An Ordinary Woman's Perspective on Unsustainable Lifestyles. Oops, I Am Not Ordinary.

Let's get that out of the way. I don't really think anyone is ordinary. That word has such a flat connotation. Each and everyone of us has a remarkable, unique, amazing story. One of my great joys in life is hearing people's stories. Another is telling mine. 

So, I use the term "sustainable" in my normal discourse. Today, I got to wondering what comes to mind when I think about this concept.

My mind started jumping pretty excitedly. 

The first thing that comes to mind is one of the big guns: oil. I have mentioned this before, but I have this image of people many years from now, scratching their heads and looking at each other in complete bewilderment or actual hilarity and saying, "OK, man, so this is how they did it.  They found this stuff way under the ground in often God forsaken places and built these ugly contraptions using expensive ores from far away and pumped this ugly thick slime out of the ground and then ran pipes for God knows how far and then put the stuff on huge ugly ships which need more  of the stuff to run and then took it half way or all the way around the world and pumped it off the ships and then put it through a huge ugly chemical process and then pumped it into tanks and then pumped it into train cars and drove it for thousands of miles and then pumped it into trucks and then drove it to gas stations and then pumped it into underground tanks and then pumped it up into cars which used it to carry one or a few people to work so they could buy more of this shit to earn money to buy more of this shit. Not to mention what it takes to make the car or the WARS it has taken to keep it coming. So then we discover that we can do even more environmental damage getting energy from tar sands and fracking and the story goes on."

The guys in the future are now pissing their pants and agreeing that they never could have come up with such a stupid plan if their lives depended on it. 

When I was young and had an absolutely minimal understanding of physics, I asked a teacher whether pumping all this liquid from deep in the ground wouldn't leave a space that could cause trouble. "Don't be silly, Julie, nothing bad will come of it." I was frequently told that I have either a great or an overactive imagination, depending on whether the teacher liked my ideas or not.

Yup, that is one picture that arose.

Another thought that always comes is of landscapes with all the trees cut down. Fly over Honduras (American companies) some day, or Oregon, or Indonesia, or Brazil. It just isn't right.  Total deforestation changes the weather. Watch and look.

But these are the big themes that we all know and we all struggle with. How about little annoyances with big implications like when you can't get anyone to fix your plumbing or take care of granny because no one can afford to live near your Nantucket Island or your gated planet? It is happening. How about when the destitute over run your village? How about when you have police keeping hungry people away from supermarket dumpsters? This world is not sustainable.

And how sustainable is perpetual warfare? Millions(!) of refugees? Poisonous food? No food? Poisonous water? No water?  Deadly drugs? No drugs? How many people will afford medical school?

I have to go now, but my feeling is that where there is a will, there is a way and we need to pull together to change the course of this silly voyage that we have joined. We have to pull together and this is a brilliant opportunity if we can grab it.