Sustainability Group - what's the purpose?

Recently, I've had second thoughts about starting and establishing a new sustainability group in Seattle - after realizing the amount of work that is involved. Also, I have noticed that when I share with people the idea of creating such a group, that many people do not get it. Some people probably think I have nothing better to do. Others think issues to do with sustainability is what I am most passionate about. And I suspect that others think I just don't know what other "better" things I could be doing with my time.

So in this post I hope to quickly explains where I am coming from, and why the idea to start another sustainability group.

First of all, I'd like to suggest that striving to make your and my lifestyle a sustainable one is about responsibility. If you don't understand this, then please read on. But let me tell you right now that having actions that promote sustainability is not what gives me pleasure or what I love to do in life. I love doing activities that are energy-intensive. For example, I love driving; always have. I love snowboarding, and the long drive that it takes to get to the mountain each time. I also enjoy jet-skiing and snowmobiling. These are very fun activities, but with the current technology we have (which is centered around the Internal Combustion Engine) make is it very improbable that we will be able do these things in generations to come. Now, I say that based on what premise???

I say that based on the "theory" that fossil fuels are finite. It is that simple. It is the "belief" or understanding of a particular process: that a gasoline car will not go up if the tank is empty of gasoline, and that gasoline comes from an oil field, and that an oil field gets empty after the oil is extracted, and that the number of oil fields that on planet earth that we can tap into to extract the oil is finite, that is, it gets used up and there's no more. If you can follow this much logic, then you understand that oil gets used up and then there's no more. So a lifestyle that is dependent on petroleum is not sustainable, which is to say that when there's no more oil those activities will come to an end. This includes everything that depends on petroleum, and petroleum is pretty much on everything around us - not just in the form of liquid fuels.

I'd like to suggest that one reason why people don't easily and readily understand this connection is because we have been living in a delusional society that pretends that we will forever have fossil fuels to burn. Of course this is not the case. And one thing that has contributed to that is language: the fact that oil companies claim they "produce" oil. But we humans - thanks to the great work of oil geologists - understand that no one can make petroleum. There's no formula for making petroleum. We have a grasp of what this formula is, but it takes millions of years and the right "cooking" conditions of the planet for dead matter to be converted to oil. In short, oil companies simply extract oil from underground, but they do not produce oil. Yet the term "oil production" subliminally tells us that there will always be oil, and as a result the way our fossil fuel based societies function and our lifestyles will never have to change. But we humans who are doing some thinking know that this is not the case.

So, once you understand this logic of resources being finite, which introduces the topic of unsustainability, a question inevitably arises. The question is "how much oil (in our case) do we have left?", which is another way of asking "for how much longer can we carry on our current lifestyle?"

Well, some people have already tried to come up with the answer to this question. Being that there's so much secrecy around the numbers that indicate the amount of oil reserves that each country has, it's virtually impossible to come up with an answer that is accurate. But I trust that we can come close. If economic activity continued to increase as well as the world oil consumption which has grown steadily at 2% per year, then we should have about 90 years left before petroleum completely ran out; give or take some years.

If I look at it this way, then my lifestyle of driving is irresponsible because if I have children and grandchildren, I am contributing to a world where in their lifetime there is no oil left. It is hard to imagine what that world will be like, but it will be a very different world.

I have written this just so people can understand that building and promoting a sustainability group is not what I like to do. It's not even in my comfort zone. But it is what I consider the responsible thing to do. I still love driving. But what future will I build for myself and future generations if my actions remain the same? What future will you build if you make no contributions to building a lifestyle that is sustainable.

If the earth's resources - and we're focusing on fossil fuels here - are finite, then we can use the analogy of a pie. The pie represents resources. With an ever-increasing world population and a pie that gets smaller by the day, you can start having an idea of what the future holds for humanity: more people competing for less pie, or fewer resources. This is not a pretty picture. But if we learn to live sustainably, then it can be. There's hope, but it lies in how much we can and are willing to adapt so that we do not rely on finite resources for our sustenance. How to achieve such lifestyle will be the focus of our sustainability group: in the form of discussions that will provide solutions, and actions to implement those solutions and make them part of our lives.

Lastly, I want to say that I am still open to the idea of new technologies that will allow us to have a particular standard of living. But I am taking no responsibility for inventing those technologies, and I don't trust that anyone else will. Notice that when these technologies for "free energy" are mentioned by someone, they are always referring to "someone else or company out there" coming up with such solution and not themselves. Because I don't believe that I can come up with or participate in inventing such solutions, I am choosing to promote actions that are sustainable that can be part of our lifestyle now and in the future.

Thank you for reading.