THINKING GREEN !

Until a hundred years ago as humans we had a simple, uncomplicated biological connect. It was a straight-forward equation: we drew roughly 3000 calories each of energy out of Earth for our food and life's sustenance. Today that number per capita has grown to 100,000 calories. We still need only 3000 calories each to nourish life itself. All the rest of this energy is what we extract from Earth for everything else besides keeping ourselves alive. In some countries, like the US, this per capita number runs at over 200,000 calories.

Some of us are concerned about this. We fret over what we could - and should - really be doing to soften this abuse of resources. Little things fox us in the welter of things that we get to read. What is sustainable development? How can it be started at our homes? Beyond the ceremonial planting of green and getting people to run marathons of various lengths in support of the environment, is there more that we can add to the abstract value of 'sustainability'? What are the little things we can do in our day-to-day lives, to reduce demand for things that people make and market?

Of course, we know that it helps to avoid a plastic bag when you can use a newspaper bag, or a brown bag, or even a jute a bag which you can use for many more years unlike a plastic bag which you throw away in less than a week or after a few uses. Can I avoid using the car when I can use a mobike? Can I avoid using a mobike when I can use a bicycle? Can I avoid using petrol or kerosene or diesel and use other alternate fuels which are renewable?

These are common, and widely-understood ideas of environmental responsibility. And the more of us practising them the better. However, there's actually quite a bit more that you and I can do, without compromise on comfort, with very little as cost incurred, with financial savings that you can gain on energy and water use, and with solutions that are very feasible and within your reach.

You could do more by making an effort to understand the simple equations of the environment around us-at the level of your house, your neighborhood, your city, and the country. Not only that, this can be done without the risk of relapsing into intellectualising it and reflecting on some large and fuzzy concepts of sustainability that 'others' and the government should be practicing. It is possible to understand our ecological footprint and its disastrous consequences, not merely in terms of our own behaviour as consumers, but really in terms of the impact on the environment we make. Such a deeper exercise is something, dear reader, you can bring into your lives with a conscious effort you make to bring respectful balance with nature.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2010/may/env-buildgrn.htm