| Do We Live in a Sustainable Society? | MMCC Winter 2012SCI 200George Gilmore | | Jonathan Norman | 2/24/2012 | | There are many ways to define sustainability and to answer the question of whether we live in a sustainable society you should first define the question. The simplest definition of what a sustainable society is still very complex. A society that can persist over generations, one that is farseeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social systems of support (Hubbard, 1996). Other sources label the question as an environmentally sustainable society that satisfies the basic needs of its people without depleting or degrading its natural resources and thereby …show more content…
This is the only way, in my opinion, to reduce how much energy we use. Our society works off a unique set of rules and priorities that all come down to one thing, money. Making things so expensive or giving incentives for using less is the only way to get our attention. Imagine for a moment that gas was five dollars more a gallon, putting the cost per gallon over eight dollars. How much less would each person use? What if it cost 10 times as much to turn on a light switch, would you change your habits and only use what you had to? The reality of what we are faced with here is not a change that everyone doesn’t want to make; it is more of an unwillingness to lose the comforts of our current unsustainable society. When households, businesses and local governments implement resource efficiency improvements, they free up money for other purposes. It is the responding of this saved money that generates significant community economic advantages from resource efficiency. Think of the businesses and operations in your community. Imagine the environmental and economic results if grocery stores, office buildings, industries, schools, restaurants and public operations all curbed resource use by an easy 20%, and then went on to cut other operation costs through waste reduction, recycling and pollution
Sustainability means never having to worry about a resource of any kind not being there or a constant income of resources. For example, having enough water for crops and having enough food to eat everyday. I do not think that America or any other country will be 100 percent sustainable in agriculture because we can’t control the rainfall or how much water we get each year. Also we cannot control the economy and there are so many independent variables that go into agriculture that nobody can control that it is very unlikely to ever be 100 percent sustainable. The steps needed to get 100 percent sustainability are water management, as well as land management.Another step that we have taken is our technology, in general advancements we’ve made
Given all we’ve discussed about the ecologic condition of the planet now and if current consumption patterns continue tell me your views on whether you think Americans as a whole are moving toward a sustainable society. If not what are your views on one or two changes to these patterns that could improve potential for achieving a sustainable society.
One way to conserve energy is don’t spend too much money on it. Energy isn’t free, and if you set a limit for yourself you won't go bankrupt trying to get all this energy, like gas. Oil prices have spiked over the last few years, and if you set a limit for 10 dollars a week for gas, it won’t only save you money, but you will save energy. You may
Should Americans try to use less energy? We could be using our money for better stuff in my opinion then wasted energy we could be spending it on education or military. Also I think it makes us look spoiled and people around the world think less of us because people in third world countries don't even know what electricity is let alone have it and this could make people mad and upset.
As we can see , environmental challenges in recent years have increased the trend of “going green” in businesses like never before. There are two main factors that are currently pushing toward environmental-friendly business practices, harsher international and local regulations, and the high fluctuations of fossil-fuel prices.
If sustainability is looked up in a dictionary there are multiple definitions of this word. It is hard to interpret what exactly a person means when they use the word “sustainability.” Being sustained has different variations of meaning. Someone who is below the poverty line might think that having one meal a day is substantial but someone above middle class could view being substantial as having a minimum of three meals a day with plenty of leftovers. The proliferation of the term “sustainability” is not good. Sustainability is a subjective word. People with different opinions interpret sustainability differently. In the article “Sustainability has gone wild and righteous” George Will explains that fundamentalism is similar to sustainability.
The same concept could be used for energy uses, by implementing a tax if your energy use rises above a certain number per square feet of your house hold and rewarding those who stay within the threshold.
The United States Department of Energy states that money and energy can be saved in our homes and cars if we started making small changes today. (Source F). Yes, it is absolutely true, that small changes can lead to a big compound interest over time. Unfortunately, most of the people are considering this as a ‘chore’ when trying to help others. They must also understand the fact that only a portion of their leisure time is necessary to help the world everyday/ The U.S government, hopefully, is giving Americans freedom to take recommended steps rather than trying to pressure them to do a certain task. However, if the government further addresses this issue in a proper manner, people would be less reluctant to practice green living. For instance the government can implement a fixed tax for everyone. “ten dimes a day” saves the planet gradually and ultimately if possible, eliminate the whole issue.(Source D) Instead of spending most of the money on infrastructures, they can spend at least 50% on green
Essentially, sustainable living involves living as subtly on the Earth as possible. Someone who succeeds at living a sustainable lifestyle will leave the environment as unharmed as possible so that our children will be able to enjoy the same high quality of life that we do today.
My name is Dionte (Donte) Rice and I’m writing you this letter to let you know I have sent my rental book: Is Sustainability Still Possible via mail to ISU book store. Enclosed, you should see the rental book I borrowed. To further assist me, my ID number is 991729850.
Sustainability is a simple term with a fairly simple definition, a way of doing something that can be continued rather than having a finite limit. However, the much more difficult part is defining what things are actually meet the definition of sustainable. As a concept, we all understand it, but the great challenge is figuring out what it will look like in the real world and, perhaps even more difficult, putting the idea into
I hear the word sustainability almost every day, what does it mean? Is it about people, our environment, or jobs and money? Sustainability is about all of these things and more. Sustainability could be defined as an ability or capacity to reduce the foot print, reuse resources of something without jeopardizing the quality of what you are trying to accomplish. We all have been at food establishment from fast food, take out to table cloth dining. And many times we scratch our head and wonder if they know what they are doing, from why is my food taking forever to I do not need to ask for my water to be refilled three times, and we all say to ourselves, I can run this place better than this.
The average human being, multiplied by the Earth’s population, would need to have about four Earths just to supply enough resources (Footprint Calculator). Thinking of people around the world, the people of the United States seem to take a lot of their life for granted. Many people when they hear of the polar ice caps melting wave it off and either don’t believe in it or believe it is not their problem. Well it is their problem and if we don’t jump on the issue soon we will not be giving our future generations much of a life. This brings me to the idea of sustainability. A simple description of the word means that what we have today we will also have tomorrow, next week, next year, or even the next lifetime. Although that is the modest version sustainability is much, much more than just that. Sustainability is derived from three main parts of the human life: environmental, social, and economic. Each being just as important as the other. Environmental is the most well-known aspect of sustainability in human life, but both social and economic take their place in keeping this Earth sustainable.
Exchanging facilities that use regular generators with ones that use renewable energy: using renewable energy facilities reduces the cost of operation since what is used to fuel them is always available and extracted from nature. Renewable energy also helps designers and engineers to lower the level of carbon dioxide or other chemical gases since this source of energy absorbs and doesn't produce it. One way to use renewable energy is using solar panels. Solar panel energy is considered as one of the most clean and efficient source of energy to ever be
"We're victims of our own success. Money doesn't help creativity. We try to live modestly and don't have any assistants," expresses Tim Noble. Both British artists, Tim Noble and Sue Webster are popular, familiar artists. Noble and Webster are recognized for their distinctive art called silhouette or shadow art. Their punk and style moves are more than artistic. They not only create these efficient shadows, but use sustainable art. Meaning that they use a variety of recycled materials, that otherwise would be wasted. These artists use recycled trash like metal, broken tools, discarded wood, as well as gold jewelry and animals. Try donating one of your broken jewelry pieces to them and see it be molded in their next