Living a sustainable lifestyle
Why do we need to live a sustainable lifestyle?
As human beings, we are contributing to the earth's destruction. We are constantly using natural resources without giving them time to recover. No recovery time causes high extinction rates, increases in pollution, and more! A sustainable lifestyle can help combat these problems. By investing your time and money into this lifestyle, you can reduce your carbon footprint, create a cleaner atmosphere for everyone to breathe in, and show off your eco-friendly side!
I grew up in what I call the consumerism period of our economy. We bought new versions of everything before the old wore out. We were tired of the old and convinced that the latest was a better version. As a result, we have more brands of many items than we could need or use. Buying a new car every two years because the older one isn't keeping up with the Jones is wasteful. Now, as climate change is making our lives more demanding, we need to get more challenging. We need to healer world. Let's look at some opportunities you and I have to help solve these problems.
Transportation
As Americans, we are fortunate to have many transportation options — driving, biking, taking public transportation, walking. However, climate change threatens our mobile lifestyles. As the world warms and sea levels rise, roads will be underwater, and subway systems flooded. The American population has increased exponentially in recent years, with no decrease in vehicle miles traveled per person. We have forgotten how to walk and ride non-polluting vehicles during consumerism. First, we have to use up our cars before we buy a new one. Then, when we buy, we need to get a hybrid or all-electric vehicle to reduce air pollution. Finally, we need to begin choosing a sustainable lifestyle to avoid losing it all to climate disaster.
Food
We live in a time of food scarcity, although you wouldn't know it to look at a supermarket shelf. We seem to need multiple brands of the same thing. How many varieties of al-purpose flour do we need? Many people face food insecurity, yet we destroy food yearly. We need to take a more sustainable approach to food production. Sustainable food production methods can provide enough food for ourselves and the billions of people who are hungry today.
The world is facing a food waste crisis, with enough food thrown out yearly to feed the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. We are all guilty of wasting food, but what can we do? Small changes go a long way. Start with separating your waste at home, composting organic scraps and leftovers, or even reusing materials for crafts.
Water Waste and Water Treatment
The climate crisis will make water that we can drink a challenge as more areas along the coast become polluted by salt. The country's interior already has a massive water shortage, and it will only worsen if not addressed. A straightforward solution will be to move water from the east to the west, but it will be expensive.
One of the most important ways to live a sustainable lifestyle is to think of ways you can use less water yearly. For example, how often do you need to wash your car? Put a timer on showers to use less water than some of us would like. And how many showers a week do we need?
Used water is called wastewater which we have to treat before we can reuse it. There're three ways to do this: composting it, burying it, or sending it to a treatment plant. For example, if you have a septic tank, you can compost your wastewater. The tanks hold the liquid for about six months before releasing it back into the ground.
Waste Heat Recovery
In the past decade, a new trend in sustainability has been emerging: waste heat recovery. In a Rankine cycle power plant, which is a steam power plant that uses water to create steam, it is possible to reuse the heat from the steam to generate more power. This process is known as thermodynamic-cycle efficiency. Generally, we need more efficient ways to provide the electricity we all use. We should be aware of the electricity we use and find ways to limit that use. We must use air conditioning and heating more effectively by controlling the temperature settings.
You Are the Solution- Be Mindful
Many people are not sure what to do to live a sustainable lifestyle. Others see it as too difficult. This is because many people believe that they cannot cut back on their lifestyles. However, the truth is that there're many ways people can live sustainably with ease. They have to change some things that they use daily. Simple changes will allow for sustainability with little trouble at all.
