Baby Steps

“We must be the change we want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi.  What a wonderful statement. To create maintainable change we should start with a purpose. “The purpose is the most important pillar, which gives birth to vision—the key to fulfilling the systems’ mission. A sustainable future will require purpose-driven transformation of society at all scales, guided by the best foresight, with insight based on hindsight that science can provide.” In the article, Visioneering: an essential framework in sustainability science Joon Kim claims that having a vision is the building blocks to making an effective change. As a consumer, it is my personal vision to always make educated decisions in what I am using on a daily basis and buying for myself as to do my part to not negatively effect the surrounding environment.  

              According to the article Limiting Consumption, the major causes of the sustainability paradox can be condensed into the lack of three basics: understanding of the behavior of complex systems, sufficient capacity to perform the actions and changes needed, and political willingness to implement changes. Meaning that we first need to understand how the ecosystem is affected by the way our economy produces and discards all environmentally hazardous products. Although some companies have the resources to create eco friendly products, most do not and those who do might not use them to their full advantage. According my vision, we the consumer must make a conscious effort to purchase and support the companies that do make an effort to move forward in creating more eco-friendly products.

              In Thinking Ahead: The Value of future consciousness, they discuss the development of future consciousness and how it contributes to the growth of a variety of different virtues, including courage, humility, compassion and especially wisdom. Also that wisdom is the capacity to apply general knowledge gained in the past to challenging and novel problems and situations. Each generation shares responsibility to the up keep of our environment.

              I admit I have been guilty in the fact that I have obtained the wisdom of sustainability but have not done enough to instill it in my every day routine.  As stated in the readings it appears that I would be in the envisioning phase of my vision, but I realize that in order to become a part in bettering our environment I need to become a leader and take action engineering my vision. I will do so by first living the vision continuously in my own life. I cannot expect change in others if I do not change myself. I know in order to be successful in doing my part to help better the environment through my day-to-day activities I must be vigilante.  New environmental issues as well as resolutions are being discovered everyday, and it is mine as well as the rest of the world to stay educated on these trending topics.