, former U.S. president George H.W. Bush once said that “the American way of life is non-negotiable”. Wasn’t he speaking for most of us when he said that? Why should we give up anything?

Save money, help the planet

Well, the pleasant surprise for many of us is that because of the excess and slack built into our system, we really don’t have to give up much, if anything, in order to live sustainably. In fact, by living a more sustainable lifestyle, we can gain a lot.

You don’t have to live more sustainably for the sake of the planet; just do it for yourself.

• Use less energy and you save money on your utility bills. It’s a bonus that using less energy helps society and the planet.
• Use less gasoline and you save money by going to the gas station less frequently. It’s a bonus that you slow down depletion of fossil fuels and help in a small way to lessen air pollution.
• Grow some of your own food and you save money, get a little exercise, and are able to eat healthier food. It’s a bonus that the use of petroleum-based pesticides and natural gas-based fertilizers is lessened, that less food has to be transported long distances by polluting, highway-clogging trucks, and that less packaging is needed for the food you eat.
• Walk or ride a bicycle more, and drive less, and you save money on gasoline, wear-and-tear on your car (that means fewer costly repairs and you extend the life of your car), and get healthier. It’s a bonus that you help reduce air pollution, and slow down fossil fuel depletion.
• Use less water in your home—in the kitchen, the bathroom, and your yard—and you save money on your water bill. It’s a bonus that the water you don’t use helps keep aquifers at a higher level, can be used for growing food, and helps contribute to healthy rivers.
• Use less gas, oil or electricity for heating your home or the hot water you use, and you save money on your utility bills. It’s a bonus that you use fewer fossil fuel resources and lessen the need for new power plants.
• Use less electricity for lighting your home, and you save money on light bulbs and electricity bills. It’s a bonus that you again lessen the need for new, probably polluting, power plants.
• Share tools with your neighbors and you all save money by not needing your own separate set of tools and not having to hire someone to do repairs or maintenance on your home. It’s a bonus that the fewer tools you buy, the less resources that are used by society to produce and transport those tools.
• Share errands needing a car with neighbors and you save money on gasoline. It’s a bonus that the result is less air pollution, and decreased use of fossil fuel.

Starting to see a pattern here? You don’t need to do these things for the planet or the environment. Do them for yourself—and your family. The environmental benefits just naturally and automatically follow. Your motivation doesn’t even matter.

By using less fossil fuel energy and fewer resources, you’ll save money. Potentially lots of money. You’ll probably eat healthier and get healthier. You’ll have more contact with your family and your neighbors. And, yes, you can likely even enjoy life more. All this and, as a bonus and without any sacrifice, you’ll be helping the planet and the environment as well.

Not a bad deal, eh?

Can you buy yourself green?

There are many websites, magazines and newspaper articles telling you how you can live “greener” by buying things. Buy this refrigerator or this article of clothing or this car or this new home or this amazing new gadget and you’ll be a greener or more sustainable person.

That isn’t what this website is about. Yes, there are “things” that are more sustainable than “other things”. But most of us don’t need more things, we need fewer things. So we’ll try to minimize the number of things we mention in this website that you can buy for sustainability reasons.

This also isn’t a website about buying or building a new “green” home. We assume that you, like most others, are staying where you are, or someplace similar, and that you just want to know how you can save money and energy in your present, standard designed and built, home. We assume that you don’t want to spend more money; you want to spend less money.

We think this website will help.

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