‘Sustainability’ is a contemporary phrase used with the best intentions to engender feelings of care for the limited resources of our tiny planet and to provide a decent life style for our future generations. The earth’s population continues to increase placing demand on food, energy and building supplies.
Experts tell us the earth is already in trouble from global warming – which will lead to rapid changes in extreme weather events, rising sea levels and production of food. Extrapolate out, say a couple of hundred years, and it is difficult to imagine an earth that is habitable without sustainable food production.
We all need to play our part in putting on the brakes. Every little saving in energy production will contribute to making life for our future generations no worse than how it was given to us. That is the essence of the meaning of ‘sustainability’.
It is only in the last fifty years that we have had an idea that unimpeded energy consumption can damage our environment and only in the last twenty that we have had the science to back it up – yet we are still only tinkering at the edges to make real changes and politicians are not yet brave enough to lead the way as we need them to. At the moment it is left to the individual to do what they can to avoid looming global disaster.
In the next blog I will discuss how we can build sustainably to contribute to saving energy in the houses we build and live in.