Consciousness Runs Deep

     After watching 300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds , I am convinced more than ever of my own responsibility to conserve resources. I was unaware how people in the middle ages burning coal instead of firewood could be so impactful so many years later as the use of coal transformed, as did humans ability to retrieve it. The look into what our future could look like, if we don't change our ways,  instilled some fear in me. What if more people don't see this message? With so many billion people on the planet, how do we change enough that our future isn't so bleak? My land ethic is right there with Leopold's. I believe that we should always respect the other living entities, whether it be the flora or fauna, and that includes living alongside them. I hope that there is a chance that millions of others somehow start to feel the same way and we have a chance to save things still.

What is Sustainability?

       Robert Swan once said, "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it". With the way that things stand on our earth today, sustainability is an important ideal that needs to be adopted worldwide in order to keep resources, habitats, and ecosystems around for many for generations to come. In the article, "What is Sustainability?" by Richard Heinberg, readers are introduced to the five axioms of sustainability. The first axiom states that any society that uses critical resources, the things necessary for human life and basic social functions such as food and water, will inevitably collapse. There is one exception to this and that is in the form of resource "substitutes". Substitutes can be good or bad and can be seen being used throughout history. For example, in the mid-nineteenth century when kerosene and petroleum was replaced by whale oil in lamps. An example of a substitute that didn't change things for the better when they used oil sands as a replacement for conventional petroleum.
        Another important key to understand when talking about sustainability is renewable resources. Renewable resources are any natural resource that can replenish itself over a period of time, as long as it is not being depleted faster than it can replenish itself. The important thing to remember about renewable resources, which are things like timber, water, oxygen, etc., is that we shouldn't take advantage of them. An example of this is when it comes to wood. Humans are constantly logging and cutting down trees to make paper without allowing the many years it takes to re-grow all the trees taken out of the ground. Another example of treating renewable resources unwisely is in the form of pollution. By burning coal we increase our greenhouse gas emissions with little to no concern for the rising greenhouse gas levels.
        With the "Big Foot" sized footprint that humans are currently leaving on the earth, I have a dwindling hope that we can achieve a world that is sustainable. I know that many more people are becoming conscious about what individually can be done to help the environment but I fear that it will not be enough.